“Hold On, I’m Coming” — Sam and Dave

I caught a TV documentary about classic Memphis record label Stax the other evening, which was, of course, a great excuse for the documentary makers to weave in a host of classic Stax tracks while they told their story.

In amongst the soundtrack of this documentary, jam-packed with some of the most memorable songs of the 1960s, was the unmistakable horn refrain from one of my all-time favourite soul tracks, “Hold On, I’m Coming” by Sam and Dave.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the name “Stax” was synonymous with “soul”. They even branded themselves “Soulsville USA”, riffing on Motown’s “Hitsville USA” strapline.

The Stax sound remains one of my favourites to this day. And Stax got that sound, in large part, due to the Stax house band, an incredibly tight and skilful unit which was easily at least the equal of other great studio bands of that era — the Funk Brothers at Motown, the Swampers in Muscle Shoals and a handful of others.

To perfect their funky, soulful sound, Stax stuck with two main components right through the studio’s golden era.

The label’s “house band” was the fusing together of two great bands in their own right. First, the Mar-Keys, Stax’s original house band with wonderful musicians like Steve Cropper on guitar, Duck Dunn on bass and trumpet player Wayne Jackson among others.

A kid called Booker T Jones started working at Stax in the early 1960s and the Mar-Keys largely morphed into Booker T and the MGs…