Having grown up in the ’60s, I was certainly familiar with “Soul Finger,” and Bar-Kays (who somehow get away without using a definite article). They were session players at Stax and became Otis Redding’s backing band – and unfortunately most of them died in the same plane crash that took Redding’s life. That was not too long after this, their debut record, was released in 1967, with the hit single “Soul Finger.” (The band continued under this name, however, shifting toward funk.)
The song re-entered my consciousness through an otherwise pretty forgettable movie, “Spies Like Us,” a Chevy Chase/Dan Aykroyd movie which features “Soul Finger” as something of a plot point. It came out in 1985, just about the time I was becoming aware of the cultural significance of Stax/Volt and the Memphis sound. But at the time, I was more inspired to get CDs by Otis Redding and Booker T and the MGs. Somewhere in the ’90s I got a 9-CD box set of Stax/Volt singles, which has several Bar-Kays tracks, but didn’t pick up this Bar-Kays record until the beginning of last year.
It’s just a set of really tight instrumentals in the same style as Booker T and the MGs – no surprise, as several of the songs had the same writers, same production. It’s a real 1967 feel.
So is that album cover – marker art by Loring Eutemey, a pioneering Black designer for Push Pin Studios. He did similarly illustrated covers for The Last Words and The Capitols, and designed some of the biggest covers of the ’60s, including Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and Sam and Dave’s “Soul Men.” (With thanks to Fonts In Use for providing some well-deserved recognition for Eutemey.) I wish there were more information about him – you can find his obituary online but it doesn’t tell much of his story.
