Happy 81st Birthday Mr Soul Man!

Like a number of the great Soul Singers of the 1960s Sam Moore first found his voice singing Gospel and along with Dave Prater they had both sung in Gospel groups prior to meeting in 1961where they were soon discovered and signed to Roulette Records.

Keep A' Walkin' backed by I Need Love was their debut single in 1962 (though others report that I Need Love was actually the A-Side. According to Discogs it was only the B-Side).

In 1964 they were signed to Atlantic Records by Jerry Wexler before being "loaned out" to Stax Records. Their fortunes were about to change. Their six singles on Roulette had not charted but once within the fold of Stax and a new set of songwriters (mainly David Porter and Issac Hayes) and being backed by Booker T and The MG's good things were about to follow.

Their first two singles for Stax Records in 1964, A Place Nobody Can Find / Goodnight Baby and I Take What I Want / Sweet Home did not chart.

 Hold On! I'm Comin' would be a huge smash hit for Sam & Dave in 1966 reaching #21 on The US Hot 100 to be followed a year later with their biggest hit of their career in Soul Man (peaked at #2). 

 Between You Don't Know Like I Know (1965) and I Thank You (1968) they released ten straight Top 20 R&B Chart hit singles.

Sam Moore would go on to some minor Solo success after Sam & Dave split, though there were a few reunions, the last being 31st December 1981 at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco.

Dave Prater died in a car crash 9th April 1988.

Sam Moore has performed in films and contributed to soundtracks (a re-recording of Soul Man with Lou Reed reached #30 in 1986 on the UK Singles Chart) and both he and Dave Prater were elected to The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

Sam Moore with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

25th Anniversary of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2009

(Original 1969 Atlantic Records Artwork)

 The Best of Sam & Dave - Sam & Dave

Atlantic Records

Produced by Jim Stewart, David Porter and Issac Hayes

Released 1969

US Charts #87

US R&B Chart #24

The Best of Sam & Dave

1987 CD Reissue with Bonus Tracks

(Original 1969 Atlantic Records Artwork)

(1987 German CD issue with Bonus Tracks and different Track order)

 

The Soundtrack4Life Concert Series: Stax/Volt Revue 1967 Oslo, Norway

The latest in The Soundtrack4Life Concert Series is a show of Epic Proportions! It is infectous to the point that it is impossible to sit still (even whilst watching it you just feel the passion and want to dance!). It features some of the best, (no, scrap that) It features THE BEST Soul Men on the planet at the time! Don't believe me? Look at the Poster below and you'll see that this is a bill that lives up to the EXPECTATION and it hardly even needed the hype of being termed The Greatest Soul Show!


In the Spring of 1967 "The World's Greatest Soul Show" (as advertised) touched down in Europe. The Stax/Volt Revue played 13 shows in the UK before moving across the channel. Gavin Martin of The Independent has written a great piece on those shows and about the Stax Label (Read It Here) and its impact.

Johan Hauknes has written about a particular night on the tour, 7th April 1967 when the tour hobbled into Oslo, Norway. He called it 'The Holy Grail of Soul Music - The Stax/Volt Revue Tour of 1967'. And amazingly it almost never happened! 

The Tour Bus was late getting in, minutes past the scheduled start of the show, there was no time for soundchecks, the instruments were already there (provided by the promoter) so after checking all was plugged in correctly the show began, oh and I don't know if they were aware of it at the time, there was also a film crew capturing what is surely the finest bills you'd ever want to see!

There was dancing, no lip-synching and just pure sensational joy that stems from the stage and infects the audience! How could anyone sit still to this stuff!

Hope you enjoy it.

Rewind: 1967 Soul Men - Sam & Dave

Sam and Dave's biggest hit and best remembered song, "Soul Man" (R&B #1/Pop #2), was released in August 1967. It was the number #1 song in the US according to Cashbox magazine Pop charts in November 1967. Sam & Dave won the Grammy Award in 1967 for "Best Performance – Rhythm & Blues Group" for "Soul Man", their first gold record. "Soul Man" was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. The song helped popularize the term to describe the emerging music genre "Soul Music" that would be so popular in the late 1960s. According to co-writer Isaac Hayes, the title was inspired by news reports of soul pride that emerged after the 1967 race riots, where stories that painting the word "soul" on your door was a message for looters to bypass your house. Hayes-Porter extrapolated that to "I'm a soul brother, I'm a soul man.". It has been recognized as one of the best or most influential songs of 50 years by the Grammy Hall of Fame, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone, and R.I.A.A. Songs of the Century. "Soul Man" was used as the soundtrack and title for a 1986 film, a 2008 film Soul Men, a 1997–1998 television series.

The Soul Men LP (October 1967) was Sam & Dave's third Stax LP, reaching #5 on the R&B charts and #68 Pop. Musicologist Rob Bowman called Soul Men "One of the greatest soul music albums of all time." "Don't Knock It" from the LP was released as a single in France, but other songs were not released as U.S. singles due to the long run by "Soul Man" on the Pop charts (15 weeks), by which time "I Thank You/Wrap it Up" was ready for release. "May I Baby", the b-side of "Soul Man", is also regarded as a classic non-hot 100 song on the LP by Whitburn's "Top Pop Singles" Guide, and was a popular live song performed frequently by Sam & Dave.

Soul Men - Sam and Dave

Stax/Atlantic

Produced by Issac Hayes and David Porter

Released 26th October 1967
US Pop Chart #68
US R&B Chart #5

Personnel
    Sam Moore - vocals
    Dave Prater - vocals
    Booker T. & the MG's and the Mar-Key Horns - instrumentation:
        Booker T. Jones - keyboards
        Steve Cropper - guitar
        Donald "Duck" Dunn - bass guitar
        Al Jackson, Jr. - drums
        Charles "Packy" Axton - tenor saxophone
        Don Nix - saxophone
        Wayne Jackson - trombone, trumpet
        Isaac Hayes - organ

Apologies for the Sound Quality on this