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The Mar-Keys - Damifiknow / Memphis Experienc (1971)

Track listing:
  1. Mustang Sally 3:29
  2. Never Loved A Man (The Way I L 3:25
  3. Knock On Wood 2:36
  4. Daydream 3:30
  5. Double Or Nothing 2:48
  6. Coffee Cup 2:46
  7. Black 2:34
  8. One With Sugar 3:02
  9. Jive Man 2:31
  10. Soul Man 2:39
  11. Heads Or Tails 3:10
  12. Cloud Nine 9:27
  13. After The Affair 4:38
  14. Reach Out I'll Be There 4:35
  15. Angel Dust 4:34
  16. Hummingbird 4:45
  17. Let It Be 3:13
  18. Creeper's Funkatrations 4:20

Notes

For this session, the Mar-Keys were basically Booker T. & the MG's, augmented by trumpeter Wayne Jackson and tenor saxophonist Andrew Love (who would soon become the Memphis Horns). It's not quite fair to call this laid-back set easy listening, but it's certainly not much more than background listening as they wind their way through a mix of originals and covers of shopworn '60s tunes like "Mustang Sally," "Soul Man," and "Daydream." It's pleasant and executed with the expected precision, but it has to rate among the musicians' more secondary efforts, whether they're calling themselves the MG's or something else. The album was combined with the 1971 Mar-Keys LP Memphis Experience onto a single-CD reissue in 1994.

The Mar-Keys had a history of strange personnel changes; their previous LP (1969's Damifiknow!) had basically been Booker T. & the MG's-plus-horn section playing under the Mar-Keys name. Yet Memphis Experience was even stranger, demonstrating that the Mar-Keys at this point meant nothing more to Stax than a name that could be exploited. Three of the seven cuts were Bar-Kays outtakes that were scrapped when that band underwent one of its own numerous reorganizations. The rest of the album was recorded by an assortment of Memphis musicians. The result was serviceable period instrumental soul-funk, occasionally creeping into psychedelia (especially on the nine-minute "Cloud Nine," with several minutes of weird screams and whispers). It's an oddity in the Stax discography, related to the rest of the Mar-Keys' releases in name only, and not worth paying attention to unless you're determined to track down every available Stax recording. The album was combined with the 1969 Mar-Keys LP Damifiknow! onto a single-CD reissue in 1994.

A two-for-one disc combining a couple strange releases, neither of which were truly the Mar-Keys. Damifiknow! was played by Booker T. & the MG's, supplemented by a horn section that would become the Memphis Horns; Memphis Experience combined Mar-Keys outtakes with instrumentals by Memphis musicians with no connection to prior Mar-Keys lineups. It's a convenient way for major Stax/soul collectors to pick up two of the group's odder records, but it's not a representative reflection of the Mar-Keys. Nor is the music especially noteworthy: Damifiknow! is easygoing, rather humdrum soul instrumentals that don't pack nearly the punch of the MG's at their best, while Memphis Experience is average wordless early '70s soul-funk with occasional psychedelic/hard rock tinges.