Eddie Floyd is headed back to the future.
The soul legend known for "Knock on Wood" has recorded songs he wrote for other artists in the 1950s and '60s for his return to the Stax label.
Some date back to his years with the Falcons (“You’re So Fine,” “Since You’ve Been Gone”) and his earliest solo days (“Never Get Enough of Your Love”). Among the songs he wrote for other Stax artists but never recorded until now: “’Til My Back Ain’t Got No Bone” (William Bell); “I Will Always Have Faith In You” (Carla Thomas) and “You Don’t Know What You Mean To Me” (Sam & Dave). Also on the the disc is “I Don’t Want to Be With Nobody But You,” which Dorothy Moore recorded on her 1976 "Misty Blue" album.he also has a couple of new tunes.
Album, titled "Eddie Loves You So," will be released on July 29 on Stax Records.
Cool as that is, the powers that be should know the world will be a better place if they afford the same opportunity to fellow Stax vet William Bell, a man who still sings with the power and passion of a young man getting his heart broken.   

The documentary on Otis Redding, "Dreams To Remember: The Legacy Of Otis Redding," will receive its world theatrical premiere at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on Oct. 8.
Screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Zelma Redding (Otis’ widow), Wayne Jackson of the Mar-Keys, Stax historian Rob Bowman and the documentary’s directors David Peck and Phil Galloway.
Screening coincides with the release of "Dreams To Remember" DVD.
Redding died in a plane crash on Dec. 10, 1967.
"Dreams" includes a number of complete performances including  “Pain In My Heart,” “I Can’t Turn You Loose,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,”  “Try A Little Tenderness” and “Respect.”
Following the premiere of "Dreams to Remember" and the Otis panel will be a screening of the recently discovered Stax/Volt Revue Live in Norway, 1967, featuring Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Arthur Conley and the Mar-Keys.

One of the most impressive music documentaries to come down the pike in some time, "Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story" will be released on DVD on Oct. 2.
Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville's finely assembled pic, which aired this summer on PBS’ Great Performances, features performances by Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave and Booker T & the MGs, Staple Singers, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd and others. Doc impressively charts the rise of the Memphis soul sound during the Civil Rights Era.
DVD package also adds bonus content featuring footage from the Stax Reunion rehearsal at SXSW 2007 in Austin, Texas, featuring Floyd, William Bell and Booker T & the MGs.

Three albums by three superb soul singers have release dates. J Records will release Alicia Keys "As I Am" on Nov. 6. Van Hunt's four track EP "The Popular Machine" will be released digitally on Aug. 7; Blue Note will release his full-length disc "Popular" on Jan. 15. And Angie Stone's "The Art Of Love And War," her first for Stax, will hit retail on Oct. 16.
Hunt says he shut out all media during the making of the album except for a little talk radio and some Franz Liszt. Judging by his song titles, though, he appears to have at least read the backs of Prince albums. Some of the cuts: "ur personal army," "there's never a g'time 2 say g'bye," "ur a monster, parts 1 & 2."
  Stone recorded her album at Marvin’s Room, Marvin Gaye’s former studio on Sunset Boulevard. She co-produced and wrote nearly the entire album. Betty Wright duets with her on one track.
Producers on Keys' album, which is still being recorded, include Kerry Brothers, Linda Perry, Mark Batson, Jack Splash, Harold Lilly and Marsha Ambrosia (from Floetry).  Alicia describes the overall sound of the album as "Rock 'n Soul - Janis Joplin meets Aretha Franklin."

In honor of this evening's Stax at 50 concert at the Hollywood Bowl, let's turn the clock back to June 8, 1968, when Booker T. & the MG's played this set at Winterland in San Francisco:

Never My Love / (Sweet, Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone / I Don;t Mind / Knock on Wood / Booker-loo / Hey Joe / Green Onions / Hip Hug-Her / Born Under a Bad Sign / Overall Junction / The Sky is Crying

It was the best show at SXSW and here's to hoping it is the best show of the summer at the Hollywood Bowl. Stax Records, the label that gave Memphis its musical identity in the 1960s and remains a standard-bearer for Southern soul, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with concerts celebrations, reissues, a PBS documentary and a revival of the label by its new owners, Concord Records.
The Hollywood Bowl will be home Wednesday to the show that was previewed at Antone's during SXSW and put Booker T.  and the MG's behind two underrated legends, William Bell and Eddie Floyd.Isaac Hayes emceed that show - he continues to recover from a stroke - and he is expected to perform at the Bowl. Naturally, they will be performing songs by the label's greatest artist, Otis Redding, and it is highly likely that some Sam and Dave material will be thrown in as well.
For all the giddiness that surrounds the celebration of Stax and its sister label Volt, there is still a scar that dates back to Warner-owned Atlantic - and then CBS Records - driving the label into the ground in the early 1970s and the city of Memphis refusing to do anything to save the label's old HQ, a shuttered movie theater dubbed Soulsville U.S.A. Memphis spent the last 30 years of the 20th century attempting to recover from its place as the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and the Stax legacy paid a price; the city seemingly wanted to wash away its black history, attracting the tourists with Graceland and Sun Studios. In the last few years, with the revival of Beale Street as blues-driven tourist outlet, Memphis has come to embrace its place in soul music history and even launched a Stax museum.
Some of the blame for the vanishing of Stax, too, lies with the former catalog owner, Saul Zaentz and Fantasy Records, which provided little followup to the label's brilliant three box sets that brought together every A and B side ever issued on 45 by the label. Those three spectacular box sets, buoyed by Rob Bowman's expert liner notes, are a model for any label attempting a completist approach to an era - and for a few years in the early 1990s, there were soul music fans wondering where they would find the Mad-Lads, the Soul Children or Barbara Lewis. (Rufus Thomas did actually enjoy a bit of a revival at the time.)
Best part of the 50th is getting Bell centerstage with a band equal to his talent. He continues to record, but the lack of financing is always apparent in the sound of his efforts. If there is one musician from Stax's past that should be ushered back to the label, it is he. And Wednesday, not only will we get Hayes, Bell and Floyd, Mable John, the former Raelette and sister of Little Willie John, will sing as well.