Sam & Dave On The Move

In Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, he talks about how Sam & Dave were basically feared by the other soul acts at the time because they'd just burn it down every night. It's something to think about, say, Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding in awe of these guys. I knew their music, but didn't know who they were until I read Guralnick. I highly endorse that book, incidentally. I learned so much about race in the South reading it, even though that was a tangent.

Anyway, watching old video of these guys you get some sense of how they used to terrorize the stage. I've got another book on soul (not remembering the name) that basically says that, at some point, Sam and Dave basically stopped talking. Anyway here they are murdering fools twice. The first version I like because it's a little slower and a little more soulful (to me at least.) There's also a cool shot of a very young Steve Cropper. 

The second gives you a better look at the dance-moves these cats were rocking. But I get a little annoyed when the band gets amped and speeds up the song. Still the visuals are awesome. Much like watching Sam Cooke doing Bob Dylan, you get some sense of the other, less tangible forces, that in modern times have laid siege to the tower of institutional white supremacy.