Album of the Day

If today one travels to festivals like Coachella or Glastonbury to see multi-act concerts, in decades past those shows came to the fans in the form of package tours. In 1967, preeminent Southern soul label Stax/Volt sent some of its top artists to Europe for a series of concerts, including the one immortalized on BACK TO BACK (LIVE IN PARIS). Cut at that city's Olympic Theatre, the album presents sets by Booker T. & the M.G.'s and the Mar-Keys, both crack instrumental outfits renowned as backing bands for R&B royalty as well as hitmakers in their own right (“Green Onions,” “Hip Hug-Her” - both heard here). The 10 songs on BACK TO BACK brim with fiery performances, starting with the insistent grooves of M.G.'s bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, who was born on this day in 1941.