1961 The Shadows
1962 Out of The Shadows
1964 Dance With The Shadows
1965 The Sound of The Shadows
1966 Shadow Music
The first Stax-Volt box was a monolith, standing as the definitive
document of the labels and, therefore, gritty Southern soul. Its sequel,
The Complete Stax-Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971 is
considerably more problematic. Covering only four years compared to its
predecessor, which showcased nine years, Vol. 2 contains 216 tracks,
including all of the A- and B-sides released during that era. Most
critics consider these four years to be substantially less interesting
than Stax's earlier years, and in a sense, they're right. There's no
Otis Redding or Sam & Dave, and the music doesn't have the same
innovative, kinetic spark of the early years. There's still a lot of
great, great music here, but it's difficult to sort it out among these
nine discs. About three or four discs' worth of material is truly
essential, and it might have been better to boil this era down to a
smaller box set, since that would have made for a necessary purchase. As
it stands, it's too sprawling and comprehensive to be an essential
purchase for anyone other than soul fetishists and hardcore collectors,
but those listeners should find much of this fascinating.
While
this compilation focuses on Dave Matthews Band, Dave has also played
with other line-ups. The following abbreviations will be used for
artists on this compilation: