Stax Records, an imprint of Concord Music
Group and its Catalog Division, Craft Recordings, is pleased to announce the
reissue of one of its most provocative titles: Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.
Consistently hailed as a landmark, genre-defining album, this 1971 soundtrack
-- performed by a then-unknown Earth, Wind & Fire with contributions by Van
Peebles -- will be made available on May 26th for the very first time in
high-res and standard digital formats. The vinyl edition features audio
remastered from the original analog tapes and cut on the original Stax lathe at
Memphis’ Ardent studios, then pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Memphis Record
Pressing. The remastered LP also includes new liner notes from author,
journalist and music critic Jeff Weiss, as well as from Melvin’s son Mario Van
Peebles, director of New Jack City (1991) and 2003’s Baadasssss!, which
chronicles the making of his father’s landmark film.
Trailblazing writer, director, actor and composer Melvin Van
Peebles was financially and creatively responsible for the entire production of
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Van Peebles not only directed, scripted, and
edited the film, but also wrote the score and directed the marketing campaign.
The film, which in the end grossed more than $10 million (the highest ever for
an independent film at the time), was acclaimed for its political resonance
with the black struggle. In his liner notes, Jeff Weiss notes, “For all the
resistance mounting in the streets, no black director had yet made a film that
captured the spirit of rebellion, frustration and the refusal to accept injustice.
Van Peebles alchemized Malcolm X, Iceberg Slim and Soul on Ice with Huey
Newton, Gil-Scott Heron and the French New Wave. Badass cinema was born.” The
Black Panthers made the film required viewing. And despite the fact that few
theaters would screen the X-rated film, the soundtrack helped to market the
film to the masses, through radio waves and word of mouth. The success of the
film proved to be a genre-defining moment, giving birth to Blaxploitation, and
opening the doors for films like Shaft and Super Fly.
The soundtrack features a combination of hymn-based
vocalization and jazz rhythms, capturing the funky, gritty and soulful spirit
of the time, and foreshadowing the use of sampling that would occur in hip hop
music, some 20 years later. Weiss adds, “The soundtrack operates like a
surrealist Mobius strip comprised of call-and-response chants against the
man…It’s as avant-garde as the film’s kinetic mix of psychedelic jump cuts and
dream-like sequences. The music becomes a character itself, unseen but forcefully
heard.”
The reissue of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is part of
a wider, year-long initiative, celebrating Stax Records’ 60th anniversary. The
cross-label collaboration between Concord Music Group and Rhino Entertainment
will highlight the hits, deep cuts and rare tracks from the Memphis label’s
heyday of the '60s and ‘70s.
The 60th anniversary of the legendary soul label Stax
Records commemorates its extraordinary legacy as an international hit-making
machine and its indispensable chapter in American musical history as an
integrated company in the heart of the Civil Rights movement. The Stax 60
celebration will highlight the hits, deep cuts and rare tracks from the Memphis
label’s heyday of the '60s and ‘70s, including the many legendary artists who
jointly created the world-renown “Stax sound," - Otis Redding, Booker T
& the MGs, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas,
Johnnie Taylor, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Sam & Dave, The Dramatics and
many more. The Stax 60 campaign will honor the music from Soulsville USA
through curated collections, deluxe box sets, hi-resolution audio, streaming
playlists and unique vinyl initiatives.
Track listing:
A1. Sweetback Losing His Cherry
A2. Sweetback Getting It Uptight And Preaching It So Hard
The Bourgeois Reggin Angels In Heaven Turn Around
A3. Come On Feet
A4. Sweetback’s Theme
B1. Hoppin’ John
B2. Mojo Woman
B3. Sanra Z.
B4. Reggins Hanging On In There As Best They Can
B5. Wont Bleed Me
B6. The Man Tries Running His Usual Game But Sweetback’s
Jones Is So Strong He Wastes The Hounds (Yeah! Yeah! And Besides That Will Be
Coming Back Takin Names & Collecting Dues)
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