Saturday, March 03, 2007

Stax and suds in Soulsville

I'm doing the dishes and groovin' to a STAX RECORDS playlist on my iPod.
Believe me, the two really go together. Rufus Thomas (pictured, above) is shouting about "Walkin' the Dog" while I am scrubbing away at some old pan.

Here are FIVE THINGS that I love about the music produced by Stax Records in Memphis in the 1960s:
1) I love how Eddie Floyd pauses between "Knock" and "... on Wood."
2) I love how Carla Thomas tells Otis Redding to get a hair cut in "Tramp."
3) I love how the band gets into such an air-tight groove on Sam and Dave's "Soul Man" (which is so much better than the Blues Brothers' version that Dan Ackroyd should be prosecuted).
4) I love trying to figure out which gender Bobby Marchan is singing to in the occasional female impersonator's ambiguous "What Can I Do?"
5) I love how Rufus Thomas can virtually replicate "Walkin' the Dog" as "Can Your Monkey Do the Dog," and the song still sounds absolutely great.

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