Classic Stax Single of the Week
September 28th, 2007 byRufus Thomas, “The Breakdown (Part 1)”
Single originally released July 1971
From the album Did You Heard Me?
#31 Pop, #2 R&B single
Stax Records didn’t come much better in 1971 than Rufus Thomas’ “The Breakdown (Part 1),” which Thomas also included in his Wattstax set.
The songwriters? Three of the label’s best and most prolific: Rufus Thomas with Sir Mack Rice and Eddie Floyd, a star Stax performer himself.
The producer? Tom Nixon, one of the hired guns that Al Bell imported to expand the label’s sound after Bell bought out co-owner / -founder Estelle Axton and began directing Stax operations with Jim Stewart in 1969. Nixon was an experienced hand with Thomas who produced his ‘69 single “Do the Funky Chicken” (#5 on the R&B singles chart) and Thomas’ #1 R&B single “Do the Push and Pull,” released in October 1970.
The supporting musicians? Isaac Hayes’ band, with former Bar-Kays drummer Willie Hall nailing down the rock-solid funky foundation along with bassist Ronald Hudson, two keyboard players (Lester Snell and Marvell Thomas, Rufus’ son) and two guitar players (Harold Beane and Charles “Skip” Pitts, the same guitarist who ravishes Hayes’ Live at Sarah Tahoe).
The singer? Stax stalwart, the world’s oldest and longest-living teenager and quite possibly “The Funkiest Man Alive,” Rufus Thomas.
And the result? A slam-dunk of trademark Memphis funk, with Thomas riding the beat hard and slow right from one of the greatest opening lines he ever committed to wax: “Honey, baby, I’ve been told/ You know how to shake your butter bowl…” This push-and-pull rhythm track sounds closer than most of Thomas’ hits to the rubbery funk with which James Brown consistently blew up the soul / R&B landscape throughout the early 1970s; Thomas’ vocal performance, like all his best work, ain’t nothing but a party.
(Thomas and Nixon recorded “Do the Funky Penguin,” also part of Thomas’ Wattstax set, with essentially this same band.)
