"Memphis Soul Stew"

I first became aware of King Curtis in middle school when I picked up the Duane Allman Anthology. His cover of "Games People Play" caught my ear, and it was an early selection for this project last summer. It was the first I had heard or read about the legendary giant of saxophone and music in general - he could sing, play guitar, write songs, and it was his horn that swings the most famous sax solo of them all in "Yakety Yak". Duane and Curtis met while doing session work for Atlantic Records and quickly formed a mutual musical bond.

King Curtis, Delaney Bramlett, & Duane Allman | 1971

Shortly after King Curtis was murdered on the steps of a building he owned on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Duane paid tribute to his fallen musical brother on an A&R Radio Broadcast, just weeks after both King Curtis and Duane Allman had played the same stage with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. On a 60 minute radio show where time talking takes significant time away from time playing, you know it meant something when Duane takes the mic to talk about King and his music, and sadly, his funeral. But the music takes over and The Allman Brothers launch back into one of their epic jams, "You Don't Love Me", until they slow down just long enough to play King Curtis's sweetest song, "Soul Serenade". I had a bootleg copy of the show, which has only recently been officially released ("You Don't Love Me/Soul Serenade" was available on the Dreams anthology in 1989). It was the first time I had ever heard the song.

But not only does Duane Allman pay tribute to King Curtis' "Soul Serenade", he eagerly plugs King Curtis' latest album, Live at the Fillmore West, a fantastic set opening for what would be Aretha Franklin's Fillmore West live album. The album was long out of print on CD, I didn't hear it for years. It was a lot more difficult finding older albums in the mid-1990s. Not everything had been digitally mastered yet, vaults were still full of albums only available on vinyl that hadn't ever even made it to cassette. I would search music stores and catalogues, but could only find general King Curtis compilations featuring early 1960s honky tonk covers and dance originals - all well and good, but not the same as those raw live performances.

Finally King Curtis at the Fillmore West was re-released on CD in 1999, and the opening bass line of "Memphis Soul Stew" hit me like a ton of bricks. No wonder Aretha had King Curtis and the Kingpins as her back-up band - you couldn't find a better one. Cornell Dupree's guitar is one of the most unique and funky styles I've heard. Jerry Jemmott's bass is smooth as silk, and even Billy Preston sits in on keyboards. A few years later, the whole gig, both Aretha's and King Curtis's sets, was released as one boxed set and it is epic.

"Memphis Soul Stew" hasn't really seen much life outside of King Curtis. There are a handful of covers out there by sax players or soul horn bands (the oddest being "Springfield Soul Stew", which appeared on a Simpsons album during the massive merchandising blitz when the show took off). It takes a special instrumentation to put all of the pieces together. None of them approach the intensity and swing of King Curtis's live versions, though my favorite is The Allman Brothers' tribute to King Curtis & Duane Allman with members of The Kingpins sitting in (well, taking over).

I thought it would be a perfect addition to this project, but I had to make sure all of the different stringed instruments were as separate as The Kingpins' horns. I substituted the horns for a mandolin, Cornell's telecaster for the Daddy Mojo biscuit, and the sax for my dobro. It took a while, but I was able to marry all of the parts together fairly well.