I need to post up this amazing oldie but goodie that I just re-discovered. It features the legendary Sam & Dave performing with the Stax Revue during their tour of Europe in 1967.
This clip speaks for itself, obviously, but I particularly love the way it shows the radical nature of soul music when it was originally unleashed on the world. There are so many aspects of this performance that I love. Sam & Dave’s melodramatic combination of workman-like professionalism and maniacal emotion, Al Jackson’s super-human regularity on the drums + his towel, Booker T’s quiet sophistication, Duck Dunn’s sloppy-tightness on bass, guitarist Steve Cropper’s incredibly tight pants, the Mar-Keys laying down one of the greatest horn lines in the history of music all the while looking like some extras from Mad Men… and all this in front of a sea of arty Norwegians who are restrained physically (and culturally?) from joining the party.
At this point, most of what America has to offer culturally has been fully dispersed, worshipped, mimicked, and mocked. We’ll keep inventing new things for a while and our entertainment-industrial complex will continue to promote them with reckless abandon, but I doubt we will ever be able to recapture the raw power of the cultural confrontation above. The world is too small now and there’s not enough secrets. I mention all this because yesterday I found out that the Ying Yang Twins are going to be performing in Beijing in a couple weeks, and I’ll be there praying for just of taste of that Stax in Oslo vibe.
Thanks to my man JHE for originally turning me on to this performance all those years ago and Crooks & Liars for putting it online.
Sam & Dave - Hold on, I’m coming
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Ying Yang Twins - Wait (the whisper song)
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COMMENTS / 6 COMMENTS
Robin said on Nov 05 09 at 05:23Ying Yang coming to the land of Yin Yang… International incident g’teed
Mike said on Nov 05 09 at 05:34Wasn’t Jay-Z banned from playing in China last year? How the hell did ying yang get in??
jeru said on Nov 05 09 at 05:57good penmanship… somebody once told me that ying yang is in EVERYTHING! isnt that crazy?
Brendan said on Nov 05 09 at 18:07How the hell did ying yang get in??
My guess is that ying yang’s accents are so indecipherable that no one in the ministry of culture has put it together yet. They’d have to add a whole chapter to their naughty foreign words index just based on ‘whistle while you twurk’ alone.
Brendan said on Nov 05 09 at 18:09Yes Jeru. Remember: the universe is a balancing act between two opposed but complementary aspects of nature: YING and YANG. GET LOW!
Nikki said on Nov 06 09 at 18:50That video is amazing!
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