Melting Pot/Back Home/Chicken Pox/Fuquawi/Kinda Easy Like/Hi Ride/LA Jazz Song/Stormy Monday
Melting Pot was one of the more acclaimed albums from the Stax instrumental house band Booker T. & The MGs. This would be their final release with the classic line up as Booker T. quit the group and left Stax records. (US:43)
“This is a monument to funky infected instrumental soul rhythm blues. The infectiously swinging eight minutes plus tracks which open both sides are true grooving festivals.”
“Melting Pot is up there with my favourite songs of all time. It's so good that eight minutes just don't seem long enough and it's always over too fast. It's just a brilliant song all around: melodic, complex, slightly trippy, slightly funky, and utterly soulful. The rest of the album isn't quite up to that lofty standard, but it still makes for a very enjoyable and highly recommended listen. The soundscapes these fellas are able to conjure with just guitar, bass, drums and organ/piano truly boggle the mind.”
“It opens with the greatest piece of music ever recorded, the title cut, Melting Pot. From start to finish it is perhaps, the most fitting example of each member's equal contribution to the sound and soul of the band. Four guys doing four distinctive things, with it all coming together like magic, and all the while, none of them having enough of an ego to detract from the others.”
“A swan song for the classic line-up and what a way to go. Tracks like Melting Pot and Chicken Pox are as tight funk-soul as you'll get and are the highlights for me. The rest of the album is pretty strong. Side two contains some backing vocals that sound dated but don't really detract from what is possibly their strongest album.”
“There simply are not words (at least not in my lexicon) to describe its sublime brilliance. I could mention the incredibly strong melody, its sophisticated big-city feel, the awesome interplay between Booker T's Hammond and Steve Cropper's guitar underpinned by Dunn's bass and the genuinely unique presence of Jackson's drumming, but that would still not begin to do it justice.”
“This is feel-good music to blast away on the car stereo with pile driver speakers. Some say they are annoyed with the ‘doo-wah’ female vocals, but I think they just add to the overall splendour of this masterpiece.”
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