{"id":30904,"date":"2026-04-10T05:30:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30904"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:26:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T12:26:02","slug":"album-review-stax-revue-live-in-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/album-review-stax-revue-live-in-65\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Stax Revue: Live in \u201865!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In 1965, a professional recording was made at the 5-4 Ballroom in Watts, Los Angeles; the recording documented the powerhouse Stax Revue. The recordings sat unissued until 1991-92 when Stax released Funky Broadway: Stax Revue Live at The 5\/4 Ballroom<\/i>. That CD-era release featured Booker T & the MG\u2019s, The Mad Lads, The Mar-Keys, William Bell, Carla Thomas and Rufus Thomas. Now, more than three decades after that release \u2013 and 60 years after the performances themselves \u2013 a new and expanded set combines those recordings with additional tracks recorded at the Club Paradise in Memphis.<\/p>\n

Well, yes and no. Stax Revue: Live in \u201865!<\/i> isn\u2019t quite that simple. Stay with me here: The second disc features most but not all of the Funky Broadway<\/em> tracks, albeit in different order. Magnificent Montague\u2019s stage announcements are combined into the tracks (rather then banded separately), and four of five songs by Booker T & the MG\u2019s are left off. But the first disc \u2013 the Memphis tapes \u2013 captures Jones, Cropper, Dunn and Jackson playing the four songs left off the Watts portion. That first disc also adds a song by The Astors, four by David Porter and one by Wendy Rene.<\/p>\n

That second<\/i> disc also adds a previously unheard recording of Wilson Pickett singing \u201cIn the Midnight Hour,\u201d and a full 19 minutes(!) of Rufus Thomas\u2019 \u201cThe Dog.\u201d Large swaths of the track are Rufus working the crowd, but it\u2019s a lot of fun even for those of us who weren\u2019t there. And it bears repeating: the band is incendiary.<\/p>\n

With all that<\/i> sorted out, what\u2019s more important is the performances themselves. And they\u2019re a revelation. The Astors\u2019 \u201cCandy\u201d rocks, and hard<\/em>; its nothing like the sweet pop of its studio counterpart. The backing band \u2013 especially Steve Cropper and Al Jackson Jr. \u2013 are simply on fire. The soul-stirring \u201cYou Don\u2019t Miss Your Water\u201d by William Bell is a revelation; it takes the listener to (secular) church. I\u2019ve read some complaints about the audio quality, but I have no issues with it. The power of the performances and the set\u2019s historical import render such arguments null and void.<\/p>\n

The recording quality of the Memphis set is a notch below the Watts ones, but again, it\u2019s perfectly listenable. Booker T & the MG\u2019s take their songs a mite faster than the studio readings, and their approach is at once rawer and more exciting. It\u2019s amusing to recall that many of the group\u2019s hits were on the chart then known as \u201cEasy Listening.\u201d Ain\u2019t none of that easiness here; the quartet leans heavily into the tunes. And when they get subtle and soulful on \u201cSummertime,\u201d the passion oozes out of Booker T\u2019s Hammond.<\/p>\n

The appearance of David Porter is especially welcome; as important a songwriter as he is, Porter\u2019s live work isn\u2019t well documented. Even less represented on albums is soul singer Wendy Rene; she released a string of singles on Volt in 1964-5, but never cut an album in that decade. A reading of her 1964 single \u201cBar-B-Q\u201d is presented in an abbreviated, faded-out recording, but the fact that it exists at all is important.<\/p>\n

For all the reasons above, Stax Revue: Live in \u201865!<\/i> is an essential document, a time capsule capturing the epitome of Southern soul, sixties-style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1965, a professional recording was made at the 5-4 Ballroom in Watts, Los Angeles; the recording documented the powerhouse Stax Revue. The recordings sat unissued until 1991-92 when Stax […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,49,60,65,69],"tags":[382,5879,5876,5875,1900,4070,5877,5878,5880,2891],"class_list":["post-30904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-rb","category-review","category-soul","tag-booker-t-the-mgs","tag-carla-thomas","tag-david-portr","tag-mad-lads","tag-rufus-thomas","tag-stax-records","tag-the-astors","tag-the-mar-keys","tag-wendy-rene","tag-wilson-pickett","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-60-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30904"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31346,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30904\/revisions\/31346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}