Franky’s is also a bellwether: soul and funk are back. The market is flooded with reissues, and new bands are copping old styles. While the charts trumpet Natalie Cole or Van Halen, real men and women are holed up with old rhythm and blues: Ike and Tina, James Brown or the magnificent “Soul Hits of the ’70s: Didn’t It Blow Your Mind!” series, which documents the impact of loud flares and big fedoras on our culture. Says Soul Kitchen’s deejay, Frankie Inglese, “Kids are into it because they’re learning about all the records rappers sampled. And because so much music today is computerized, [older] people are starving to hear … people really singing and playing on these records.” The thumping releases of 1991 were made decades ago.
Some of the best were made at 926 E. McLemore in Memphis, in a converted theater whose marquee used to read-no idle jawboning-“Soulsville U.S.A.” This was the home of the Stax and Volt labels. Where Motown was sleekly urbane, Stax was explosive and unpolished. “The Complete Stax/Volt Singles: 1959-1968,” a nine-volume boxed set, gathers 244 hits and misses into an argument for greatness. The Stax formula set a tough house band-the rhythm section was Booker T. and the MGs, with the MarKeys on horns-behind legends like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and undersung heroes like Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor. Even at close to $100 a pop, the set has sold well enough to spark plans to reissue 35 Stax LPs (the first dozen came out in May). Also in the works: compilations of Ray Charles, Fats Domino, LaVern Baker, and blaxploitation film soundtracks from the ’70s.
Ironically, our soul boom is largely imported from England, where a revival blossomed in the late ’80s. The Stax box was first assembled for overseas, and most original soul records by Brown, Franklin and Charles are available only as foreign imports. The revival recalls the pop mercantile system that took the music of Chuck Berry and sold it back to us as the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Only this time, we’re buying the raw material. Maybe this is historical revisionism, reconsidering white rock and roll as only a tangent to a larger tradition. But I prefer to consider it-with a nod to “Memphis Soul Stew” by King Curtis-“a half a teacup of bass … a pound of fatback drums … and just a little pinch of organ.” That just feels right.
