Search - Bar-Kays :: Best of

GREATEST FUNK UNIT EVER!!!!!!!

Dave Wrighteous | Wilmington, DE USA | 01/18/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the TRUE bomb. The Bar-Kays are the most underrated r&b group ever. Mention the work "funk" and people immediately think Parliament or Funkadelic or Parliament-Funkadelic (not a band-see how peoples thinking is off?), maybe James Brown...maybe even the Chili Peppers. Not to take away anything from the aforementioned bands, but the Bar-Kays are the hands down KINGS of stripped down bare bones, street level, boogernose, body odor, tartaronyateeth funk (okay, I went a bit Arsenio there, but it's true!). EVERYBODY knows the "Theme from Shaft" by Isaac Hayes, but do they know it was the Bar-Kays who were his backing band on the Shaft soundtrack and many of his other fantastic Stax LP's, including the fantastic classic "Hot Buttered Soul"?
I liked Parliament but man, they just went overboard sometimes and the production that was their band occasionally seemed to lose sight of the funky bottom. No so with the Bar-kays. They kept it simple and straight. They didn't have the musical chops of James Browns outfit or the legions of musicians that worked with George Clinton, but they could write funky jams like noone else.
This compilation doesn't have their biggest hit "Soul Finger", but it does have some of my fave cuts like "In the Hole", "A.J. the Housefly", "Holy Ghost" and Son of Shaft".
If you want some severely hot jams to test the speaker system in your lowrider as you cruise the ave, this isn't a bad way to go. I blast this in my ride and ALWAYS get looks from people.
A true street soundtrack."