Classic Stax Single of the Week
July 20th, 2008 byBooker T. & the MGs, “Hang ‘Em High”
Single released from the album Soul Limbo, October 1968
#35 R&B, #9 Pop single
We almost had other Stax soundtracks to blog about, too.
In 1968, Booker T. & the MGs recorded their R&B instrumental take on Dominic Frontiere’s title track for the Clint Eastwood vehicle Hang ‘Em High. It was released as the first single from their album Soul Limbo, both in October.
This MGs version nearly bursts open from dramatic pressure. To open, drummer Jackson and bassist Dunn stretch out a tightrope between them. Cropper’s sharp rhythm guitar chops walk that line, then Booker swings out the melody (which sounds great voiced by his keyboard). Two taut, stop-time passages heighten the tension, with Cropper soloing over the second one to the fade.
According to Rob Bowman’s companion booklet to The Complete Stax-Volt Singles Volume 2, composer Frontiere was so thoroughly impressed by this inventive yet compact treatment that he offered to score three complete films, to include two more “spaghetti westerns,” with Booker T. & the MGs. Both sides began working out an arrangement that called for Cropper to create rhythm tracks and Frontiere to write the melodies. But Stax owner Jim Stewart refused to let his label’s biggest group go outside of their contract for this work, so this agreement subsequently fell through.
Frontiere also composed music for several iconic American television programs, including The Rat Patrol and The Outer Limits.
“Hang ‘Em High” was one of Stax’s few singles that fared better in the pop chart, where it broke the Top Ten, than it did on the R&B chart. Various versions appear on different Booker T. & the MGs anthologies, including a torrid live version from an April 1993 group reunion concert (with drummer Anton Fig) in Toronto on the three-CD anthology Time is Tight.
