The Bar-Kays “In the Hole,” “Copy Kat” recorded October 1968
The Bar-Kays “Memphis at Sunrise” recorded April 1972

The CD version of Do You See What I See? released in 1996 includes three instrumental singles the Bar-Kays released on Volt Records, the subsidiary home to many instrumental Stax singles, before they recorded this album in late ‘72.

The Bar-Kays recorded “In the Hole” and “Copy Kat” on the same 1968 September day. A basic driving riff that’s more blues than rhythm, “In the Hole” sounds more like classic Stax - more specifically, the classic sound of the Mar-Keys (which, upon reflection, sort of combined the classic sounds of the Memphis Horns and the Booker T. & the MGs rhythm machine). Guitarist Michael Toles chews up and spits out hot, biting rhythm hooks that sound sharply drawn from the Steve Cropper guitar songbook. Toles does it again on “Copy Kat,” which uses the same sort of recurring blues vamp structure plus what sounds like the same chanting party crowd that enlivened “Soul Finger,” their April ‘67 smash hit (#3 R&B) single. A “Copy Kat” for sure.

They recorded “Memphis at Sunrise” as a B-side more than three years later (April ‘72). It sounds years removed (which it is) from the Bar-Kays deep “In the Hole” funk - not a song so much as a soundscape, not a groove so much as a postcard from a state of mind. Jerome McLauglin’s soulfully blue jazz guitar solo sounds like George Benson back when Benson was still recording jazz.

There must be something that I’m missing somewhere because…well, I just don’t understand why the Bar-Kays stopped making tight, hot funky instrumental singles like these. It’s not like they discovered so much gold waiting at the end of their psychedelic black rock rainbow.

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