[3]
By
Published: 2007
Category: Soul [4]
When “The Summer of Love” enters the conversation, most of us mean San Francisco, 1967. Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead. Be-Ins. Flower Power. Sgt. Pepper.
If by “love” we mean white kids from all over the country convening in urban crash pads to smoke dope and grope one another --- well, that sets the bar pretty low, doesn't it? Given the opportunity, we could have done that. Hell, a lot of us would, even now. Just tell us where to show up.
A year before Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed there, it was a lot harder to show the love in Memphis. And yet, in an ancient movie theater in South Memphis, black and white musicians made some of the most inspired music we'll ever hear.
Let Motown own the slicker-than-snail-snot “commercial” franchise of urban black music.
And nine bows to Atlantic, with 18 singles on the Billboard Hot One Hundred Charts in the late Spring of 1967 --- ranging from Aretha Frankli [5]n doing the unofficial black national anthem (“Respect”) to the white Long Island band, the Young Rascals. The only other competition Stax had in this rarified interracial zone in the late '60s: Sly & the Family Stone.
At Stax, something wonderful flourished, and it's in the grooves for all to hear --- starting with an interracial house band backing up such megawatt soul signers as Otis Redding [6], Sam and Dave, Rufus Thomas and Eddie Floyd. Their influences were various: rock, pop, country, blues. Mixed together, they produced music that was at once familiar and not --- music that jarred the ear just enough that you had to listen to it.
But “produced” isn't quite the right word. At Stax, they mostly recorded “live.” Even when they didn't, the theater's acoustics made music sound “live.” As a result, you heard an excitement --- a vibrancy --- in these records that was available nowhere else in American popular music. Just listen to one of the 50 songs on the Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration when the horns --- horns! --- kick in and you'll remember how exciting music could be.
There was so much talent on the label it was able to survive the December '67 plane crash that killed Otis Redding and two-thirds of his backup band. The reason: Stax had the Staples Singers coming on strong. And Stax had Issac Hayes.
You remember “Shaft” --- “can you dig it?” But Hayes also self-produced “Hot Buttered Soul”, a record that featured an unlikely 18-minute version of “By the Time I Got to Phoenix.” This was as radically different from '60s pop music as Marvin Gaye's “What's Going On.”
This two-CD boxed set has hits galore: “Green Onions”, “I've Been Loving You Too Long”, “Knock on Wood”, “Born Under a Bad Sign” and “Respect Yourself.” It also has songs you don't know, oddities that sure sound like hits.
The through-line: men and women singing one love song after another. The music can be raw --- loss makes for even better songs than happiness --- but I don't think I'm making it up when I say the primary ingredient of that music is love. First, of course, love of music, pure and simple. But more, love of the historical moment, love of the knowledge that when we're creating together, there's no reason we can't get along.
This Stax set is testimony to a grand idea, now honored too often only with empty words. It's also great fun, music that holds its own with the best pop this country has ever produced --- music so enjoyable you can forget the moral it contains.
To buy the Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration from Amazon.com, click here. [7]
If you're going to Memphis, you may want to visit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. For information, click here. [6]