In Memoriam: Steve Cropper (1941-2025)

It’s a sad fact that so much of America’s musical infrastructure – the men and women whose session work powered thousands of pop chart hits and significant recordings – exists in near-obscurity. Consider The Funk Brothers, that collective of R&B musicians in Detroit who powered nearly every Motown session in the label’s golden age. Fans and collectors still sift through the vagaries of paperwork and memory to determine who lent their instruments to which song; the unofficial group’s members would be credited by name at the insistence of Marvin Gaye on his…

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Craft Recordings Announces Record Store Day Black Friday Slate with Jazz, Soundtracks, Classic Soul, and More

It’s that time of year again! With Record Store Day’s annual Black Friday event happening in less than two months – on Friday, November 24 – news has started arriving of what titles to expect.  Craft Recordings’ eclectic slate features classic jazz, rare soundtracks, punk, soul, and more from an array of boldfaced names including Gil Evans, Chico Hamilton, Isaac Hayes, Melvin Van Peebles, Alan Silvestri, Carter Burwell, members of Earth Wind & Fire and Little Feat, and more. You’ll find the full list below, with descriptions provided by the label for…

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Craft Recordings Plans Staggering Box of Stax Demos

How do you follow up an essential document like this year’s comprehensive Wattstax box set? If you’re Craft Recordings, you plan a trip deep into the unheard history of the legendary Memphis label, through dozens of demos released for the first time anywhere. Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos is an impressive 7CD anthology including 146 demo versions of enduring Stax hits and fan favorites, songs written by label songwriters that ended up elsewhere as well as a number of songs unveiled here for the first time. Only six of…

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The Living Word: New Box Sets Chronicle Wattstax in Full, 50 Years On

One of the greatest music festivals of the ’70s is getting celebrated with an exhaustive array of reissues in 2023: Wattstax, the multi-dimensional Los Angeles celebration of soul, funk, blues and gospel courtesy of Stax Records. A half-century after the premiere of a Golden Globe-nominated documentary on the star-studded 1972 event, Craft Recordings, custodian of the Stax catalogue, will release the most definitive looks at Wattstax, most recently addressed in a 3CD box set in 2003 that took the highlights of both double albums from 1973 and added even more material. Soul’d…

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I’ve Been Loving You: Vinyl Me, Please Spotlights Stax Classics in New VMP Anthology Box

Vinyl Me Please is at it again! Following their celebrations of Blue Note, Motown, and Ghostly International, the subscription service is set to release a new volume of their acclaimed VMP Anthology Series. This time, they’re shining a light on the history of Stax Records. As with previous volumes, The Story of Stax Records will be told in four chapters. The eight albums included in the box will be wrapped in “secrecy sleeves” that can be unveiled at specific points in the journey. Though titles have not been revealed, VMP has announced…

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Review: “Stax ’68: A Memphis Story”

Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” the first Stax single of 1968, should have been a new beginning for the artist and label.  Instead, the posthumous release ushered in a tumultuous year for the Memphis institution.  The death of Redding and members of The Bar-Kays on December 10, 1967 was a tremendous loss for Stax and popular culture, but no one could have predicted the upheaval that would affect Stax and the city of Memphis in the following twelve months.  That time has just been chronicled in a new…

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A Long Walk: New Box Set Collects Stax’s 1968 Singles, Chronicling Tumultuous Year For The Label

There have been several reissues this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of individual projects released in 1968.  But Craft Recordings has announced a box set which celebrates an entire year’s worth of material with Stax ’68: A Memphis Story, due on October 19.  This 5-CD set contains the A- and B-sides of every single released under the Stax Records banner in 1968, including the company’s sub-labels, for a total of 120 tracks.  Some tracks are by soul legends like Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, William Bell, Booker T. & The M.G.’s and…

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