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Volume Five
1. Stop! Look What You’re Doing – Carla Thomas (2:30)
(Isbell-Floyd)
East-Falart Music*
Stax 172
Released May 26, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #30 / Pop #92
2. Willy Nilly – Rufus Thomas (2:37)
(Hayes-Porter)
East Music*
Stax 173
Released June 29, 1965
3. Don’t Have To Shop Around – Mad Lads (2:45)
(Shann-Love-Jones)
Makamillion Music**
Volt 127
Released June 12, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #11 / Pop #93
4. Crying All By Myself – William Bell (2:35)
(Cropper-Jones-Bell)
East Music*
Stax 174
Released July 6, 1965
5. I Take What I Want – Sam & Dave (2:20)
(Hayes-Hodges-Porter)
East-Cotillion Music***
Stax 175
Released August 13, 1965
6. When You Move You Lose – Rufus & Carla (2:43)
(Hayes-Porter)
East Music*
Stax 176
Released August 13, 1965
7. Respect – Otis Redding (2:06)
(Redding)
East-Time-Redwal Music*
Volt 128
Released August 15, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #4 / Pop #35
8. Make It Me – The Premiers (2:25)
(Hayes-Porter)
East Music***
Stax 177
Released September, 1965
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
9. The World Is Round – Rufus Thomas (2:20)
(Thomas)
East Music*
Stax 178
Released September 10, 1965
10. In The Twilight Zone – The Astors (2:40)
(Hayes-Bailey-Porter)
East Music*
Stax 179
Released September 30, 1965
11. Blue Groove – Sir Isaac & the Do-Dads (2:40)
(Hudson)
East Music****
Volt 129
Released November 10, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #7 / Pop #90
Released under license from Fantasy, Inc.
12. You Don’t Know Like I Know – Sam & Dave (2:36)
(Hayes-Porter)
East Music***
Stax 180
Released November 10, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #7 / Pop #90
13. Grab This Thing (Part 1) – Mar-Keys (2:31)
(Cropper-Isbell)
East Music*
Stax 181
Released November 19, 1965
14. Be My Lady – Booker T. & the MGs (2:20)
(Cropper-Dunn-Jackson-Jones)
East Music*
Stax 182
Released November 17, 1965
15. Comfort Me – Carla Thomas (2:35)
(Cropper-Floyd-Isbell)
East Music*
Stax 183
Released December 3, 1965
16. I Can’t Turn You Loose – Otis Redding (2:35)
(Redding)
East-Time-Redwal Music
Volt 130
Released December, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #11
17. Just One More Day – Otis Redding (2:55)
(Redding-Cropper-Robinson)
East-Time-Redwal Music
Volt 130-B
Released December, 1965
Highest Chart Position: R&B #15 / Pop #85
18. I Want Someone – Mad Lads (2:37)
(Parker-E. Axton)
East Music*
Volt 131
Released January 14, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #10 / Pop #74
19. Birds & Bees – Rufus & Carla (2:20)
(Newman)
Pattern Music, ASCAP
Stax 184
Released January 17, 1966
20. Philly Dog – Mar-Keys (2:14)
(Thomas)
East Music*
Stax 185
Released January 23, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #19 / Pop #89
21. I Had A Dream – Johnnie Taylor (2:59)
(Porter-Hayes)
East Music*
Stax 186
Released February 1, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #19
22. Satisfaction – Otis Redding (2:43)
(Jagger-Richards)
Immediate Music, ABKCO Music, BMI
Volt 132
Released February 15, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #4 / Pop #31
23. Things Get Better – Eddie Floyd (2:20)
(Cropper-Floyd-Jackson)
East Music*
Stax 187
Released March 8, 1966
24. I’ll Run Your Hurt Away – Ruby Johnson (3:00)
(Porter-Hayes)
East Music*
Volt 133
Released March 14, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #31
25. Hot Dog – Four Shells (2:05)
(Calvin-Harper-Exon-Calvin)
East Music*
Volt 134
Released March 14, 1966
26. Let Me Be Good To You – Carla Thomas (2:40)
(Porter-Hayes-Wells)
East Music*
Released March 22, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #11 / Pop #62
27. Hold On! I’m Coming’ – Sam & Dave (2:30)
(Hayes-Porter)
East-Pronto Music***
Released March 14, 1966
Highest Chart Position: R&B #1 / Pop #21
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1965 was a very important year for Stax. In many ways it was the year that the label's sound finally coalesced. The results included the beginning of Sam And Dave's phenomenal chart run, Otis's "Respect," and The Mad Lads' first chart hit. As well, 1965 was the year that Washington DJ Al Bell joined the company as head of promotion. Bell proved to be much more than a promotion man. From the start he helped in the writing of songs, he brought a number of artists to the label and within a few years he would be vice-president of the company. By 1972 he owned the label.
1965 was also the year that Stax's relationship with Atlantic led to Wilson Pickett recording "In The Midnight Hour," "Don't Fight It," "634-5789 (Soulsville U.S.A.)" and "Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won't Do)" at the McLemore studio, utilizing Booker T. And The MG's, the Mar-Key horns and Stax songwriters Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd. It was during those sessions in May 1965, produced by Atlantic co-owner Jerry Wexler, that the Stax rhythmic conception of a minutely delayed beat four was developed, inspired by Wexler's dancing of the then-new Northern dance, the jerk.
This rhythm can be heard on all subsequent uptempo Stax recordings in the sixties including "Hold On! I'm Comin'," "Respect" and "Soul Man."
That same spring Atlantic's engineering wizard Tom Dowd came down to Memphis to install a four-track recorder for the Otis Blue LP sessions. Stax/Volt sessions could now be recorded in stereo with the possibility of overdubbing.
Three months after Al Bell came to the label he brought an artist named Eddie Floyd to Stax. Bell had been recording Floyd on his Safice label in Washington, D.C. Floyd, of course, would shortly become a star in his own right, writing and recording hits such as "Knock On Wood" and "Raise Your Hand." Initially, though, Jim Stewart viewed Floyd as a songwriter only. Together with Bell, he penned Carla Thomas's May and December 1965 releases. (The label credit reads "Floyd-Isbell" as Isbell was Bell's real name.) "Stop! Look What You're Doing" was Carla's biggest hit since 1963's "What A Fool I've Been," reaching #30 on the R&B charts and #92 on the Pop listings. A Washington friend of Bell's and Floyd's, guitarist Al McLoud, came down to Memphis for the session.
"We called him the other Curtis Mayfield," said Carla. "He had the most beautiful guitar playing I'd ever heard. It had a different style than the Memphis style. It was more sophisticated."
If one listens closely one can also hear McLoud singing in the background. On Carla's December forty-five, "Comfort Me," co-written by Floyd, Bell and Steve Cropper, Gladys Knight and the Pips handle the background chores. They were playing a gig in Memphis and Carla invited them back to the studio. Oddly, coming off the success of "Stop! Look What You're Doing," the record failed to chart.
Carla corrected that problem in the spring of 1966 in a big way with "Let Me Be Good To You." The song was co-authored by David Porter, Isaac Hayes and Carl Wells. Wells was an "older white guy" (Porter estimates that he was near 60) who contributed the title. "He was one of those guys who would hang around the studio," said Porter. "I just liked him. I tried to do something with some of his ideas." The recording had an irresistible swinging bass and piano line pushing it to #1 R&B and #62 Pop. Isaac Hayes and David Porter would take Carla to even dizzier heights in the fall of 1966, but more on that later.
Carla could also be heard on record in tandem with her father twice during this period. Hayes and Porter wrote August 1965's bluesy "When You Move You Lose" (dig Al Jackson's military rolls) while shortly after New Years 1966 the Thomas duo could be heard covering Jewel Akens's hit "The Birds And The Bees" of nine months earlier on Era Records. For some reason Stax economised on the title, shortening it to simply "Birds And Bees."
Hayes and Porter had also penned Rufus Thomas's summer 1965 single, "Willy Nilly," much to the singer's disenchantment. "I hated that song," winced Rufus. '''Willy Nilly' is the worst song I ever heard in my life. I hated it." The record buying public seemed to have agreed with Rufus as the record died a quick death. The title was inspired by then President Lyndon Johnson. "It was on the front page of the paper," stated Porter. '''Johnson says that the Communist situation is willy nilly.' The title came off of the front page of The Commercial Appeal as a Presidential quote.”
Undeservedly, September's Rufus Thomas release, "The World Is Round," didn't chart either. Rufus had partially adapted one side of his 1950s release on Meteor, "The Easy Living Plan," into an easygoing swinging dance groove.
From this point until the start of Hayes' solo career in late 1969, the songwriting team of Hayes-Porter was omnipresent at Stax. The first time that the two of them, as a team, had written for Sam And Dave was the vocal duo's second Stax forty-five, "I Take What I Want."
"That was a song that I got out of a magazine called Bronze Thrills," reminisced David Porter. "The [magazine] talked about black experiences in romance and very often they had super titles on the covers to sell the magazine. 'I Take What I Want' was one of those titles."
Sharing in the songwriting credit was a young Teenie Hodges (later of the Hi Rhythm Section and co-writer of Al Green's "Take Me To The River" and "Love And Happiness"). Teenie was a familiar sight hanging out at the Stax studio. The day that Hayes and Porter were writing "I Take What I Want" was no exception. Steve Cropper happened to be absent and Teenie ended up playing guitar on the record. To encourage the younger Hodges to write, Porter and Hayes gave him a songwriting credit.
"I Take What 1 Want" was to provide the model for the majority of Sam And Dave's Stax forty-fives. An uptempo churner, the high point comes when Sam sings solo in the middle section over a bass and drums near-dub arrangement, Sam sounding as if he is ready to burst just before he contains himself and settles back into the chorus.
Sam And Dave's third Stax forty-five, "You Don't Know Like I Know," was laid down in the fall of 1965. This was to be the key record for the duo as for the first time in ten releases spanning Alston, Marlin, Roulette and Stax, Sam And Dave charted, hitting a giddy #7 on the R&B charts while scraping the lower reaches of the Pop listings at #90.
It is interesting to note that Sam Moore disliked the song intensely. "Fifty per cent of the songs that were presented to me at Stax I didn't like," exclaimed Sam. "I remember saying to myself, 'Oh my God what is this - I don't like this kind of singing.' It's hard singing. I wanted to do stuff like Sam [Cooke] and Willie [John] and Jackie [Wilson]."
The thing he hated the most was that Hayes and Porter always made him sing up high in his range. "They always said, 'You sing up there' because they would say that's where my strength was. I would get angry but that's what I would do."
"You Don't Know Like I Know," despite Sam's reservations, is indelibly infectious, opening with doubled guitar and bass while Al Jackson keeps time by simply tapping his drum sticks together. The horns, piano, and full drum kit join in on the third and fourth bars followed by Sam And Dave in unison singing the chorus. Dave takes the first verse with the exception of the last ungodly "alright," which is uttered by Sam. The two of them trade lines on the second verse with Dave singing the first and third, Sam the second, and both delivering the fourth. Wearing their gospel influences on their sleeves, both of them add cries of pleading on the harmonically adventurous horn interlude and the record comes to a close with a repeat of the first verse followed by a strutting ad-lib call-and-response. The basic idea for the song came from Hayes. Adapting the melody, chords and first four lines from a gospel song, "You Don't Know What The Lord Has Done For Me," he concocted a soul classic.
"After 'You Don't Know Like I Know' hit, then it became fun," grinned Porter. "The formula was down and we were not going to miss."
The lyric formula Porter refers to is one that he deduced from an autumn 1965 Motown recording, the Temptations' "Don't Look Back." Porter figured out the lyric structure for "Don't Look Back" and noted that a number of Motown hits followed exactly the same pattern. They all had an opening that laid out a situation, followed that with a bit of action, and then some sort of conclusion. All of these songs were written in the first person and none of them concluded via a complete resolution.
"All of the songs followed that formula," smiled Porter. "I knew right then. I said, 'Hey, we're gonna be some bad dudes in this music industry.' That's when the thought processes really started working and an identity started taking place."
The first song that this formula was applied to was "Hold On! I'm Comin'."
Released in March 1966, the record became Sam And Dave's second most popular waxing ever, hitting #1 on the R&B charts and reaching #21 on the Pop listings (the first time Stax had made a decent showing on the Pop charts in three years). The genesis of the song's lyrics came about while Dave Porter was in the men's room. Isaac Hayes, getting impatient, hollered at Porter to "get a move on." Porter's response: "Hold on, man, I'm coming."
Once the lyrics were worked out, the instantly memorable opening ascending horn line was borrowed from an unsuccessful earlier session for another song. Al Jackson's drum part on the verses was an uptempo version of the drum line heard on New Orleans artist Lee Dorsey's hit of a few months earlier, "Get Out Of My Life Woman," while Steve Cropper's guitar part was seemingly very James Brown-influenced. Stax did not get any funkier in the 1960s.
Sam Moore, for the first time at Stax, gets the lead vocal from the word go. Turning in one of his greatest performances, highlights abound. In particular, note the second half of the middle eight as Sam rips wide open on a series of four ascending 'yeahs." Also worth mentioning is the repeat of the first verse. Sam begins at full steam and becomes more apocalyptic as he goes on.
The instrumental performance, fueled by Al Jackson's cannon-like snare and Wayne Jackson's pinched muted trumpet response on the chorus, keeps pace with the incendiary vocals. A mistake does occur when Sam And Dave immediately repeat the second chorus, catching Wayne by surprise and causing the trumpeter to miss his first response on the repeat. The astute listener might also note that right at the beginning after the vocal comes in, the tempo slows down. Today such an “unseemly aberrations" would be immediately corrected. At Stax they only added to the magic. If a given take had that gospel-infused sanctimonious feeling, it was kept, warts and all.
As the fall of 1965 worked its way through the winter of 1966, Hayes and Porter were also writing songs for The Premiers, The Astors, Ruby Johnson and Johnnie Taylor. The Premiers consisted of lead vocalist Carita Harrison, her brother Eddie Harrison Jr. (high tenor), Fred Henderson (second tenor), Quincy Billops (baritone), and Billy Moore (bass). Billops would go on to serve time with both The Mad Lads and Ollie And The Nightingales, while Eddie Harrison was later heard as the lead singer of the Short Kuts on the Memphis-based Pepper label. They came to Stax through booking agent Rick Taylor at Continental Artists. He brought them to David Porter who nearly immediately brought them into the studio to cut the sensuous "Make It Me." (As fate would have it, Eddie Harrison, Billy Moore and Isaac Hayes had gone to school together and had actually played in the same group, the Missiles, at Manassas High School.) The group dissolved shortly after making the record, although various members occasionally did some background vocal work at Stax.
The Astors followed their hit single "Candy" with a Hayes-Porter-Sidney Bailey-charged production entitled "In The Twilight Zone." Opening with appropriate outer limits-like sounds and featuring a great lead vocal from Curtis Johnson, the record inexplicably failed. Johnson remembers that a number of radio jocks complained that the vocal was too far down in the mix. That was a complaint that was often leveled at Stax, most often from Atlantic's Jerry Wexler. Steve Cropper and Jim Stewart decidedly preferred their mixes to sound that way. Undeniably it resulted in great records but perhaps it also hurt them commercially.
For Johnnie Taylor's first Stax recording Hayes and Porter wrote one of their rare blues songs, the melancholy "I Had A Dream." "That was a song that I originally shopped with Duke Records and Don Robey for Bobby Blue Bland," recalled Porter. "I called Don Robey, who at the time didn't know anything about David Porter or Isaac Hayes. I was trying to find out if we could get the song on Bobby Bland because at that time Bobby Bland was much stronger than Johnnie Taylor. Don Robey called me back and offered $300 for the song. I didn't know what he meant. I thought he was offering $300 and then he'd pay us royalties. He was offering $300 to buy the song totally. I thought, You got to be kidding, So I just said, 'Thank you Mr. Robey' and hung the phone up and never spoke to him again."
Served up by Taylor, "I Had A Dream" climbed the R&B charts to the #19 spot. This was Taylor's first major success. Born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, in 1938, Taylor had sung gospel with the Melody Makers, the Five Echoes, the Highway QC's and the Soul Stirrers before recording a number of secular numbers for Sam Cooke's Sar/Derby outfit. After Cooke's death in 1964 Taylor found himself label-shopping.
Taylor picks up the story: "I was living in Kansas City. I got to St. Louis and I decided I'd toss up a dime. I said, 'Should I go towards Detroit for Motown or should I take the Southern route to Stax?' and Stax won out."
Another new artist at Stax was Ruby Johnson. Johnson hailed from Washington, D.C., where she had originally recorded for V-Tone. She was brought to the label by Al Bell. She was a big woman with a voice to match. David Porter had a lot of hope for her debut record, "I'll Run Your Hurt Away." "[That] was one of the first songs that we got a shot to do what we really felt confident in. The song was so emotional for me 'till I broke down and cried just in writing it." Johnson sounds as if she is about to break down while singing it. Despite the fact that it reached the #3 position on the R&B charts, today it is virtually unknown. It is one of the great obscurities that are resurrected on this collection.
Isaac Hayes was integrally involved in yet one more record around this time and that was an instrumental cut under the name Sir Isaac And The Do-Dads. The Do-Dads, including Isaac, had been the backing band a few years earlier for Memphis singer Jeb Stuart (who recorded in Memphis for the Phillips, Bingo, and Youngstown labels among others). Isaac decided it would be fun to cut a record with them. "Blue Groove" was cut in the fall of 1965. The writers were trumpeter George Hudson and drummer Edward Skinner. The former dominates the recording, bringing a smile to Isaac's face. "Oh I loved his trumpet. I swear to God he had a trumpet so sweet. He played the trumpet like somebody would play the saxophone." As the final release before the label's distribution agreement with Atlantic was formalized, this was the last Stax/Volt record that Atlantic decided to pass on distribution rights for until 1968's charity disc by the Memphis Nomads.
The same month that Ruby Johnson debuted on Volt. Eddie Floyd released his first Stax forty-five. Floyd co-wrote "Things Get Better" with Steve Cropper and Wayne Jackson at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis (the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King and a longtime Stax hangout). According to Floyd, what was released was no more than a demo. The lyric idea came from the Coca-Cola ad "Things go better with Coca-Cola." The record failed to click in the United States but did provide Floyd with his first U.K. club hit.
The rejuvenated Mar-Keys got hot around this time, cutting first the Steve Cropper-Al Bell tune "Grab This Thing" and then charting again with a variation on Rufus Thomas's "Dog" recordings called "Philly Dog." The session was originally called for Rufus. "Rufus's words were not gelling," recalled Floyd Newman. "He was a disc jockey [on WDIA] at that particular time and he had to go to work. It just wasn't coming off. Rufus carries a groove in his songs but on that particular day he was in a hurry 'cause he had to go to work. We had been there so long and his time was running out. So he left and went to work. Jim said, 'Why don't you all try to work something out on that?' We messed around with it and the melody lines that we were working on [with Rufus] didn't work so we just disbanded it and started working on something else in another direction and that's where 'Philly Dog' came from."
Out of courtesy the writing credit remained Rufus Thomas. The title came about, according to Wayne Jackson, because "Philadelphia was always the place where the dances came out of." Gene Parker takes the tenor solo on the tune, helping the record to the 19th spot R&B and the 89th position Pop.
Booker T. And The MG's' fall '65 release was the funkified "Be My Lady." Group-written with an impulsive and catchy groove, it didn't manage to chart.
Late 1965 and early 1966 proved to be the hottest period in The Mad Lads' career. Their second release. "Don't Have To Shop Around," went #11 R&B and #93 Pop while its follow-up, "I Want Someone," sailed to # 1 a and #74 on the two charts. The former was written by bassist Allen Jones and his roommate, pianist Richard Shan. Both were Memphis natives who had been trying to work their way into the company. Shan was never too successful, but Jones would soon get hired to audition demo tapes, become a staff songwriter and producer and eventually manage the Bar-Kays. The tune he had concocted for The Mad Lads was a gossamer, shimmering ballad that beautifully juxtaposed Isaac Hayes' organ and Booker T's piano with a vibraphone. Apparently the record had already been cut by a local white Memphis group (no one remembers who they were anymore). The Mad Lads remember learning the song in the attic above the studio with Shan playing the piano. A few hours and two takes later they had a hit. As was the case with The Astors, The Mad Lads were huge in Philadelphia.
The group's second hit, "I Want Someone," was credited to Deanie Parker and Estelle Axton. According to Estelle, the record was produced by Packy Axton while Jim Stewart was out of town. Deanie played the piano on the record. She recalls quite clearly the inspiration for the song: "Miss Axton kept running around, 'Somebody needs to come up with a ballad, somebody needs to do a ballad.' I said, 'Okay. Miss Axton, you write the words and I'll write the melody.' So sure enough she came in with these lyrics and I thought these were the worst damn lyrics but I went back and got on the piano. If I remember correctly we finished the lyrics together and I put that simple melody to it and Miss Axton and I got back in the studio with those Mad Lads. Miss Axton and I were out to show the rest of them that 'if you all can't do it, we'll do it.'''
Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton regularly disagreed on just about everything by this point. "When Jim got back to town," laughed Estelle, "I told Deanie, 'Don't you breathe to Jim that I had anything to do with this even though my name is going on the record as half writer. Don't mention it at this point 'cause the record will never get out.' So she didn't. Soon as Jim got back in town she said, 'Jim we got something fantastic on The Mad Lads.' 'Good, let me hear it.' He went back. 'Boy that's great, we're going to have a hit with that record right quick.''' When he found out that Estelle had co-written it, it was too late to change his mind.
Immediately following the release of "Don't Have To Shop Around" came William Bell's first post-Army record, "Crying All By Myself." The record sounded very similar to one of the exquisitely sweet ballads that Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions were recording up in Chicago. Bell had left the writing to Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones as he felt that having been overseas for so long he was out of sync with what was happening musically in the States. He spent the next few months glued to the radio, trying to figure out what was current.
Otis Redding was in the process of defining what was current. He was a master of both the drawn-out heart wrenching slow ballad and the stomping uptempo house-wrecker such as "Respect," "I Can't Turn You Loose" and "Satisfaction." He was also one of the finest writers soul music has ever seen, an idiosyncratic vocalist and, more than anyone else, the creator of the mature Stax/Volt horn line. Only two Otis records ever featured background vocalists (interestingly, one was the B-side of his second release while the other was recorded during the last two weeks of his life). On the rest, horns took the role of a background chorus; answering, supporting, swelling, breathing just as human voices do. His conception of horn lines can be heard on virtually every subsequent Stax/Volt release in the sixties. Both Steve Cropper and Isaac Hayes cite Otis Redding sessions as the classroom where they learned the ABCs of horn arrangements.
One of Redding's finest uptempo stomps was "Respect." Duck Dunn's imaginative pulsing bass figure and Al Jackson's flat-sounding four-on-the-floor snare pattern (replete with machine gun blasts) fire what is an absolutely transcendent recording. The second voice on the "Hey hey-hey" hook is that of William Bell (on the album version it is that of longtime friend and road manager Fad "Speedo" Sims). The record was a #4 and #35 R&B and Pop chart entry respectively.
"I Can't Turn You Loose" did nearly as well on the R&B charts, reaching a plateau of #11, albeit having a disappointing run in the Pop market, crashing at #85. Redding, as he often would, went into the studio with only the idea for the horn line, the tempo, the lyric "hip shakin' mama I love you," and the title. The rest was worked out on the floor. He shares the writing credit with Cropper and McElvoy Robinson. Robinson was the bass player and leader of Otis's road band at the time. He was given credit, according to Phil Walden, as Otis was trying to encourage him to write. The B-side, the breathtaking ballad "Just One More Day,” shares the same writing credit. It too charted, working its way up to # 15 R&B.
Redding next covered the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." The song came about through happenstance while he was cutting the Otis Blue LP. In the midst of the marathon two-day session that produced the LP, Otis took a break and left the studio to have a physical for insurance purposes. Scrounging for material to round out the album, Steve Cropper had a brainstorm: "It was my idea to do it. I went up to the front of the record shop, got a copy of the record, played it for the band and wrote down the lyrics ... [Otis] just didn't know the song. He hadn't heard it as far as I know."
Redding's manager Phil Walden concurs: "Otis kind of read the lyrics through about once or twice and then just really jumped right into the thing. That was a real spontaneous record. He had never heard the Rolling Stones' version."
Redding handled "Satisfaction" as he did nearly all non-original material. He roared through it like a freight train unbridled all the way to the fourth R&B and 31st Pop spot on Billboard's charts.
The last record to discuss on volume five is the Four Shells' "Hot Dog." The record was group written and produced by Jerry Butler and Eddie Thomas. Presumably the group was from Chicago and the record was a one-off lease deal with Stax/Volt. In general, it is pretty undistinguished. As the Shells, they also cut a Butler-produced record for the Conlo label which, in turn, was distributed by Cameo Parkway.
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*Irving Music, BMI Administered outside the US by Warner Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
**Makamillion Music, BMI Administered by Warner Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
***Pronto Music/Irving Music, BMI Administered by Warner Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
****Irving Music, BMI Administered outside the US by Rondor Music
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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