So tonight sees some soul / R&B getting ripped. The Rev. Al Green’s two disc set ‘Take Me To The River’ is a nice compilation… but the fact that I am missing his actual albums in my collection is a bit of an embarrassment to me. In fact, though I have thousands of discs to rip in this whole project, I am already starting to gasp at some of the things that are missing from my library, and Al Green certainly needs to be represented by more then just a two disc set. In fact, there is a lot of great R&B and Soul that is just not here on CD. Some of it I have on LP, but some I have just never gotten around to buying.

The Stax 50th Anniversary two disc set represents another gaping hole… but this one is huge. For YEARS I have wanted the Stax Singles box sets that used to sit on racks at Tower whispering ‘buy me! buy me!’. There are a few labels that I am willing to explore just as labels, and Stax is one of them. Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, Issac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Jean Knight… what an AMAZING amount of talent this label cultivated! Like Motown, the label had a house band (Booker T. and the MGs) that provided the base sound for most of the singers that would come through the studios. As the label moved into the 70s, theirs stars would often bring in other musicians to back them up, but the label defined a brand of Soul / R & B that was solid and edgy. And at times, just plain hilarious. The Bar-Kays singing ‘Soul Finger’ or Rufus Thomas’ singing ‘Do The Funky Chicken’ are not meant to be anything more but fun songs. While Isaac Hayes’ extended orchestrated LP sides are colossal works, where ‘Shaft’ carried with it a rather loaded social commentary as well.

I checked a few months ago, and eMusic luckily carries Stax recordings. It would be well worth a few months downloads to grab those singles box sets. Then the other part of me thinks ‘I must be able to find those used somewhere… no???’. For now I have this two disc set, and I can certainly keep my fingers snapping along with the music until I start trying to fill in those holes.