The Astors were a South Memphis soul group that recorded a handful of singles for the Stax label in the 1960’s. On Sunday April 28, …
#077 William Bell & The Bo-Keys-I Forgot To Be Your Lover.MOV (by jdoggtn7)
William Bell performs his biggest hit on the Stax to the Max stage at the Soulsville Street Festival in South Memphis, 4/28/12
At the Wendy Rene listening party at the Stax Museum in Memphis, February 21, 2012
At the Wendy Rene listening party at the Stax Museum in Memphis, February 21, 2012
Today at the Stax Museum, a listening party was held for the new album from Wendy Rene, a Light in the Attic compilation that makes available for the first time all the recordings Wendy made for Stax in the early 1960’s, including some that had never been released. Wendy Rene was there to meet people and sign autographs, and great music was provided by a crew of Djs spinning rare soul, including DJ Daniel and Scott Bomar of the Bo-Keys. Also on hand were local rap stars Playa Fly and Cities Aviv, trumpeter Ben Cauley, Stax historian Deanie Parker and music journalist Andrea Lisle. Truly a great occasion to celebrate a great person and some great music!
Today at the Stax Museum, a listening party was held for the new album from Wendy Rene, a Light in the Attic compilation that makes available for the first time all the recordings Wendy made for Stax in the early 1960’s, including some that had never been released. Wendy Rene was there to meet people and sign autographs, and great music was provided by a crew of Djs spinning rare soul, including DJ Daniel and Scott Bomar of the Bo-Keys. Also on hand were local rap stars Playa Fly and Cities Aviv, trumpeter Ben Cauley, Stax historian Deanie Parker and music journalist Andrea Lisle. Truly a great occasion to celebrate a great person and some great music!
At the Wendy Rene reissue listening party at the Stax Museum in Memphis (Taken with Instagram at Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
In some ways, Charles “Packy” Axton was the forgotten man in the Stax Records saga. The son of one of the partners, Estelle Axton, he was a saxophone player in the original Stax band, the Mar-Keys, along with Don Nix and others. Exiled from Stax by his uncle, Jim Stewart (by some accounts due to drugs and/or alcohol), he recorded only a handful of sides before dying tragically in 1974, only in his thirties. But the really hip Light in the Attic Records label out of Seattle has assembled all the material they could find into one cool CD called “Late Late Party”, and the album release party at the Stax Museum was something of an all-star gala, despite the odd time of 4 PM on a Tuesday afternoon. Scott Bomar of the Bo-Keys was there, as well as Andrea Lisle, local Memphis music writer, Robert Gordon, the author of It Came From Memphis, legendary bluesman/photographer Don Nix, who had been Packy’s bandmate in the Mar-Keys, and L. H. White, who was the “L.H.” in L. H. and the Memphis Sounds, who cut four sides under Packy’s direction that would ultimately come out on the Nashville-based Hollywood label. Altogether, it was a good time with good music, and the only sad thing being that Charles “Packy” Axton never saw such acclaim during his lifetime.
If there is a music that is the essence of Memphis, it is blues. Jazz came up the river from New Orleans, of course, gospel had a foothold here, rock and roll was born when the blues was taken up by white kids who had been raised on hillbilly music. Later Memphis would be known for soul. But through it all, blues has been Memphis’ one constant, no matter what other changes might occur, and even a soul label like Stax had a formidable roster of blues artists.
And in discussing the album Bluesfinger from Memphis’ Daddy Mack Blues Band, the mention of Stax Records is appropriate, for the spirit and influence of Stax hovers lovingly over nearly every track. “Mailman”, the second track on the album shows a stylistic affinity with long-time Stax bluesman Albert King, while the title track is a reworking of the Bar-Kays’ legendary “Soulfinger”, retitled to emphasize the blues nature of the band and the tune itself. Other fine-crafted blues tunes deal with hard financial time (“Great Recession Blues”), the difficult life on the road for blues musicians (“Long Hard Road”) or standard themes of love and desire (“Can’t Make It Without Your Love”, “If You Got It”). The final track “Always Want You” leaves the Memphis sonic landscape for that of New Orleans, showing the style of blues from Louisiana that helped give birth to the genre known as “swamp pop.” Bluesfinger makes few concessions to current trends or popular tastes, but for fans of true Memphis soul and blues and the sounds of classic Stax, this new album is a dream come true.
