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Volume Two
1. Green Onions – Booker T. & the MGs
(2:50)
(Jones-Cropper-Steinberg-Jackson)
East Music*
Stax 127 / Volt 102
Released August, 1962
Highest Chart Position: R&B #1 / Pop #3
2. Behave Yourself – Booker T. & the MGs (3:15)
(Jones-Cropper-Steinberg-Jackson)
East Music*
Stax 127-B / Volt 102-B
Released August, 1962
3. Any Other Way – William Bell (2:25)
(Bell)
East-Bais Music*
Stax 128
Released August, 1962
4. I’ll Bring It Home To You – Carla Thomas (3:03)
(Cooke)
Kags Music**
Atlantic 2163
Released October, 1962
Highest Chart Position: R&B #9 / Pop #41
5. Sack-O-Woe – Mar-Keys (2:25)
(Adderly)
Upam Music***
Stax 129
Released October, 1962
6. These Arms Of Mine – Otis Redding (2:30)
(Redding)
English-Time Music*
Volt 103
Released October, 1962
Highest Chart Position: R&B #20 / Pop #85
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
7. Teardrop Sea – The Tonettes (2:20)
(Lowry-Cropper)
East-Bais Music*
Volt 104
Released November, 1962
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
8. The Dog – Rufus Thomas (2:30)
(Thomas)
East Music*
Stax 130
Released January, 1963
Highest Chart Position: R&B #22 / Pop #87
9. Jelly Bread – Booker T. & the MGs (2:25)
(Jones-Cropper-Steinberg-Jackson)
Stax 131
East Music*
Released January, 1963
Highest Chart Position: Pop #82
10. I Told You So – William Bell (2:31)
(Bell)
East Music*
Stax 132
Released January, 1963
11. Bo-Time – Mar-Keys (2:40)
(Cropper)
East Music*
Stax 133
Released January, 1963
12. Home Grown – Booker T. & the MGs (2:38)
(Jones-Cropper-Steinberg-Jackson)
East Music*
Stax 134
Released February, 1963
13. My Imaginary Guy – Deanie Parker & The Valadors (2:30)
(Parker)
East Music*
Volt 105
Released February, 1963
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
14. Just As I Thought – William Bell (2:52)
(Bell-Cropper-Parker)
East Music*
Stax 135
Released January, 1963
15. What A Fool I’ve Been – Carla Thomas (2:12)
(Bell-Cropper)
East Music*
Atlantic 2189
Released April, 1963
Highest Chart Position: R&B #28 / Pop #93
16. The Hawg, Part 1 – Eddie Kirk (2:30)
(Welch-Kirkland)
East Music*
Volt 107
Released May, 1963
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
17. Don’t Be Afraid Of Love – Oscar Mack (2:30)
(Mack-Walden)
East Music*
Volt 107
Released May, 1963
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
18. That’s My Guy – Cheryl & Pam Johnson (2:05)
(Cropper-Lichterman)
East Music*
Stax 136
Released June, 1963
19. Chinese Checkers – Booker T. & the MGs (2:23)
(Jones-Cropper-Jackson-Steinberg)
East Music*
Stax 137
Released June, 1963
Highest Chart Position: Pop #78
20. Somebody Mentioned Your Name – William Bell (2:59)
(Moman-Jones)
East Music*
Stax 138
Released June, 1963
21. What Can I Do – Bobby Marchan (2:30)
(Donnie-Elbert)
Mento Music****
Volt 108
Released June, 1963
22. That’s What My Heart Needs – Otis Redding (2:35)
(Otis Redding)
East-English Music*
Volt 109
Released June, 1963
Highest Chart Position: R&B #27
23. What Can It Be – The Astors (2:15)
(Lee)
East Music*
Stax 139
Released July, 1963
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
24. Bango – Billy & the King Bees (2:14)
(Long)
East Music*
Volt 110
Released September, 1963
25. Them Bones – Eddie Kirk (2:12)
(Kirk)
East-Time Music*
Volt 111
Released September, 1963
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
26. Walking The Dog – Rufus Thomas (2:30)
(Thomas)
East Music*
Stax 140
Released September, 1963
Highest Chart Position: R&B #5 / Pop #10
27. I’ll Show You – William Bell (2:35)
(Bell-Jones)
East Music*
Stax 141
Released September, 1963
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By mid-1962 Stax's second label, Volt Records, was in full operation, and a "house" band consisting of Booker T. Jones on keyboards, Al Jackson Jr. on drums, Lewis Steinberg on bass (replaced by Duck Dunn in early 1964) and Steve Cropper on guitar, augmented by what was initially referred to as the Mar-Keys, and later the Memphis Horns, was just about to coalesce. Stax, at this point, had still not entirely given up on the occasional foray into the white market. In fact, it was while waiting for former Sun artist Billy Lee Riley to show up for a pop session that the Stax rhythm section of Jones, Jackson, Steinberg and Cropper jammed on a blues which, unbeknownst to them, Jim Stewart captured on tape. (Peter Guralnick has this session as being booked by outsiders for a Riley-sung jingle.) The blues was eventually called "Behave Yourself." Stewart thought it was good enough to release. A flip side now needed, the group worked up a riff that Jones and Cropper had been fooling around with. The result was "Green Onions." Stewart heard "Behave Yourself" as the A-side while Cropper was sure "Green Onions" was the hit.
"I knew when we cut 'Green Onions,'" exclaimed Cropper. "I said. 'Shit, this is the best damn instrumental I've heard in I don't know when.' I knew we had a winner there. Rather than argue with Jim, I went down to the radio station [WLOK] and got Rueben Washington to play it and that was the end of that."
Cropper had taken down a demo of the song that he got former Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore to cut for him at Sun. Testing the market through Washington's show on WLOK was all the convincing Stewart needed. "Green Onions" became a #1 R&B record and a #3 Pop hit. Interestingly, when they were trying to come up with names for the songs, they had decided to call the blues "Onions" (Steinberg says "Funky Onions").
"We were trying to think of something that was as funky as possible," laughed Cropper. "I think Lewis Steinberg was the one that said, 'Well, the funkiest thing I ever heard of was onions.' To him they were funky because they were stinky."
After Cropper's market test which led to the A-side being changed, the titles were also changed, with the blues being called "Behave Yourself" and the outrageous dance groove being called "Green Onions" (Steinberg thinks it was Estelle that added the "Green" to the title).
The record was originally issued as Volt 102. As soon as it started its march up the charts it was reissued as Stax 127. Cropper explains: "Atlantic felt that Volt was still young and it didn't matter. Stax really needed a boost. They had come out with several mediocre records, they really needed a hit and it looked like this thing was just gonna take off. They said, 'Get this thing on Stax immediately.’ I had to cut new parts and rush them down to the plant and get new stampers pressed up."
The turnover took all of three days.
A hit on their hands, Booker T. And The MG's suddenly found themselves, in addition to their daily session tasks, with a career as a group. Over the next ten years they recorded ten albums featuring 14 chart hits, all instrumentals, including "Hip Hug-Her," "Soul Limbo," "Hang 'Em High" and "Time Is Tight."
The session that produced "Behave Yourself" b/w "Green Onions" was fortuitous in more ways than one. It was drummer Al Jackson's first recording date at Stax. Booker T. had brought him down. "I had played bass with him in Willie Mitchell's band. He was the best drummer in town. I had been trying to steal him for a good while," laughed Booker. It is interesting to note that Booker was on summer vacation between the tenth and 11th grades when the a record was cut. During the school year he would go to school, deliver his paper route and play sessions from 6:30 to 10:00. Not a bad life for a kid still in high school.
William Bell's follow-up to "You Don't Miss Your Water," "Any Other Way," was released the same month as "Green Onions." Listening to it one will notice that it lies somewhat outside of what was becoming the Stax sound as epitomized by "Last Night," "Green Onions" and "You Don't Miss Your Water." Like the latter's flip, "Formula Of Love," it is quite poppy.
Not surprisingly, it was somewhat overlooked by Stax, Atlantic and radio.
William Bell agreed: "I think I was the original pop artist that Stax had because a lot of the stuff I did was crossing over. But Stax was noted as basically a rhythm and blues company. So it was like I was straddling the fence for a while. I was a good balladeer but not a lot on uptempo products. Because of the gospel influence, the ballads would go rhythm and blues but when I'd do uptempo stuff it came up pop. 'Any Other Way' was really big in Europe but didn't do much over here." It was, though, covered by Jackie Shane for Sue Records a few years later, reaching #2 in Canada, and a version by Chuck Jackson on Wand hit the U.S. Hot 100.
Bell's lack of national chart success continued through 1963. He started January with a self-penned gospel-influenced ballad, "I Told You So." In February he tried the harder driving "Just As I Thought," co-written with Steve Cropper and newcomer Deanie Parker. By the summer he had hooked up with his church's organist and Stax session musician Booker T. Jones to form a writing partnership. Neither of the first two fruits of their labors, June's "Somebody Mentioned Your Name" nor September's "I'll Show You," did any better on the charts but both were exceptionally strong gospel-derived ballads. The ending of "I'll Show You" is especially cathartic. One of the company's finest writing teams had just taken flight.
The relationship with Atlantic ended up providing dividends above and beyond first-rate promotion and distribution. It was while doing Atlantic a favor by working on an instrumental follow-up to Macon, Georgia, natives Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers' "Love Twist" that sometimes Jenkins vocalist Otis Redding came to be signed to Stax's Volt subsidiary.
Redding's success was slow in coming.
His first recording, "These Arms Of Mine," cut at the Jenkins session, took several months before climbing to #20 on the national R&B charts (fueled by heavy airplay on Nashville's WLAC by John R., who was given half the publishing of the song as inducement for radio play). "These Arms Of Mine" was to serve as a prototype for a series of increasingly fervent 6/8 ballads extending into 1966, including "Pain In My Heart" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Otis's follow-up, "That's What My Heart Needs,” released in June 1963, fits squarely into that mode. Dig the gospel cries during the song's fade. They are evidence of shades of things to come.
When "These Arms Of Mine" came out, Otis needed his own band (Johnny Jenkins intended to keep the Pinetoppers going). He initially used a group that included guitarist/harp player Eddie Kirkland, drummer Percy Welch and female impersonator/ New Orleans crazy Bobby Marchan on vocals. As the record became more successful, Otis acquired the services of Joe Tex's band but he kept the Kirkland-led ensemble as a warm-up act for live shows. At his second session, which had produced "That's What My Heart Needs,” Otis was able to convince Jim Stewart to record Kirkland, Marchan and another member of his revue, vocalist Oscar Mack.
Kirkland had started out playing second guitar for John Lee Hooker in Detroit in late 1948. He can be heard on most of Hooker's hits up to 1953. Relocating to Macon, Georgia, in 1962 he met Otis shortly thereafter. Kirkland remembers that Stewart "didn't want me to do no soul." What he served up instead was a frenetic dance groove that he had been playing for a while on live shows to great response. Stewart was enthralled. Kirkland plays harmonica and sings through his harp mike, giving the record a rather unique atmospheric sound. Stewart issued the record under the name Eddie Kirk and he changed the spelling of the song to "The Hawg." The song received a lot of airplay from John R. and was big throughout Georgia. The following year Kirkland cut the similarly titled "Hog Killin' Time" for King Records in Cincinnati. A follow-up, "Them Bones," was waxed when Otis was working on his third release. "Them Bones" contained that syncopated New Orleans rumba beat in the bass popularized by Professor Longhair. Kirkland remembers Johnny Jenkins playing guitar instead of Cropper on this recording.
Oscar Mack unfortunately died of a drug overdose in Detroit in the summer of 1989. Not much is known about him. Kirkland remembers him as a hard worker onstage. He wrote the fifties-ish sounding Volt forty-five "Don't Be Afraid Of Love." Although he wasn't invited back to Otis's next session, he did cut once more for Stax in the spring of 1964.
The third member of Redding's revue to record for Volt was Bobby Marchan. He had recorded originally for Aladdin as early as 1954, although his first real success came as a member of Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns. Like Kirkland, he had lived in Macon for a while, where he befriended Otis. He chose to cover Donnie Elbert's 1957 hit "What Can I Do" for his first Volt release. It was one of the ubiquitous Marchan's finest recordings, complete with Wayne Jackson's muted trumpet obbligato.
Booker T. And The MG's issued four singles in 1963: "Jelly Bread," "Home Grown," "Chinese Checkers" and "Mo' Onions." All four pieces were group-written, with only the latter showing any chart action at all, barely reaching #97 on the Pop charts in February 1964. (These statistics need to be understood with the knowledge that there were no R&B charts published between November 30, 1963, and January 23, 1965. The editors at Billboard thought that R&B records were crossing over so often that running both charts was redundant. They eventually came to the conclusion that they were wrong.)
January's "Jelly Bread" is an extremely aggressive outing sharing a strong affinity with both "Green Onions" and the Clovers' 1952 hit "One Mint Julep." When it was obvious that "Jelly Bread" was not going to hit, "Home Grown" was issued in February. It is the exact opposite of the earlier single, featuring an extremely relaxed laid-back Southern groove. It is drummer Al Jackson who yells "Home Grown" at the break.
"Chinese Checkers" was issued in June. It remains one of the finest MG outings. It was the first MG record to feature piano, an electric one at that, and it also presented horns for the first time on an MG recording.
"We just came up with that riff," explained Steve. "We were just trying to come up with more bass lines. That's kind of what we shot for. That was Booker's keyboard line. It sounded so good on the piano, it wouldn't really work on an organ. You couldn't roll an organ like that." Booker also came up with the horn line and played trombone on it. The record was a monster hit in San Francisco but alas nowhere else.
The appearance of the horns on "Chinese Checkers" bespoke of the fate of the Mar-Keys. The remnants of the white road band touring as the Mar-Keys had ground to a halt, burning out on the road. As well, after the failure of six attempts to follow up the success of "Last Night" (including a cover of Cannonball Adderley's "Sack-a-Woe," which despite its great groove received little attention). Virtually everyone at the company had lost interest in the integrated studio version of the group. One final shot was taken in January 1963 with the release of the Cropper-penned "Bo-Time." The record was pure Memphis, sporting a bass heavy dance-laden groove. Nevertheless, it died a quick death and that was it for the Mar-Keys until the latter part of 1964.
In the first part of the sixties there were a number of horn players that variously comprised the Stax horn section. They included baritone saxophonist Floyd Newman, tenor saxophonists Gilbert Caples, Gene Parker, Packy Axton and Andrew Love and trumpeters Wayne Jackson and Bowlegs Miller. An occasional contributor in 1962 and 1963 was trumpeter Vinnie Trauth. Along with Steve Cropper, he was credited as arranger and conductor on Carla Thomas's lone 1963 release, "What A Fool I've Been," composed by Cropper and William Bell. The record was a relative success for Carla, peaking at #28 R&B and #93 Pop.
Her father was much more successful that year, hitting with "The Dog" in February and “Walking The Dog” in October. At the time that Rufus wrote the songs, a dance called the dog already existed. He remembers writing "The Dog" on the bandstand while playing a dance:
"There was a tall beautiful black girl, had a long waistline, and she was wearing a black leather skirt, very alluring, sleek and slick. She came right in front of the bandstand and started doing the dog. We were playing a rhythm at the time. There is nothing in my head about this song. When she started doing it I was just telling her to do the dog. I changed the rhythm pattern. I was putting it together as we went along. I couldn't think of but three dogs: bull dog, bird dog, hound dog. Then I got to the part where "just do any kind of dog, just do the dog." We had three choruses and then just played the rhythm. I told everyone, 'You all just start barking like a dog' and, if you notice, on the record you hear the barking on one chorus and I was the lead dog with that bark way up there."
Rufus remembers taking the bass line from Willie Mitchell's 1962 Hi recording "The Crawl." "The Dog" hit #22 and 87 on the R&B and Pop charts. Its follow-up, "Walking The Dog," did even better, peaking at #5 R&B and #10 Pop. In January and March 1964 Rufus would chart with yet two more dog records, "Can Your Monkey Do The Dog" and "Somebody Stole My Dog." The dog craze finally came to a close in 1966 with the Mar-Keys' "Philly Dog."
Female vocalist Deanie Parker had grown up in Southern Ohio, moving to Memphis in 1961. At high school she had joined a glee club and formed a group called The Valadors. They had entered a talent contest at the Old Daisy Theatre on Beale Street, with first prize being an audition at Stax.
Deanie recalls the audition well: "Jim Stewart said, 'You do somebody else's material okay but if you're interested in a recording contract, you have to have your own material.’ I said, 'Okay, that's no big deal.' I had never written a song before in my life. I went home, sat down at the piano, wrote 'My Imaginary Guy,' called the guys over, rehearsed and rehearsed."
Deanie remembers Lewis Steinberg playing bass and occasional session player Joe Hall at the piano. There is no guitar on the record. Neither "My Imaginary Guy" nor its successor, January 1964's "Each Step I Take" (found on volume three), had much more than regional success. Nonetheless, Deanie was hooked. She spent most of her senior year working in the Satellite Record Shop. After graduating from high school she worked for a year as a DJ on WLOK before returning to Stax to work publicity. She never gave up songwriting, penning records for Carla Thomas, The Mad Lads, William Bell and Albert King over the years. She was to remain with the company until its dissolution.
One of the mystery records in the Stax catalogue has to be Cheryl and Pam Johnson's "That's My Guy." The Johnsons were two white Memphis girls that were recorded for no apparent reason. "That was one of the bizarre things that we did just to break the monotony," laughed Cropper. "There was never any hope for Cheryl and Pam." The song, seemingly a parody, was co-written by Cropper with a golf-playing buddy who also wrote commercial jingles, Ira Lichterman. Listen, and go figure.
The other mystery record on volume two is Billy And The King Bees' instrumental "Bango." None of the session musicians, songwriters, major artists at the time nor label owners can remember a thing about them. My guess, considering that neither side of the forty-five was written by Stax personnel, and given the sound of the record, is that it was either a one-shot lease deal or a one-shot recording by a white Southern frat band heavily influenced by the Mar-Keys and Booker T. And The MG's.
The only recording not yet discussed on volume two is by The Chips in their new incarnation as The Astors (the new name was taken from the Astor Hotel in Times Square in New York City). Two years had ensued since that first recording, as their lead singer Curtis Johnson had been drafted. He would be in the army for another two years but "What Can It Be" was recorded while on leave. The new release was written by guitarist Larry Lee (Lee later surfaces in Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock band). The recording is atypical of Stax. Instead of riding a heavy-on-the-low-end dance groove, The Astors opted for the doo wop sound one would more likely hear in New York or Philadelphia. The result was exquisite, but probably due to its uniqueness in the Stax/Atlantic canon, it had little chance of breaking out.
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*Irving Music, BMI Administered outside US by Rondor Music
**ABKCO Music, BMI
***Upam Music, BMI
****Mento Music, BMI
For authenticity, producer and publisher credits are listed as they
appeared on the original singles. Current Publishing information
accompanies each individual volume. Prior to 1967, producer credits
were not generally listed on single labels.
U.S. chart positions courtesy of Billboard
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This compilation (P) & © 1001 Atlantic Recording Company for the United States and WEA International Inc., for the world outside of the United States.
Stax ® and Volt ® are registered trademarks of Fantasy, Inc.
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