Light in the Attic created this 7″ reissue set for Record Store Day and it’s a very cool way to 1) pay tribute to one of the greatest labels in soul history and 2) break true fanatics off with 10 reissued 7″ singles, ranging from some of their better know hits (“BLind Alley”) to lesser known gems (“Them Hot Pants”). Killer packaging and a really impressive set of liner notes that features testimonials from Jim Stewart, Al Bell and others).1 I recently rapped with Light in the Attic’s Matt Sullivan about the story behind this set:
The Stax catalog is one of the most well-compiled in the history of soul music; why choose it for the focus of a 7″ box set?
No question. Surprisingly though, there’s never been a proper 45s box of the label. In 2010, we spent a month in Memphis and fell in love with the city and the people at Stax. It was also an excuse to once again work with our favorite writer on the planet, Memphis native Andria Lisle.
Given how massive that catalog is too, how did you choose the singles that would finally go in?
It wasn’t easy and felt incredibly daunting trying to limit it to ten 45s. We chose to focus on the later half of Stax and singles that we’re more off the radar. Musician and KEXP DJ Johnny Horn helped narrow it down, picking many of his choice favorites. Patrick Montier at the Stax fan site kindly helped out as well.
Was there every a temptation to deviate from the original A/B-sides? In other words, you could have paired a different set of Emotions songs rather than reproduce the original one.
We must’ve went back and forth on that idea for months, actually well over a year. In the end, deviating from the original 45s felt a little like ‘we’re not worthy.’ Maybe we’re purists and couldn’t stomach altering the past.
Excellent liner notes and testimonials; was it difficult to get folks like Bell and Rauls to contribute?
That was pretty much all Andria. She’s close with many of the Stax alum (and the best damn tour guide in Memphis), having written about the label over the years. As for Phillip Rauls, I reached out to Phillip, who was the Promotions Manager for Stax starting in ’68 till the bankruptcy. He runs a fantastic blog where he shares memories and photos from his days in the business. Initially I contacted Phillip for permission to use his photos for the booklet, but once I spoke with him on the phone I realized that he had great stories to share, so Andria interviewed him for a separate section about the label’s ambition plan to release 27 albums and 30 singles in a 12 month period.
Why a 7″ set? Who do you see as the prime audience for this set?
We love 45s. The audience? Collectors, DJs, indie rock kids, old timers…
Along with Run DMC, the Beastie Boys were the first rap artists I ever listened to obsessively. I never thought of them as a trio of individual MCs; they always sounded to me like a group package so I can’t say MCA was “my favorite” of three. But if Ad Rock had the most elliptical voice with its droops and slurs, MCA was the hardcore anchor: rough and rugged.
It saddens me to realize how both Run DMC and the Beasties, each lost a core member far before their time. At least, in their time though, they both helped change popular music as we know it. Thanks Adam, thanks Jay.
It’s been a while since our last podcast (I have another one in the clip – Lee Fields and hopefully, Leon Michels, to be shared after they come to town in a few weeks). This one was recorded live in Los Angeles a couple of weeks back with Pat Thomas, author of the new Listen Whitey: The Sounds of Black Power 1965-75, as well as the companion CD of the same name.
Pat and I talked about how he got interested in looking at the music of the Black Power Movement, how Berry Gordy funded one of the most militant labels in that era, how the Black Panther Party had its own funk band and why Eugene McDaniels’s Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse sucks compared to Outlaw (diggers be damned).
It may not be obvious but I’m a big Rufus Wainwright fan. Mostly. I add that qualifier only because after obsessively listening to his first three albums in the early ’00s, I more or less lost tabs on him for the remainder of the decade, including at least 2-3 studio albums that – for reasons I can’t even explain – totally missed my radar.
So maybe it’s only appropriate that I’d be rediscovering him on his latest album, Out of the Game…given that this effort is produced by Mark Ronson and features many of the Daptone players on. It’s definitely not an intuitive partnership (which isn’t a bad thing) and it also doesn’t sound like what you might expect it to (also not necessarily a bad thing).
In a way, Out of the Game does have a retro appeal…but not drawn from the ’60s. There’s much on this album that’s thoroughly drenched in ’70s rock: Fleetwood Mac/Eagles, and E.L.O. Rufus has described this as his most “pop” album to date which I think is half-true…if the album had come out in 1975 as opposed to, you know, now. It’s not like Ronson and company are trying to make him sound like LMFAO.
Ironically, one of my least favorite songs on the album is the one that sounds most “Ronson/Daptone-y”, “Perfect Man,” and for me, it’s because the uptempo, snappy funk style doesn’t mesh with Rufus’s more baroque vocal style. But that aside, there’s much on here I adore, no song more than “Respectable Dive”:
Maybe it’s because I’ve had my own “Respectable Dive” moments (including with the woman now my wife). Maybe it’s because I like the ambiguity of the verses.1 Maybe it’s because it’s slow, haunting and gorgeous, like all of Rufus’s best ballads. Regardless, it’s one of my favorite Rufus songs of all time (which is saying a lot). He just has a remarkable gift for ballads with that instrument of his and while it may be an acquired taste…call me one of the acquirers.
Plus…he recorded a song about Rashida Jones.2 And he recorded a lovely tune for his daughter that doubles as an elegy for his late mother (see below)…which you wouldn’t think would be so affective if not for the subtle turn in the “last act” of the song. I hate being emotionally manipulated like that but I admire the craft.
So yeah, I’m feeling the album and glad to have finally revisited him. Hope you do too. Rufus Wainwright: Out of the Game
Honestly, I can’t tell if the song is about someone discovering his lover’s infidelity or simply about the timidity of disclosing one’s true feelings. ↩
(Editor’s Note: James Cavicchia last contributed to us in ’09, writing about MJ, and I’m delighted to have him as a regular contributor now, beginning with this review of the new “Personal Space” compilation, curated by Dante Carfagna and released jointly by Chocolate Industries and the Numero Group. I have a review of this same album coming out on NPR in a week or so. –O.W.)
“Shouldn’t real freedom include freedom from memory?” – Geoffrey O’Brien
Shouldn’t the personal be able to exist outside of the historical? Shouldn’t the individual expression be allowed to be truly the work of the individual? Why should the actualization of a singular vision require so many others? Why should sonic mass and its legitimizing effect upon the occupation of the popular ear be denied the single musician? Why must “full-sounding” music come with the expense of strings, horns, choruses? Why must the black musician in particular be required to ensure that his work leaves at least a breadcrumb trail between it and The Blues, or The Church, or Jazz, or The Cause? Must there always be all these walls to get around, all these people to pay, all these ghosts to answer to?
At the spine of this astounding collection is the ostensibly unburdening effect of affordable studio technology—synthesizers, drum machines, high-quality recording—as manifested in private soul music from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. The irony is that while the empowerment provided by these machines of ahistorical and unindebted process does indeed allow for the expression of a more truly individual sensibility and the creation of a more intimate atmosphere, from this reduced reliance on humans comes also a reduced invocation of them. There is the inescapable sense that without the technology we would never have been able to hear such personal work, but that this same hand of technology has created within the work an alienating distance.
I have an inexplicable habit of constantly under-regarding Dusty’s catalog…it’s as if every time I discover a cool new track by her I try to remind myself, “this is Dusty Springfield. She’s only one of the greatest soul artists in UK history. She probably has more stuff worth checking for.” But inevitable, I forget this small little point. This LP is just the latest reminder that I should pay closer attention, especially since its “sister” album is something I reviewed, uh, six years ago.
It’s closer to a comp than an LP, mostly because Philips more or less cobbled it together two years after half the principle cuts had already been recorded. There’s something like 8 producers at work here – including the Atlantic powerhouse trio of Wexler, Mardin and Dowd – and even once Philips finally put it out, it was never released in the U.S.
There’s some decent ballads on here but what caught my attention are the two funk covers, both backed by Derek Wadsworth’s orchestra. “Crumbs Off the Table” finds Dusty taking on “Crumbs Off the Table,” a song most probably associate with Laura Lee but Dusty actually recorded her cover two years before Lee; both women were covering Glass House’s original from ’69. For my money, the instrumental track from Dusty’s crushes here, even more so than Glass House’s original. So ill. And Dusty brings it rather hard here (well, for her at least).
The other cover I was drawn to was Dusty taking on Betty Wright’s “Girls Can’t Do What Boys Can.” I don’t think Springfield touches the source material here but we’re talking about one of Wright’s greatest tunes from the ’60s but that said, I love hearing Dusty over this particular vocal arrangement. It’s unlike most of the songs I associate with her but she sounds completely at home with it. Far as I know, neither one of these were ever released on single; pity!
I recently got an email from the conguero of Jungle Fire, a L.A.-based Afro/Latin-funk band and he was kind enough to send along a couple of new tracks for me to peep. I just hit play without checking the song title and realized, “holy sh–, they’re covering Phirpo!” 1
Given that I think the Phirpo LP is pretty much thebest Latin funk album ever, it’s cool to hear a contemporary tackling them…and doing it so well, with all the verve and ferocity of its source material. I don’t know if Jungle Fire plans on releasing this on 7″ but for my sake, I hope they do.
(Editor’s note: Over the next few weeks, you’ll see some new voices joining us here at Soul Sides. Today is the debut of Dave Ma, who runs his own outstanding music blog, Nerdtorious, and he’s offering his take on the new 2-CD anthology chronicling the best of the Perception/Today catalog. –O.W.)
The new anthology, The Best of Perception & Today Records, opens with Dizzie Gillespie’s “Matrix”, a song penned by Gillespie’s pianist, Mike Longo. Gillespie’s rendering is harder, funkier than Longo’s original and that may be why artists like the Beatnuts and others lifted it as sample fodder. It’s also likely the only Gillespie song to ever anchor a Gap ad.
The compilation — released by BBE and compiled by DJ Spinna — isn’t just recognizable samples however; it covers the short but expansive history of Perception Productions, who, along with its subsidiary Today, ran for a mere five years as the ‘60s entered the ‘70s yet supported an impressive hodgepodge of acts in such a short run. Along the way, they captured both marquee names in the twilight of their craft and young, bold musicians who’d forge full careers thereafter. Giants like Gillespie and Astrud Gilberto certainly added acclaim but also added equally big recordings; Gilberto’s revered “Gingele” is an obvious standout as is the fluttering, mid-tempo funk number, “Alligator” where we hear Gillespie in a rare, contemporary setting.
Having towering figures aboard were surely something of a coup but small acts recruited for ‘one-off’ releases were equally exuberant. Wanda Robinson, a Baltimore-based poet recorded for the label in which “Instant Replay” and “A Possibility (Back Home)” are included. “Find The One Who Loves You” by the Eight Minutes, a group aiming to ape the sound and success of the Jackson 5 ultimately made slower, intimate songs as the label tried cornering markets other than jazz. Pop singer Bobby Rydell’s “Honey Buns” is a bright spot and apparently unlike any of Rydell’s previous work. Swooping, stabbing strings on “I Keep Asking You Questions” by Black Ivory, a group fronted by a young Leroy Burgess, lend their own take on the emerging Philadelphia Sound.
More great moments are peppered throughout. Julius Brockington’s version of “Rock Steady” by Aretha Franklin is a surprise and one of the comp’s strongest cuts. The signing of Bill Curtis, legendary drummer for the Fatback Band, adds “Dance Girl” and “Nijia (Nija) Walk” to the selections. Others like Debbie Taylor’s “Too Bad To Tell”, Tyrone Washington’s “Submission”, and James Moody’s “Heritage Hum” round out the already stout release.
With jazz, soul, and funk (and overlaps of the three) coming from such a diverse cast, it’s hard to tell you’re essentially hearing a jazz label adapt to shifting musical trends. Later releases stubbornly held on with undercurrents of jazz but the majority of the songs defined its makers and certainly are some of the finest of its era.
