Albert King’s Blues for Elvis: King Does the King’s Things (1970) opened the apparent connection between Elvis and Stax to flow in both directions.

The good news is, King and co-producers Al Jackson Jr. and Duck Dunn (who also played bass) picked definitive Elvis tunes for the guitarist to paint in blue. King’s larger than life electric bluesman persona, guitar and vocals and the classic v2 Stax studio band - Willie Hall on drums, James Alexander on bass, Michael Toles on guitar and Marvell Thomas on piano and organ - did the rest.

It’s little surprise that King could mine blues from Elvis’ groundbreaking early repertoire; after all, blues makes up one half of rhythm and blues. His solos in “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock” are as compact and sharp as a switchblade. His solo in “Heartbreak Hotel” not only exercises all King’s personal trademarks - agonizingly held notes sliced to the bone quick, long dramatic pauses chopped with even longer electric blue flurries - but its sassy horns and piano that’s half Sunday morning gospel and half Saturday night boogie capture not only the spirit of Stax but of rhythm and blues.

King’s not the only one having a ball playing with the King: Toles’ rhythm riff in “That’s All Right” cuts a slice of classic ’70s funk-soul rhythm guitar; Thomas’ Johnny Johnson-style rolling piano boogie in “Jailhouse Rock” perfectly fits the rock and roll mood; and the Memphis Horns chase each their saxophone and trombone tails through the “Jailhouse” too. (I’ll take these soulful Memphis Horns instead of the original barbershop harmonies in “Don’t Be Cruel” anytime, too.)

The bad news is…King, Jackson and Dunn picked definitive Elvis tunes. One understands that certain compromises are inevitable in a project like this, where a musician who’s primarily an instrumentalist performs songs that were written to showcase a musician who’s primarily a singer. King’s portraits of Presley are honorable, honest blues. Which under normal circumstances would be plenty good enough, except that Elvis’ foundational versions were threatening, dangerous, revolutionarily original. What made them revolutionarily original is the same thing that makes them an impossible act to cop.

If Stax was hoping to cross over into Elvis’ audience with this collection of his tunes, it had an odd way of showing it: Not one single was pulled from Blues for Elvis: King Does the King’s Things.

An interesting observation: the two ‘giants’ in the world of R&B from the mid-‘60s through the early ‘70s, Stax and Motown had notably different artist rosters, the Memphis-based company more of a male bastion, the Detroit diskery with a plethora of female groups and soloists. Check out the facts: the Stax stable included Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor, William Bell, Rufus Thomas, Booker T & The MGs, Eddie Floyd, Isaac Hayes, Albert King and The Dramatics among others; Motown boasted The Supremes, The Marvelettes, Martha & The Vandellas, Kim Weston, Brenda Holloway, Tammi Terrell, Mary Wells, Syreeta and The Velvelettes as hitmakers. Of course. Motown also had Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Jimmy Ruffin, The Miracles, Edwin Starr and Junior Walker, while Stax…well, there was Mable John (a former Motown artist, actually the first female signed to that label) and some other less-known ladies (think Judy Clay, Ruby Johnson, Linda Lyndell, etc.), by the late ‘60s The Emotions and…Carla Thomas!

Essentially, while Motown was churning out hits by soul men and women, Stax was enjoying most of its success with the guys. Carla was the exception. The daughter of Rufus virtually reigned supreme as the ‘queen’ of Stax from her initial 1960 hit “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes)” until she left the label in 1972. No surprise then that one of her Stax albums was entitled “The Queen Alone,” a nod to the great duet album she had done with Stax ‘king’ Otis Redding (entitled, of course, “King & Queen”).
Why Stax chose to focus primarily on male artists may remain a mystery but undoubtedly, that Carla more than held her own is evident from the four albums currently still available on CD (“Gee Whiz,” “The Queen Alone,” a two-on-one set featuring “Love Means…” and “Memphis Queen,” and “Live At The Bohemian Caverns”) and the fifteen-track “Stax Profiles,” a 2006 compilation of material chosen by afore-mentioned distaff labelmate Mable John.

Listening to that particular CD, it’s interesting to watch Carla’s emergence from sweet-voiced teen star to fully-fledged soul singer, the contrast particularly evident between the doe-eyed innocence of “Gee Whiz” and the sultry, sexy “I Like What You’re Doing To Me,” recorded some eight years later. In making her choices for the “Stax Profiles” set, Mable didn’t focus on hits like “Something Good” and “B.A.B.Y.” but delved deeper into Carla’s catalog with tunes like the emotive “I’ve Got No Time To Lose,” a version of Barbara Lynn’s “You’ll Lose A Good Thing” and the sensual “Sugar.” As a representation of Carla’s sterling work for Stax, the CD works but if you get a taste for Ms. Thomas’ vocal stylings, those other four albums are definitely worthy of your attention!

David Nathan
Aka “The British Ambassador Of Soul,”
Owner, Soul Music.com
Secretary, The Rhythm & Blues Foundation

Well, we’ve been at this for more than a year now so it’s probably past time that it came up. We’ve talked about how Stax defined the “Memphis sound of soul” from the mid-1960s to the mid-’70s. But you may have heard about another musical revolution that went down around this same time and around this same town. Some crazy white boy from Memphis singing black rhythm and blues - you know, Elvis Presley?

So, this being the internet age, I “googled” together the terms “Elvis” and “Stax.” I picked out three sources from the dozens of returns, and found out some great stuff.

Elvis actually recorded at Stax studios - twice in 1973, in July and then in December.

Elvis’ first Stax session lasted the week of July 21 - 25 and resulted in about ten finished tracks, most by the Elvis band led by his great guitarist James Burton, but with Al Jackson, Jr., Duck Dunn and guitarist Bobby Manuel working out a few too. Dunn later recalled, “I was actually a little nervous. He was Elvis: You didn’t just walk up and talk to him. As far as being buddy-buddy with him, you didn’t do it.” The Burton band recorded eighteen more tracks during the December 10 - 16 sessions on McLemore Avenue.

These more or less thirty tracks were spread across three Elvis albums: Most of the July sessions ended up on Raised on Rock, including two tunes by the classic rock songwriting team of Leiber-Stoller. Elvis’ management split  the remainder between Good Times and Promised Land, which covers a Chuck Berry tune as its title track.

Oh, and according to MapQuest, the 926 McLemore Avenue street address of the original Stax studio is less than five miles from Graceland, Elvis’ Shangri-la.