Tag: Stax

Saturday Matinee – Arkie Shibley, Commander Cody, Roy Acuff, Rocky Roberts & The Bo-Keys

http://youtu.be/svq1-Wxsc2A

Arkie Shibley & His Mountain Dew Boys set up the original template for the answer song “Hot Rod Lincoln” by Charlie Ryan. For decades I thought Phil Harris was the original author/artist.

HRL was later covered by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen.

Smoke on the Water by Roy Acuff.

http://youtu.be/gXQXxdkffQg

Rocky Roberts was pure awesome soul in France, but not in the US. [tip o’ the tarboosh to Bunkarina for the find.]

The Bo-Keys‘ moniker is a apparently a riff on The Bar-Kays and The Mar-Keys, both great session groups from Stax Records of Memphis Tennessee. There’s enough soul in the last vid to last you for at least a month.

Have a great weekend, and for all men who accept their duties as fathers and do it right, Happy Fathers Day.

STAX Stay In School

Stay in School, Don’t Be a Dropout (1967) was not a commercial release and less than 10,000 copies are known to exist in its original vinyl format.

Guess what’s in Bunk’s old vinyl collection!

This is a DJ album, distributed to R&B/Soul radio stations in urban areas. It’s got no lead-in tracks, meaning that the DJ had to pick what announcement or song he wanted to play and place the needle by hand. Stax/Volt was clever, in that the tracks of songs they were selling were preceded by public service announcements by the artists themselves.

“Hi, this is the big O, Otis Redding.
I was just standing here thinking about you,
Thought I’d write a song about you,
And dedicate it to you.
Take a listen.”

More info on this nice collectible here. Click to enlarge, check out the playlist, and read the commendation from Vice President Hubert Humphrey. There’s some great stuff on this album.