Here's a couple oddball instrumentals. First is the Fame Gang's "Crime Don't Pay". The Fame Gang was the house band at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals. It's a perfectly fine instrumental. Slinky guitar, a little organ and killer drumming. It's one of those "one liner" instrumentals, the type with a catch phase (à la the Mar-Keys' "Last Night"). In this case it's two phrases, "Come here boy" and "yassuh!". Even with that few of words, the delivery bugs. It's supposed to be comical. It's also, yeah, kinda racist. Not intentionally, I'm sure. "Those were different times." Ahh, bullshit. Not an excuse.
This other one is a head scratcher. I know little about the Cobras. On the post it said that "Restless" was on Stax, but after listening to it I had my doubts (I hadn't seen the actual record yet). It sounded more like a rip-off of the Rumblers' "Boss" but without the punch. The solo is so simple, I had them pegged for a band of high schoolers (again, à la Mar-Keys). Not at all what you'd expect from Stax. I went to Discogs for info and to confirm who released it. They did have a listing, with an image of the record and, yes, as you can see (above) it was on Stax. What you can also see is that Steve Cropper was co-writer. Oh, fuck. Now I gotta find the backstory. [Five minutes pass.] I'm an idiot. This just in: I looked for a backstory and found in. Here. I have heard the song because I posted it with the backstory five years ago.
The Fame Gang - Crime Don't Pay mp3 at Internet Archive
The Cobras - Restless mp3 at Internet Archive
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