Stax Records was born in Memphis in 1957. Ten years later – a decade of era-defining records from the likes of Rufus Thomas, Booker T and the MGs, Carla Thomas, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Albert King and more – the 1967 Stax/Volt European tour took their music across the Atlantic for the first time.
Eddie Floyd, Arthur Conley, Sam & Dave and Otis Redding were the stars and the backing band were Booker T & the M.G.s and the Mar-Keys. They had no idea what kind of reception awaited them. “They treated us like we were the Beatles or something,” guitarist Steve Cropper said later. “It pretty much overwhelmed everyone in the band. It was a total mind-blower. Hell, we were just in Memphis cutting records; we didn’t know. Then we go over there, there were hoardes of people waiting at the airport, autograph hounds and all that sort of stuff.”
The bass player on the tour was Donald “Duck” Dunn. Cropper had been his childhood friend and when Steve took up the guitar, Duck went to the bass. "I was trying to play guitar but I guess six strings was too many," he told The Scotsman. "I could handle four. When I heard BB King's Sweet Sixteen I knew I wanted to play bass because that was the thing that made that record, the bass player."
In 1965, he joined Cropper in the MGs, replacing original bassist Lewie Steinberg. “He was a great “walking” bass player,” Dunn said of Steinberg, “but the R&B scene started getting syncopated. And that’s what happened at Stax. I did syncopated bass more than walking lines; I usually held my thumb on the top edge of the pickguard and played with my first two fingers, and I wore the finish down to the wood where my thumb was.”
Killer musicians, playing some of the most powerful music of the time, Stax’s mixed-race house band was a powerful statement in and of itself. "Black musicians, white musicians, whatever," said Dunn. "Colour's no problem, they're just exceptional people. I knew when I got to play with Al Jackson I would be a better bass player because he was the best drummer in the world. I worshipped him."
His love of playing in the band comes across in this clip. Filmed in Oslo on April 7, 1967 by NRK – the Norwegian public broadcasting corporation – Dunn is a ball of bass energy, locked-in with Jackson, and taking Steinberg’s Green Onions bassline to the next level.
The young people of Oslo watch dumbstruck. All these years later, so will you.
