From Stax to Daptone and Back Again: Rob Bowman's Soulsville, U.S.A.

Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton (the ST and AX, respectively), ca. 1957, founding Stax Records.

Canadian music journalist Rob Bowman has given all of us soul music lovers a wonderful gift in the form of his deeply researched book, Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records (Schirmer Trade Books, 2003). It’s the inside story of the men and women behind what came to be known historically as the legendary “Stax sound.” His book, which he took twelve fetishistic years to compile, and which has made him the premiere expert on both the music and the business operations of a truly iconic label, simply has to be one of the most in-depth studies ever conducted and published on a single record company. In it, he explores the music, of course, but also the politics inside the organization, its finances, lawsuits, interracial harmonies and discords, studio location in an urban black neighborhood, key staff members, promotional strategies, distribution, every hiring or firing and, most importantly, the creative interplay between the soulful musical artists and their gifted producers. And what producers they were.

Coal into Diamond: The Inspiring Story of Gospel Funk

The incredible Sister Rosetta Tharpe, consummate gospel singer and secret inventor of rock 'n roll, soul and visionary funk music, circa 1940.

“I feel like there is an angel inside of me that I am constantly shocking.” – Jean Cocteau

“When I’m on stage, I’m trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don’t go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.”– James Brown

The word "gospel," of course, literally means good news. But the really good news is that gospel music morphed into the blues, blues morphed into soul, soul morphed into funk, and funk eventually morphed into both rap and hip hop. There will inevitably be another mutation in this wild musical evolutionary chain, but who knows what exotic shape it might take, especially considering the weird fact that hip hop has already become part of mainstream white pop music?

When blues music went on a blind date with gospel music and had too much rhythm and blues to think, that unlikely marriage of heaven and hell gave birth to something called soul. In some ways the parents of both these sacred and profane styles didn’t want their kids going out together, let alone settling down and starting a dance-mad family that would shake up the musical world forever. Thus we entered the fray that would become the saga of gospel funk, and saw its incredible climb to the stellar soul heights after its humble beginnings in the hot holy Southern church pews of America where fervent worship was the only spiritual dish on the community menu.

Faith and Fury: The Strange Saga of Al Green

Soul Survivor: A Biography of Al Green by Jimmy McDonough was published by Da Capo Press on August 29th.

“Beware of men who speak well of you, my brother.” – Al Green

Music critic Jimmy McDonough seems to have taken that sage advice from Green to heart. Few people who personally encountered the great soul singer Al Green would be in danger of speaking very well of either him or their meeting. For the rest of us, safely at a distance and accessing his soul strictly through the remarkable records he created, he remains a towering figure in music for over the last five decades. From his first album, Back Up Train, in 1967 to his twenty-ninth release, Lay It Down, in 2008, he has traveled far from his gospel roots through the soul vibe, then suddenly back to gospel in the late '70s, and then just as suddenly back to soul again. All along the way, he’s been feverishly running away from something and passionately running towards something, and often those two were the same something.

The dichotomies that link gospel, blues, soul and funk are never-ending. They are the living proof that coal becomes crystal under pressure. They are also, in their cores, different names for the same thing: a head-on collision course between faith and fury. And no one ever exemplified the paradox at the heart of these great African-American musical traditions quite as forcefully as the Reverend, revered and feared Al Green. He was both a gifted genius and a tortured psychopath who personified both the heights and depths of what it means to be a human being. Brilliant and besotted, he was, in the end, almost beyond the ability to grasp it with any real sense of clarity, since his mercurial personality shifted in and out of focus from moment to moment. And few books can qualify for the term “warts and all” quite as much as Jimmy McDonough’s new, breathtaking life of Green.

Long Slow Train: The Soul Music of Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings

Sharon Jones (centre) and the Dap-Kings. (Photo: Jacob Blickenstaff)

Here is an excerpt from Donald Brackett’s upcoming book, Long Slow Train: The Soul Music of Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, which is being published by Backbeat Books in Fall 2018.

“The heart of youth is reached through the senses; the senses of age are reached through the heart.” – Nicholas-Edme Retif 

“Too short, too fat, too black and too old . . . ” – perennial refrain from record producers responding to Sharon Jones in the early days of her music career.

Following their traditional performance pattern, when The Dap-Kings started a concert by playing a few instrumentals to get the crowd warmed up to a fever pitch and ready for their main attraction, they would introduce her by having the bass player boom out: “Ladies and gentlemen, 110 pounds of soul excitement, Miss Sharon Jones!” She was all of that and more, with not an ounce of falsehood in her.

This is a tale of triumph over adversity and the lifelong commitment to a pure and positive spirit. This is the saga of Sharon Lafaye Jones, May 4, 1956 – November 18, 2016, and her 60 years of raw, untutored, ramshackle, rambunctious and infectious energy. Performing at a concert in 2014, the year she was valiantly fighting off the pancreatic cancer that would eventually claim her only two busy years later, and going onstage to perform one of her typically boisterous and sensual sets, she was asked how it felt to be suddenly performing with a totally bald head. Not for Jones the feeble world of either wigs or hiding from reality. As reported somewhat jubilantly by Max Blau of Spin Magazine, she declared, “It’s going to be different. I’m just going to go with it. That’s what soul music is all about!” Sharon Jones was definitely different, and she was definitely what soul music was all about. She went with it, all right, all the way.

Old Bottle, New Wine: William Bell’s This Is Where I Live

William Bell's new album, This Is Where I Live, was released by Stax Records on June 3. (Photo courtesy of Shorefire Media)

When the great soul singer Otis Redding died in 1967 one of his logical successors at the time was vocalist William Bell. Born in Memphis, Bell first arrived on the music scene in 1960 and was signed to the Stax label in 1961, the same label Redding signed to four years later. Bell released his first single “You Don't Miss Your Water” (Stax 116), but it barely charted on the Billboard Top 100. Redding recorded his inspired version of Bell’s first single in 1965, which made people look up and take notice. Ironically, even though William Bell had been around for several years, his sound was often compared to Redding, but he wasn’t as dynamic a performer in concert.

Bell sang ballads that were considered torch songs for the R&B crowd and whether they knew it or not, both he and Redding competed for the same audience. The only advantage Bell had on Redding was that he was also a pretty good songwriter. One of his biggest songs, which he co-wrote with Booker T. Jones, was “Born Under a Bad Sign,” a huge hit for Albert King.

Get Me Memphis, Tennessee: The Beatles, Stax Studios, and the Sessions That Weren't

Yesterday brought news of the upcoming auction sale of a letter written by George Harrison in May 1966 to Atlanta disc jockey Paul Drew. It’s not the biggest news in the world: Beatle letters are sold all the time, along with hand-dashed lyrics, napkin doodles, and other flotsam. But for fans, this particular letter holds a goodie. George confirms, in passing, a story long claimed as true—that the Beatles in their heyday sought, with some seriousness and deliberation, to make a record elsewhere than at Abbey Road. That “somewhere” was Stax Studios in Memphis—the same legendary set of soundrooms where in 1966 giants like Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T and the MGs, Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, and Don Covay were recording their deathless sides—and, like the Stones, Dylan, the Beach Boys, etc., doing their damnedest to match and challenge the Beatles’ front-running position in the pop market and pop world.

Unmistakable Genius: Greg Kot's I'll Take You There, Mavis Staples

Just put some Mavis Staples in the CD player (or however you listen to music these days) and crank it up. That voice, that unmistakeable glorious voice, will take you there all right. I've witnessed her power in person a couple of times, and the most recent was extraordinary. The lady is over 70 years old now, and still on the road. Her solo CDs are selling better than ever. The sympathetic production by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy doesn’t hurt, and certainly that tight touring band made the songs come alive in concert. But where did she come from? Where has she been? What’s her story? Chicago writer Greg Kott tells the tale in his fine new book I’ll Take You There. He starts with the story of Mavis’s father Roebuck Staples who at five years old watched a mule-driven wagon carry his mother away to her grave in 1920 Mississippi. Roebuck was the seventh son of Warren and Florence Staples, the family worked on the Dockery Plantation Farms, plowing, planting, chopping and picking cotton. The family had a tradition of being good workers which allowed them to cope with the racism of the South. “A man or woman’s reputation did matter in the divided South. The boss man could insult you, beat you, even try to kill you, but dignity and pride were held sacred in the home of Warren Staples. As a member of his family you did not buckle.”

Memories Are Made of This – Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me and A Band Called Death

The original members of Big Star: (from left) Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens, Chris Bell and Andy Hummel

Two imperfect but interesting current documentaries, Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori’s Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me and Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett’s A Band Called Death, both available on Video On Demand, offer a chance to savor some of the complications and ironies of the rock music culture of the 1970s. That was the first full decade when bands were being formed by people who had grown up in the shadow of Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, and had come of age thinking of rock not as a get-rich-quick scheme or the next logical step in the evolution of rhythm and blues and country music and pop in general, but as a form of self-expression that had its own history and tradition and pantheon. It was also the age of the first generation of rock critics – college-educated working journalists like Robert Christgau, academics like Greil Marcus, unclassifiable mavericks like Lester Bangs – who thought that rock was a subject worthy of interest in itself, to be written about without condescension, and – a legacy of having been rock fans during the late ‘60s – that it might be both an art form and a trigger for social revolution. 

When the Mystique Evaporates: Bobby Whitlock

Derek and the Dominos, 1970. From left: Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, Eric Clapton.

“Bobby Whitlock” is familiar as a name, if not quite an identity, to any fan of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Derek & The Dominoes’ Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, and Delaney and Bonnie and Friends’ On Tour with Eric Clapton; Whitlock played and sang on all of those 1970 albums. Born in Memphis, whose clubs seasoned his soul vocals and guitar and keyboard skills, Whitlock was protégé to Booker T. Jones at Stax Studios before joining the band that developed around highly-touted husband-wife soul shouters Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. From there, he grew tight with Bramlett sidemen George Harrison and Eric Clapton – whence his recruitment as a Domino and subsequent appearance on All Things Must Pass. For a few years, Bobby Whitlock soared with the eagles; and while the getting was good, he recorded two solo albums, Bobby Whitlock and Raw Velvet, both released on ABC Dunhill in 1972.

Those two records, sans any outtakes or bonus tracks, have been reissued by the Future Days imprint of Seattle’s Light In the Attic Records under the omnibus title The Bobby Whitlock Story: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way – The ABC Dunhill Recordings. The reissue is a natural, the expectations great. Two obscure vintage releases by a key figure in some of the best rock of a fertile period; what fan wouldn’t want to hear this? Clapton and Harrison make guest appearances, as do many minor stars from the firmament of that time and place – bassists Klaus Voormann and Carl Radle; drummers Jim Gordon and Jim Keltner; horn players Bobby Keys and Jim Price; the Bramletts and the Edwin Hawkins Singers on backing vocals. Check the photos in the liner booklet: Whitlock looks like a rock star, with his flowing locks, oversize belt buckle, and flared trousers. From Memphis to LA to London to Miami and back again: the thing reeks of mystique.

For the Love of Vinyl

Dr. Disc's vinyl

In recent months I’ve noticed a strong resurgence in the availability of vinyl. For instance, this month Dr. Disc, a local record store in Hamilton, is celebrating its 20^th anniversary. They are quite chuffed about it; after all, the news from many places is that record stores are closing. Dr. Disc is doing quite well thanks, in fact, they throwing a month long party for all. Everything in the store is “Buy one get one free” (or BOGO if you will), and I’ve been down several times to take advantage of the deals. They’ve even booked a succession of local bands to play live concerts on the roof of the building. Last Friday night, we stood in the parking lot below enjoying the hot blues of the Steve Strongman Band and the cool breezes of downtown Hamilton.

After the set, before the next band stepped up, we had to go inside to have a look.  Strongman has encouraged us, “What better way to celebrate a birthday than by spending a couple hundred bucks!?!” I looked through the “Used and New 45s” section. There were oldies on the Apple label, plus some Stax records, but most of the records there were new releases. Sealed in plastic bags with warning stickers saying “Please Do Not Open” these little treasures looked magical. There was a series from Third Man Records, the label started by Jack White of the White Stripes. They featured unfamiliar names and faces shot elegantly against a blue background; inside black vinyl, in a white sleeve, one song per side. The attraction?  Most of the songs were produced by Jack White III. And many featured him on guitar or drums.

Well Travelled Groove: Booker T. Jones's The Road From Memphis

Booker T. Jones’s new album is called, not surprisingly, The Road From Memphis (Anti, 2011). While Memphis may for some musicians be the place where you arrive, for Booker it’s where it all began. In 1962, he went into a Memphis studio with his instrumental ensemble, Booker T & the MGs, and recorded the classic hit "Green Onions" which went to Number One on the music charts. They later backed Sam & Dave and Otis Redding for some inspired sides that made the group the house band for Stax Records for the next 15 years.

But just when his youthful success was climbing, Booker T. Jones decided to hit the road and head to Indiana University to continue his college degree. It was a 400-mile drive along highway 51 north that Jones came to know so well that he could do it "blind-folded." Says Jones, "I knew that road like the back of my hand. Every turn, every hill, every stretch." Once at university, Jones finished his degree in music by playing gigs on the weekends, all with the goal to "return to Memphis" to play, record and compose. The Road From Memphis is the culmination of that fruitful sojourn.

Heavy Fog: Bryan Ferry's Olympia

Bryan Ferry

I have a lot of respect for Bryan Ferry, a vocalist who's always had a flare for the glamour of the music business. He is classier than David Bowie, for instance, yet not too pretentious. Roxy Music, a band I've been fond of since the late '70s, offered music that was glam-rock, but with atmospherics thrown in for good measure. Recognizing his role as the front man, Ferry chose the high road by presenting himself without any theatrics, in spite of the pink suit he once wore when I saw the band in 1978. The band may have appeared stiff on occasion, but Ferry would soften the group with a dedicated vocal and presentation that was at once romantic and hip. Inspired by the music of Stax artists such as Sam & Dave and Otis Reddin et al, Ferry loved the notion of presenting his music as big as possible, with female back-up singers and reeds usually played by Andy MacKay. 

A Masterpiece and its Spiritual Cousins: Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds and Aftermath

Is it possible that The Shirelles best embodied the idealistic spirit of JFK's New Frontier? Perhaps. Especially with one 1960 pop song, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" that delicately captured both the assurance of the decade and its secret fears. Written by Carole King, and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" had an awareness that within every hope lay the possibility of failure, defeat, and maybe betrayal. The singer accepts the devotion of her lover, the light she sees in his eyes, but she's also worried about the future, when that light may refuse to shine. In this enduringly complex tune, the stakes of love get raised so high that the fear of it all falling apart weighs pretty heavy. As Bob Dylan said in 1965, right at the cusp of his greatest glory, "when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose." The Shirelles had, in a certain sense, laid the ground for the romantic dream The Beatles (who would cover their songs) were about to create. But The Beatles also inherited that possibility of failure that The Shirelles saw coming. When the hopes of the New Frontier were so cruelly dashed in Dallas in 1963, The Beatles had reached into that despair, two months later, to hold our hand. But it was coming up to two years since The Beatles rekindled those hopes, and the question of whether we'd still love them tomorrow was still up for grabs.

Their electrifying early records had sought us out, demanding that we share in the pleasures those songs offered. When John Lennon said in "Please Please Me" that he'd continue pleasing us, if only we'd agree to please him, were offered a definite stake in the relationship. Each song they wrote was designed to be a two-way street, the creation of a romantic bond, which required the participation of the listener in every way. The utopianism heard in "There's a Place" was only viable when we first believed that the place actually existed. But by 1965, The Beatles were starting to grow weary and suspicious of their audience. There's a place, alright, and maybe it's now far away from you. No longer trusting the screams of adoration or enjoying the enduring isolation of hotel rooms and ducking into limos, the group began retreating into the safety of the studio.Within those walls, the sounds they began to create outclassed the sounds from the stage. The songs they wrote and covered, in the beginning, had taken the world by force, by the affection expressed in them. Now their music was more elusive, the pleasures tucked beneath the dense melodies. At this point, though, their retreat did not diminish their work. Instead, detachment took it deeper, farther into the exigencies of love and loyalty.

Over 45 years ago, The Beatles released Rubber Soul which is arguably their best album. Rubber Soul showed that The Beatles, now seeking solace from the madness of Beatlemania, were creating a new music that sought to find the more discerning listener. The songs included reached out to find those who dared step outside the din of the screaming throng. With this record, they asked us to lean forward, listen carefully, and take the doubts along with the hopes and the desires along with the fears. Rubber Soul had all the yearnings and qualms of Goffin/King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" but it didn't stop with the question of the title. Rubber Soul went much further to ask: If you don't love me tomorrow, then what? While taking over 113 hours to record, compared to the one-day they took putting together their debut Please Please Me (1963), Rubber Soul was startlingly innovative taking the R&B genre beyond its purist roots. Unlike many other white pop artists, especially the ones who merely paid reverence to the style and attitude of black blues and R&B, or channelled the essence of the form (as did Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac), The Beatles sublimated rhythm and blues into their continually expanding musical fabric. And the record would irrevocably change the direction and sound of pop music. With a densely intelligent collection of love songs, Rubber Soul confronted a variety of issues: the cost of romantic desire (“I’m Looking Through You”), the power of love to heal (“The Word”), as well as to hurt (“Girl”); contemplation (“In My Life”); and the deep despair of estrangement (“Nowhere Man”). On the record, The Beatles broadened their musical identity, too, by introducing an original interpretation of classic R&B (specifically the Memphis Stax soul sound) while resisting being defined by black music (as many other British blues bands were). The Beatles instead defined their own interpretation of American black music.

Soul Deep: In Consideration of Alex Chilton

“Sometimes failure is more rewarding,” wrote Bill Reynolds in The Globe and Mail yesterday in concluding his obituary remembering Alex Chilton, who died last Wednesday of a heart attack in New Orleans at the age of 59. Chilton, the former lead singer of the ‘60s pop group The Box Tops ("The Letter," "Soul Deep") and co-founder of the influential 70s power pop band Big Star ("September Gurls," "In the Street"), was certainly no stranger to both failure and reward in his short life. In a sense, he took both extremes and created what critic Jason Anheny called “a poignantly beautiful sound which recaptured the spirit of pop’s past even as it pointed the way toward the music’s future.” Chilton was part of pop’s past and future in ways that became as much paradoxical as he became largely influential on later groups like The Replacements and (especially) R.E.M.