Rocks In The Attic #59: Jr. Walker & The All Stars - ‘Greatest Hits’ (1969)

Another one of my Dad’s (I think). This one’s a Tamla Motown record, and features the singles of Jr. Walker & The All Stars - a very overlooked artist in the Motown canon - released between 1965 and 1969.

It’s incredible how well known their debut single Shotgun is. It’s one of those soul songs you’ve heard a million times, in films and television especially, but you might not know who performs it. Many of the songs are driven by Walker’s saxophone, but there’s something very Steve Cropper about guitarist Willie Woods, and his licks are as funky as anything.

Hit: Shotgun

Hidden Gem: Cleo’s Mood

Rocks In The Attic #29: The Bar-Kays - ‘Soul Finger’ (1967)

Thanks to my Dad, I have this in my collection - an original version of The Bar-Kays’ debut on Volt Records - Stax’s sister label - with the cover held together with a couple of strategically placed pieces of sellotape.

Soul Finger is a great soul record, drawing comparisons to label-mates Booker T. & The M.G.’s, mainly as they’re both organ-driven instrumental groups. The Bar-Keys are a little less organ-heavy compared to the earlier group, but with a brassier sound due to their compliment of saxophone and trumpet.

The band was cut down in its prime as a result of being picked up by Otis Redding as his backing band. Four of the six original members died in the same 1967 plane crash that took his life (only the trumpeter survived the crash, and the bass player was on another flight). The Bar-Kays were then repopulated with replacements, and went on to back many other Stax artists - most notably playing on Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul album - and released records all the way into the 1980s.

The Blues Brothers play a great version of the song Soul Finger, as the opening to their Made In America live LP. It’s fitting that Cropper and Dunn play that version, as the M.G.’s were instrumental (no pun intended) in cultivating The Bar-Kays through the ranks at Stax / Volt.

Soul Finger and one of The Bar-Kays’ later songs, Too Hot To Stop, also feature on the soundtrack to 2007’s Superbad.

Hit: Soul Finger

Hidden Gem: Pearl High

Rocks In The Attic #16: Booker T. & The M.G.’s - ‘McLemore Avenue’ (1970)

I bought this only last Sunday, from Real Groovy in Auckland. Got it home, put in on the turntable and while it’s on its first listen I turn on the internet and find out that Duck Dunn has passed away.

The music world has lost a lot of good people in the last couple of weeks - Levon Helm, The Beastie Boys’ MCA, Duck Dunn, and as of the day before yesterday, Donna Summer. That’s be a nice little band right there - and odd band, but something worth listening to.

McElmore Avenue, as the front cover might suggest, is Booker T. & The M.G.’s doing Abbey Road. Released only a few months as The Beatles’ swansong, it’s missing a few songs (my favourite, Oh! Darling is noticeable absent), but this gives the M.G.’s a bit of room to improvise on the songs chosen.

It’s a great little album, with the band on top form, working their way through a largely instrumental and heavily re-ordered version of Abbey Road.

Hit: Come Together

Hidden Gem: I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

Rocks In The Attic #12: Sam & Dave - ‘Star-Collection’ (1974)

Stax, without a doubt, has to be my favourite record label. And Sam & Dave are my favourite Stax artists - although depending on what mood I’m in, it could be Otis or Booker T & The MGs.


This album, a collection of their singles, is a German release - and from what I can see on the internet, it has the tracklisting as 1969’s The Best Of Sam & Dave, although the songs are presented in order.


I think that that album - the 1969 collection - is what Jake and Elwood are listening to in the Bluesmobile, on an 8-track cartridge, when they first get pulled over by the police in The Blues Brothers (1982). It’s a shame Sam & Dave didn’t feature in that film - it would have been fitting for them to have been backed by Cropper and Dunn, from the Stax backing band - but they were just about to give up touring and would never speak to each other again.


The vast majority of the songs here are written by Isaac Hayes, and his Stax writing partner David Porter - just a few years before Hayes became a household name in his own right. I have the DVD of them performing on the Stax / Volt tour of Europe back in 1967, and it’s clear that they were the hardest-working act on the label, leaving a puddle of sweat on the stage, only for Otis to add to it during his headlining slot.


Hit: Soul Man


Hidden Gem: You Don’t Know Like I Know