In 2022, Craft Recordings celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of the most significant musical events of the 1970s, when nearly 100,000 Black Los Angelenos crowded the Los Angeles Coliseum to enjoy Wattstax. Featuring many of the outstanding musicians on Stax Records, the concert commemorated the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots. Seven years prior, though, just a few days before the neighborhood of Watts erupted in a furious backlash to violent and racist policing, a much less nationally notable Stax Records flew a group of artists to play their first Los Angeles concert. Stax and Craft Recordings have remastered this and unearthed another show for the two-disc set, Stax Revue: Live in ’65!
Over the weekend of 7 August 1965, Stax artists played upstairs at the 700-capacity 5-4 Ballroom in Watts. They included Rufus & Carla Thomas, as well as Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the Mar-Keys, the Mad Lads, Wilson Pickett, the Astors, and William Bell. While lacking the fame of other musicians at the label throughout the years (Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staples Sisters), this group still perfectly reflected Memphis soul and the Stax sound: soulful, raw, loud, and subtly Southern.
The M.G.’s and the Mar-Keys operated as the house bands for Stax at the time, and they are a constant welcome presence throughout the concert. They seem plugged in (to each other, to the room, to the city) and energetically complement each successive singer and their different styles, even if a couple of them blend into each other. The remastered recording (courtesy of Grammy-nominated engineer Joe Tarantino) captures not just the energy of the musicians, but of the audience as well. The mixing features them at just the right moments, transporting us back to the sweaty summer nights at the 5-4 Ballroom.
Some of the liveliness and vigor of the 5-4 Ballroom concert is a result of its speed, with only two artists performing more than a single song. It’s also just about 36 minutes long, if one excludes the epic final track (which is, in fact, excluded from the vinyl release). That’s a fun, nearly 20-minute variation on Rufus Thomas’ song “The Dog”, which features Thomas delightfully riffing to the crowd and explaining some doggy dance moves.
Thomas’ other song, “Walking the Dog”, is a quick banger, as are the Mar-Keys’ hit “Last Night” and Carla Thomas’ sweet “Every Ounce of Strength”. Two songs from William Bell are beautifully performed, and a fresh version of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” is simply rapturous (and you can hear the audience agree).
The Magnificent Montague, a DJ at the local station KGFJ, hosts the concert, beckoning each musician to “take a bow” about a dozen times. A friend of Malcolm X (who had been assassinated just six months before the concert), Montague regularly howls his KGFJ catchphrase, “Burn, baby, burn”, throughout the show. There’s a vibrant moment when he brings a spirited woman onstage from the audience, who screams, “Jump in that water and let it burn!” The words of their wails eerily augur the coming riots and the fire of its righteous fury, which set automobiles and buildings ablaze.
Stax Revue: Live in ’65! also includes an earlier concert at the Memphis-based Club Paradise. The unearthed recording from that same summer is wonderful, featuring several artists from the 5-4 Ballroom concert in addition to Wendy Rene and David Porter. The former provides a stomping, catchy version of “Bar-B-Q”, while the latter gives a phenomenal four-song set several years before becoming a known recording artist.
A songwriter at Stax, his set is arguably the most historically significant aspect of Stax Revue: Live in ’65! The Memphis concert begins with a suave, funky set from Booker T. & The M.G.’s at the height of their talent. The vibe of it all is reflected in the audible audience, whose rowdy joy is palpable.
The liner notes, written by Grammy-winning author Lynell George and compiled by Grammy-nominated producer Alec Palao, are definitely worth reading and provide valuable context about Watts and Stax, making the album even more interesting. While the 1972 Wattstax concert serves as a famous and brilliant testament to the neighborhood that fought back, Stax Revue: Live in ’65! is almost like a preamble to the protest. It’s the sound of a match being struck before the whole thing blows, of trapped lightning about to escape its bottle. It’s electric.