Classic Stax Single of the Week
The Bar-Kays, “Holy Ghost”
Single released November 1975

According to Rob Bowman’s companion booklet to The Complete Stax / Volt Soul Singles Volume 3, 1972-’75, Stax’s final days were deeply burdened by financial and attendant legal difficulties. Session records are sketchy but by most accounts the last recording session officially produced by the original Stax label was The Bar-Kays’ “Holy Ghost.”

There seems to be even less proof that the original “Holy Ghost” single was ever actually released in November ‘75. But in 1978, Fantasy Records (which had purchased the Stax catalog) released an alternate version as “Holy Ghost (Reborn)” on a collection of Bar-Kays’ recordings previously unreleased from the Stax vault (a collection - perhaps wistfully - titled Money Talks).

Instrumentally, “Holy Ghost (Reborn)” careens out of the same deep mid-70s funk pocket as Parliament-Funkadelic; vocally, it sounds like the Ohio Players - especially the vocal fadeout, which sure sounds like the end of the Players’ hit single “Fire.” With aggressive horn blasts, a thick groove, the bassman gettin’ up for the downstroke and vocals which sound like they were recorded live in the corner of a loud, house-rockin’ party, it’s a master-blasting jam.

“Holy Ghost (Reborn)” also sounds a complete musical generation removed from The Mar-Keys’ instrumental hit “Last Night” or Carla Thomas’ teenage lovesong “Gee Whiz” (both from 1961) or any of the other R&B that laid the Stax foundation more than a decade earlier - which, of course, it was.

“Holy Ghost (Reborn)” is the final track on The Complete Stax / Volt Soul Singles Volume 3, and brings down the curtain on the first act in one of the most glorious stories in soul music history.