CD Review: Various Artists' The Best of Wattstax (2023)

The Wattstax concert was one of the most consequential and influential live events in pop culture history. Organized by Stax Records as a benefit show to commemorate the anniversary of the 1965 riots in the Watts community in Los Angeles, the concert was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on August 20th, 1972. Performers included nearly the entire Stax roster at the time, stylistically running the gamut from soul, gospel, and blues to jazz and funk. The label released a double-LP set of the concert’s highlights a few months later to critical acclaim. The event was also filmed by producer David L. Wolper and directed by Mel Stuart (best known for 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory); released in 1973 as Wattstax, the concert film won a Golden Globe Award for “Best Documentary Film.”

In recognition of the event’s 50th anniversary, CraftRecordings has released the entire freakin’ concert in various formats (more about which below). We’re only going to look at the condensed, twenty-track The Best of Wattstax CD here, which offers up highlights from the concert as “hand-picked” by Stax Records. The set kicks off with an amazing performance by R&B legend Kim Weston, singing the ‘Black National Anthem,’ “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song that created somewhat of an undeserved controversy when performed at this year’s Super Bowl game. Released by Stax as a single at the time, proceeds were donated to the United Negro College Fund. Weston knocks it out of the park with a powerful, Gospel-tinged performance. It’s a great way to kick off the CD, but then The Best of Wattstax gets mired down by a handful of Gospel performances, highlighted by the ever-welcome Staple Singers (“I’ll Take You There”) and including songs by Deborah Manning and Eric Mercury.

Luckily, The Best of Wattstax rights the ship with Lee Sain’s effervescent take on “Them Hot Pants” and pretty much rocks the house from then on. As talented as Stax’s Gospel artists may have been, people bought the label’s releases for scorching soul, rowdy funk, and lowdown blues tunes, and that’s what you’ll find on 75% of The Best of Wattstax. While mainstream talents like Isaac Hayes (“Theme From Shaft”), Carla Thomas (“B-A-B-Y”), Rufus Thomas (“The Breakdown”), and Eddie Floyd (“Knock On Wood”) put Memphis soul on the map in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, it’s the lesser-known talents like the Soul Children (“Hearsay”), the Rance Allen Group (the funkalicious “Lying On the Truth”), and William Bell (who proves himself to be the equal of anybody on the soul scene with “I Forgot To Be Your Lover”) that has had collectors’ digging through the crates for better than a half-century. Throw in stellar performances by blues legend Albert King (“I’ll Play the Blues For You”), the Temprees (“Explain It To Her Mama”), and the Bar-Kays (“I Can’t Turn You Loose”) and you have one helluva collection!

As mentioned above, Craft is also releasing Wattstax: The Complete Concert in both a six-CD and ten-album vinyl versions that feature every performance from the event, including spoken word interludes. If your bank account allows for luxury this month, or maybe you have a fat tax refund, consider investing in Soul’d Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection, a twelve-CD box set comprised of the entire L.A. Memorial Coliseum concert as well as recordings from the Summit Club, including 31 previously-unreleased performances and a 76-page, full-color book. Really, you can’t go wrong no matter which version you end up buying! (Stax Records/Craft Recordings, released February 24th, 2023)

Also on That Devil Music:
Isaac Hayes’ Stax Classics CD review
Carla Thomas’ Stax Classics CD review
Albert King’s Born Under A Bad Sign CD review

Buy the CD from Amazon: The Best of Wattstax

Short Rounds: Beach Slang, The Bar-Kays, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Delaney & Bonnie, Mott the Hoople, Television Personalities (2020)

New album releases in 150 words or less...

Beach Slang – The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbeat City (Bridge Nine)
There’s no denying that James Alex and his Beach Slang gang wear their Replacements idolatry on their collective sleeves, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbeat City. With former ‘Mats bassist Tommy Stinson helping craft the album’s sound, the band revels in the unbridled joy of playing rock ‘n’ roll with reckless abandon and guitars in overdrive. Sure, songs like “Born To Raise Hell,” “Tommy In the 80s,” and “All the Kids In L.A.” evince an obvious Replacements sonic vibe, but I think that Alex is a better lyricist (i.e. less self-absorbed) than Westerberg at this point in his career, and I hear strains of Hanoi Rocks and Superchunk in this gleeful din as well as a can’t-put-your-finger-on-it genius that separates Beach Slang from a generation of Replacements sound-alikes. I expect I’ll be playing Deadbeat Bang a helluva lot in 2020 (and so should you…). Grade: A   BUY!
 

The Bar-Kays – Gotta Groove (Craft Recordings vinyl reissue)
The Bar-Kays’ Gotta Groove was a comeback effort by a band recovering from tragedy, after losing most of its members in the plane crash that also killed Otis Redding. The survivors rebuilt the band and found the funk with this energetic comeback effort. Inspired by Sly Stone, “Don’t Stop Dancing (To the Music), Part 1” is a joyful fusion of funk ‘n’ soul with blasting horns, a busy instrumental mix, and an overall raucous party vibe. They slow it down a bit for an instrumental cover of Marvin Gaye’s “If This World Were Mine,” which displayed the band’s musical chops, but the party cranks up again with the rowdy, mostly-instrumental jam “Funky Thang.” This version of the Bar-Kays would later back up Isaac Hayes on his landmark Hot Buttered Soul LP and, as members came and went, would find success venturing further into funk and disco throughout the mid-to-late ‘70s. Grade: B   BUY!

Booker T. & the M.G.’s – Melting Pot (Craft Recordings, vinyl reissue)
With both Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper looking to exit the Stax Records factory, 1971’s Melting Pot was recorded in NYC rather than Memphis. The album lives up to title, featuring a fusion of sounds befitting Jones’ expanding artistic vision, offering longer original songs with lengthy instrumental jams. “Back Home” mixes Southern rock and soul with gospel fervor, while the down ‘n’ dirty swamp-rock of “Chicken Pox” is brimming over with imaginative keyboards and greasy guitar picking. Running nearly nine minutes, “Kinda Like Easy” is a sequel, of sorts, to the band’s early hit “Green Onions,” the song mining a similar rhythmic canvas atop which Jones layers keyboard riffs and Donald “Duck” Dunn’s bass lines echo with malice. The band’s last album for Stax, Melting Pot would become their most commercially successful album since 1967’s Hip Hug-Her, yielding a hit with an edited version of the eight-minute title track. Grade: B+   BUY!

Delaney & Bonnie – Home (Craft Recordings, vinyl reissue)
The 1969 debut by Delaney & Bonnie – the talented pairing of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett – Home was produced by Stax Records stalwarts Don Nix and Donald “Duck” Dunn, its groundbreaking sound providing a foundation for the duo’s later work, their blend of country, blues, and soul influencing the entire Americana genre. There’s a lot to like about Home, beginning with the album-opening “It’s Been A Long Time Coming,” which places Delaney’s gritty, soulful voice against Bonnie’s soaring tones for a stunning duet while the Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd-penned “We Can Love” should have been a hit single, the song reveling in a Sam Cooke groove and an Aretha vibe. Home failed to chart, and Stax dropped Delaney & Bonnie from their roster, but the album did attract the notice of people like Eric Clapton and George Harrison, who would help the duo write their next chapter of their career. Grade: B+   BUY!

Mott the Hoople – The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Madfish Records, UK)
The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll is a two-LP, vinyl-only import compilation of the legendary Mott the Hoople’s three-album tenure with Columbia Records circa 1972-74 and, as such, it’s a real gem. All the UK hits are here – “All the Young Dudes,” “Honaloochie Boogie,” “All the Way From Memphis,” “Roll Away the Stone,” and the title track. The set also includes rare B-sides and UK single versions that were unavailable to stateside fans back in the day. Throw in lesser-known obscurities like “Marionette,” “Foxy Foxy,” “Saturday Gigs,” “Rose,” “Rest In Peace,” and Mott’s inspired version of Lou Reed’s classic “Sweet Jane” and you’ll see why Ian Hunter, Mick Ralphs, Overend, and the rest of the gang inspired everybody from Queen and the Clash to Def Leppard and Kiss. Beautiful gatefold packaging with liner notes by Hunter biographer Campbell Devine makes this essential for any Hoople fanatic. Grade: A+   BUY!

Television Personalities – Some Kind of Happening (Fire Records)
The first of two double-disc volumes documenting beloved British rock institution Television Personalities, Some Kind of Happening is a collection of the band’s UK single releases circa 1978 to 1989. Although the band came of age during, and was inspired by the punk revolution, singer-songwriter Dan Treacy was too incorruptible to merely chase three-chord clichés. As such, the 45s preserved by Some Kind of Happening range from atonal post-punk and neo-psychedelia to melodic indie pop. The band was never more than a cult favorite stateside, but they influenced numerous college rockers of the 1980s and ’90s and Treacy’s restless muse, combined with his wry humor and dry wit, make songs like “Part Time Punks,” “If That’s What Love Is,” and “Paradise Estate” a joy. A whimsical cover of Syd Barrett’s “Apples and Oranges” and the Treacy original “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives” are worth the price of admission alone. Grade: A   BUY!

Previously on That Devil Music.com:
Short Rounds, January 2019: The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dana Gillespie, Manfred Mann, Mick Ronson, An A-Squared Compilation
 
Short Rounds, December 2019 (Holiday Gift Suggestions): Cindy Lee Berryhill, Black Pumas, Alice Cooper, Robyn Hitchcock & Andy Partridge, Handsome Dick Manitoba, The Muffs, Harry Nilsson, The Rosalyns & Bobby Rush 

Stax Singles, Vol. 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest box set

Craft Recordings – the catalog division of Concord Music – has announced the upcoming release of Stax Singles, Vol. 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest. The whopping six-CD box will be available on February 9th, 2018 and will feature a wealth of long-gotten single B-sides and other rarities exploring the legendary record label’s explorations in rock, pop, blues, soul, and gospel music from 1960-1975.

Offering recordings from the catalogs of both Craft and Rhino Records, who jointly control Stax’s masters, Stax Singles, Vol. 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest features four new in-depth essays by music journalist Lee Hildebrand, writer and music historian Alec Palao, and box set co-producers Bill Belmont and Rob Bowman, who is also the author of the excellent Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax Records. This fourth volume of material from the Stax vaults follows box sets released in 1991, 1994, and 1994 and takes a look beyond the label’s R&B chart hits to dig into the crates and resurrect singles from Stax subsidiaries like Ardent and Hip (rock); Chalice and Gospel Truth (gospel); and Enterprise (country) as well as instrumental and blues tracks from the pre-Stax Satellite Records imprint.

Stax Singles, Vol. 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest collects singles from over 60 diverse artists including the Staple Singers, Big Star, the Bar-Kays, Don Nix, Rufus and Carla Thomas, the Cobras, Mable John, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, the Mad Lads, Sid Selvidge, Bobby Whitlock, Billy Lee Riley, Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers, and many others. The new box set caps off a year-long celebration of Stax Records’ 60th anniversary by a unique industry partnership between Craft and Rhino that included over fifteen vinyl reissues of R&B classics like Rufus Thomas’s Walking the Dog, Sam & Dave’s Soul Men, Carla Thomas’s Carla, and Otis Redding’s Live In Europe, an exclusive Record Store Day ‘Black Friday’ release pressed on red vinyl.

Buy the box on Amazon.com: Stax Singles, Vol. 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest

Also on That Devil Music.com:
Carla Thomas - Stax Classics CD review
Isaac Hayes - Stax Classics CD review
The Dramatics - Stax Classics CD review
Sam & Dave - Stax Classics CD review