In the sixties, just as Berry Gordy up in Detroit was driving the Motown sound, down in Memphis the most influential creator and promoter of that crossover of blues/soul/pop music known as the Memphis sound was Stax Records, founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton (Stewart/Axton = Stax). Unprecedented in that time of racial tension and strife in the South, Stax’s staff and artists were ethnically integrated, including their legendary house band Booker T & the MGs, who played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and Bill Withers.

Another successful Stax act was Sam & Dave, made up of harmoniously-compatible soul singers Samuel Moore and David Prater, and today let’s enjoy their 1967 recording, Soul Man, written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Hayes had found the inspiration for the song in the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement. In July 1967 he had watched a television newscast about the aftermath of the 12th Street riot in Detroit, Michigan, and noted that black residents had daubed the word “soul” onto their buildings in the hope that the rioters would pass them by – analogous to the biblical story of the Passover, it was their way of saying “Please don’t wreck my building, I’m one of you” (so to speak). The idea morphed in Hayes’ mind into an expression of pride and defiance: “I’m a soul man!”.

The MGs were drafted in to record the song, with the help of horns from that other reliable Stax house band, the Mar-Keys, and the result was an instant smash that would enter the Grammy Hall of Fame. Sam and Dave take it in turns to sing the verses, joining in together for the choruses, and complementing each other seamlessly. One of Steve Cropper’s guitar licks is introduced by the exclamation “Play it, Steve”, a nuance that was repeated some years later when Soul Man was included as one of the soul classics paid tribute to by the makers of 1980’s The Blues Brothers movie (in which Cropper makes an appearance).

Here’s a TV appearance by the duo singing Soul Man (sans Cropper and thus sans the “Play it Steve” snippet but hey…) to an audience that doesn’t quite yet know how to move to the rhythm!