The Bar-Kays were founded in Memphis in 1966, evolving from an earlier band called the Imperials. The founder members were Jimmy King (guitar), Ben Cauley (trumpet), Ronnie Caldwell (organ), Phalon Jones (Saxophone), James Alexander (bass) and Carl Cunningham (drums). They drew obvious inspiration from the Mar-Keys and Booker T & the MGs, so it was no surprise when Stax signed them in 1967.
Things got even better, when producer Allen Jones took the group under his wing and members of Booker T & the MGs started to work with them too. That summer Otis Redding asked them to be his backing band.
Within weeks of arriving at Stax, they had recorded several tracks, under the supervision of Isaac Hayes, David Porter, and Jim Stewart, including “Give Everybody Some”, which Porter had written, and an instrumental of their own, which they entitled “Soul Finger”. This track has a typical Memphis bounce, punctuated by the voices of a group of local children chanting the title. It is fun and very catchy, tempting you to tap your feet and join in the chant. The single reached number three on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and number seventeen on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. It was also successful in the UK, reaching number thirty-three on the Official UK Pop Singles Chart. What a great start!
The excitement of that early promise was cut tragically short on December 10th of that first year, when the plane carrying Otis Redding and five members of the Bar-Kays crashed into Lake Monona. Trumpeter Ben Cauley was the only survivor of the accident. The Bar-Kays’ bass player, James Alexander, had flown on a scheduled flight, as the private plane was full.
Cauley and Alexander decided that they wanted the name of the Bar-Kays to live on, so reformed the group in 1969, with new members Michael Toles (guitar), Roy Cunningham and Willie Hall (drums/percussion), Ronnie Gordon (keyboard), and Harvey Henderson (saxophone). In 1970 they added a singer, Larry Dodson, and a new keyboard player, Winston Stewart, when Cunningham and Gordon left. They recorded their first tracks in late 1969, including “Sang and Dance”.
They were originally hired by Jim Stewart as cover for Booker T & the MGs, which now gave them the opportunity to work in the studio backing many of the Stax artists, especially Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas and Albert King, the Blues guitarist.
Between 1967 and 1974, the band made four albums, all released on the Volt label.
In 1971 Cauley left and other changes in personnel in the early seventies took the group in a new direction. Their music becomes funkier, possibly inspired by Sly &the Family Stone and Funkadelic. They had an R&B hit with “Son of Shaft” in 1972 and, the same year, played at the Wattstax concert in Los Angeles.
In 1975, when Stax folded, the band moved to the Mercury label and found new success the following year, when their single “Shake Your Rump to the Funk”, which the band had written, reached number twenty-three on the Pop chart and number five on the R&B chart in the USA. It also charted in the UK, reaching number forty-one. For the next ten years they enjoyed commercial success, before several members left and the remaining three decided to retire the group. In 1994 Dodson and Alexander resurrected the Bar-Kays’ name for a final album together, called “48 Hours”.
Considering the impact of the plane crash, it is remarkable that the reserve house band at Stax were able to build such a varied and successful career.
