JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #630.271!

Booker T. & The MGs – McLemore Avenue (Stax) :: Brothers and sisters, the Stax Remasters series just keeps strollin’ on with one of the more notable reissues being this vital mostly-instrumental remake/remodel of Abbey Road, which was recorded in 1969 mere months after the Beatles released their iconic album. One of the things that makes McLemore Avenue so memorably unique is that, rather than ape the album’s actual 17 track running order, the band opted instead to scuttle four songs and reconfigure the remaining 13 into only four tracks, three of which contain lengthy resequenced medleys. The result is a soulfully smooth stylistic retooling that doesn’t attempt to imitate so much as it inventively extrapolates and augments—and that goes double for Booker’s remaining Beatle takes which are included as bonus tracks.

The Beatles – Green Apples (Parlophone) :: I wish.

Johnnie Taylor – Taylored In Silk (Stax) :: Meanwhile, this smooth as you know what masterpiece from Stax’s resident blues wailin’ Soul Philosopher finds him in fine fettle, most notably on the cautionary up-tempo tale “It’s Cheaper To Keep Her” wherein JT tells every man what he oughtta do if he didn’t heed Cab Calloway’s earlier era entreaty to beware, brother, beware: “You’re tied up, you better stay tied up ’cause it’s cheaper to keep her! Son, you’re gonna pay some alimony or do some time!”

Marvin Gaye – Here, My Dear (Motown) :: Exactly!

Johnnie Taylor – Taylored In Silk (Stax) :: But that’s nothing compared to the equal opportunity advice JT offers to unfaithful finks everywhere: “If somebody can steal an airplane out from out of the sky, when you look around, somebody’s done stole your love right from under your eye! You know what they call that, boy? Hijackin’ love!”

Eric Clapton – Layla (Polydor) :: Ex...

George Harrison – Bye Bye Love (Dark Horse) :: ...actly! 

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: The Staple Singers – Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (Stax) :: Simply put, this is one of the greatest R&B slash Funk slash Pop albums ever waxed for public posterity, period. It’s also educationally enlightening in that when the Staples sing: “You the kind of gentleman that want everything your way; take the sheet off your face boy, it’s a brand new day” on the titular title track they ain’t just whistlin’ in Dixie. Nor are they kidding any less when they wax poetic on the musically minimal but no less persuasive “I’ll Take You There”—and those are just the two tracks that you already know about, what with them being global hit singles and all.

In the meantime, which is definitely a groovy time, wrapped around those two stellar standouts are eight additional awe-inspiring essays that effortlessly unite into one giant groove-laden feel-good celebration of faith and fidelity. Which is why, if you only buy one reissue album this year, you really oughtta ensure that it’s this one because your heart and soul will thank you for it later—in spades.

Be seeing you!