Just got an advance set of the three CDs now released as “Wattstax: The Living Word,” a sumptuous collection that includes material from the original Wattstax double album, as well as from its original sequel, Wattstax: The Living Word. This is the first domestic reissue of the complete Wattstax soundtrack, housed in a collectible Digipack featuring rare photographs and reproductions of vintage Wattstax-era posters. In addition to music from the concert, Stax filmed and recorded its artists all around town in clubs, churches and even in the studio. This new expanded Wattstax anthology includes the best of the live festival from Wattstax and Wattstax: The Living Word plus some previously unreleased festival performances, selected tracks from the club and church recordings staged during the week of the festival, and selected bits by comedian Richard Pryor that were recorded at the Summit Club in Los Angeles.

My reaction? Quoting the title of a William Bell album, “Wow!” Just looking at the line-up, I am reminded of the sheer diversity of the Stax roster in 1972. Maybe only its closest ‘rival’ Motown could boast such an all-encompassing stable of artists, covering virtually every aspect of American black music. There are of course tracks from core Stax folks like Rufus and Carla Thomas and William Bell, artists who were there virtually from the start of the label – although by the time the Wattstax festival took place in Los Angeles in the summer of 1972, the musical backbone of Booker T. & The MGs and The Mar-Keys were gone. From the second wave of non-Memphis-based artists who signed with the label in the mid-‘60s, there’s Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Eddie Floyd and the post Otis-reformulated Bar-Kays, then, with the change in distribution from Atlantic in 1968, The Staple Singers, The Emotions and The Soul Children, with later additions, Little Milton, Kim Weston, Frederick Knight, Mel & Tim, The Temprees, the Rance Allen Group and The Newcomers (best known for the wonderfully-titled, “Pin The Tail On The Donkey.”

Emerging from the cadre of songwriters and producers, Isaac Hayes and David Porter performed as artists at Wattstax, Hayes – by the summer of ’72 – the company’s best-selling hitmaker thanks to “Hot Buttered Soul” and “Shaft.” But of equal interest, there are the lesser-known names like Louise McCord, Little Sonny, Lee Sain and Deborah Manning, all of whom exemplified the desire of then-label head Al Bell to ensure that practically all facets of black music were represented on the label. Of course, had the show taken place a couple of years earlier we might have also seen the likes of Mable John (by ’72, a Raelette), Judy Clay (back at Atlantic after being ‘lent’ to Stax), The Mad Lads, Ollie & The Nightingales and Jeanne & The Darlings – but, as a true Brit deep soul man, I’d naturally wish for such!

Suffice to say that this new three-CD collection captures the essence of Stax circa ’72, with its panoply of great artists throwing down, particularly – as they did in Memphis this past June at the 50th anniversary celebration – my personal favorites, The Soul Children who are sadly missing from the film (shame, shame) because they were considered too ‘second tier’ apparently for inclusion in the movie. Well, no worries: if we didn’t get to see them, at least we can hear them - on disc 3 just before Ike’s “Shaft” with two selections (“I Don’t Know What The World Is Coming To” and “Hearsay”) that represent the ultimate in soulful delivery! Hallelujah!

David Nathan
Aka the British Ambassador Of Soul
Owner, www.soulmusic.com, www.soulmusicstore.com