Soul baby! We all have it somewhere. Dig deep, it’s in there (I hope). Okay, enough floundering…I’ve been on a soul music binge lately. Real soul music. 1960′s soul. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Motown greats such as The Marvelettes with the US #1 pop hit, “Please Mr. Postman.” What about the artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye or the Supremes? Well, that’s good and dandy but I’m talking about
the Soul of Stax Records!
Stax Records was a smaller but up-and-coming label which in a sense, competed with their Motown counter-parts during the early 1960′s. Stax was it. Stax WAS Soul. They produced artists that weren’t as “Pop” influenced as the Motown crew. The Stax soul was more heart-felt in my opinion.
My favorite soul artist is the lengendary Otis Redding. His voice gives me the chills every time I put on one of his LPs. During his short life, Otis recorded numerous soul hits such as “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”,
“Try a Little Tenderness” and even wrote and recorded the now infamous “Respect” which was later popularized by Aretha Franklin. These are all great songs, although the best are the lesser known ones. Some other great Stax recording artists are Sam and Dave, Booker T. & the MG’s, Carla Thomas and The Bar-Kays. the most popular Stax artist is the late Isaac Hayes.
Isaac was the foundation of Stax records. Before his recording career, Mr. Hayes was the premier song writer for most of the Stax performer’s hits. Unfortunately, Isaac Hayes recently passed away at the age of 65. R.I.P, he’ll be missed.
Below is a video link to the classic Otis Redding performance on England’s “Ready Steady Go!”: