Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Late Late Party

I'm really liking this Light in the Attic Records compilation featuring some great tracks from Charles 'Packy' Axton and his many bands.   Packy was the son of Estelle Axton, co-founder of Memphis's famed Stax Records.  Packy was an integral part of many different bands from the Memphis instrumental soul scene, and participated in many bands of which are featured on this comp.  Some of the tracks remind me of The Meters, or Booker T and the MGs (not a suprise since a few of the MGs played in many of Packy's bands prior to the MGs success).  However, I'm somewhat suprised how much I enjoyed this comp, as a few years ago I read Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, which portrayed Packy as somewhat of a no-talent scenester, and a drunkard who was living off of his mom's name and success at Stax Records.  Regardless of his talent, it's apparent that he hooked up with some great bands throughout the 1960's in Memphis.  I thoroughly enjoyed Charles 'Packy' Axton Late Late Party and highly recommend it.  Here's a clip from one of Axton's bands, The Pac-Keys, called "Stone Fox", one of my favorite tracks off of Late Late Party.  

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