              |
 |
 June 2007 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Happy Birthday, Soulsville By Ron Ehmke
Stax isn’t around anymore, but its remarkable catalog is now in the hands of new owners, and they are celebrating by releasing a series of boxed sets and single CDs. The first to arrive is a two-disc, two-and-a-half-hour collection of fifty songs, handsomely packaged with a profusely illustrated fifty-page booklet. Best of all, the entire set is bargain priced; I paid eighteen bucks for my copy. If you’re not excited yet, you may not recognize the label — so perhaps I’d better drop a few names that are bound to ring a cowbell: Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, Albert King, the Staple Singers. Or how about some song titles: “Dock of the Bay,” “Green Onions,” “Soul Man,” “Knock on Wood,” “Do the Funky Chicken,” the theme from “Shaft.” They’re all here, along with plenty of other soul classics from the glory days of AM radio. Put it this way: just about every song the Blues Brothers ever recorded is here in its purest form, played by most of the same backing musicians but sung by folks with far more expressive voices than Ackroyd and Belushi. But what makes this particular collection so exciting is not just the million-seller golden oldies, but the many tracks you may well be hearing for the first time. One-hit (or no-hit) wonders like Mable John, the Astors, and Ollie and the Nightingales are all new to me, and I’m thankful for the exposure. It’s also enlightening to hear the original versions of songs better known in later covers, like Linda Lyndell’s brassy “What a Man” (which propelled a big hit for rappers Salt-N-Pepa) and Isaac Hayes’s slow, slinky take on “Never Can Say Goodbye” (eventually a smash for Gloria Gaynor). There’s no shortage of earlier Stax reissues, including plenty of best-of compilations and at least three mammoth (and costly) boxes collecting each and every single the label ever released, but this more manageable approach balances the familiar and the obscure with a curatorial savvy guaranteed to thrill both the casual oldies lover and the more serious student of American popular music. Slip either disc into a CD player and you’ve got both an instant party and a finger-snapping music lesson. Co-compiler Rob Bowman’s liner notes are worth the price of the box, as he not only lays out the history of the label but explains, for instance, crucial differences between the laid-back Stax sound and what the far more polished Motown was doing up north in Detroit at the same time. Bowman is particularly attuned to the racial politics of the label, which was co-founded in 1957 by a white country musician who by his own admission barely knew or cared about black music, in a town where as late as 1971 the public swimming pools shut down rather than face integration. After a few forgettable early stabs at rockabilly, pop, and C&W, Jim Stewart and his sister, Estelle Axton, turned their attention almost exclusively to R&B and soul, reflecting the sounds of the neighborhood where their studio was based, and they soon became the home base for one legendary Memphis act after another. When African-American DJ Al Bell bought out Axton’s share in 1969, Stax became a fully integrated company. Its house musicians were already a seamless mix of black and white players, and the grooves they laid down evoke everything that was great about “Soulsville, USA.” The resulting music became the soundtrack for urban life during an incredibly tumultuous period, and what’s most striking in retrospect is just how optimistic so much of it is. There’s tremendous hope and confidence, a little bit of political commentary, and an awful lot of raunchy fun, in these fifty songs; take a listen and rediscover what it sounded like when transistor radios and crowded dance floors helped change the world. Ron Ehmke is a Tonawanda-based writer and performer. More of his work can be found at www.everythingron.com. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
