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For the Record 3: Sam and Dave
The guitar line rises like a Roman candle, it bursts into a joyfully sassy horn riff, and all of a sudden you just cant sit still anymore--because youre a soul man. When Sam Moore and Dave Prater brought the call-and-response sounds of the black church onto the charts in the mid-sixties, they set soul music on fire and energized an entire generation. Teamed with legendary Stax songwriters Isaac Hayes and David Porter, Sam and Dave scored a string of enduring hits that ignored radio format Soul Man, Hold On, Im Comin, I Thank You, You Dont Know Like I Know, and more. Sam Moore and For the Record series editor Dave Marsh lead you deep into the world of soul and show you the real-life roots of an unforgettable musical act. Bracingly candid, intensely personal, these are a lifetimes worth of memories from a real survivor who has experienced both pleasure and pain in his groundbreaking career. From the choir to the studio, from the juke joint to the concert stage, here is your closest look ever at the Sam and Dave phenomenon, and what it cost to be part of it. In Sams own words, this is how you become a soul man--and how you stay that way.
132 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 23, 2012
I didn't even know this book existed until two weeks ago. It's an oral history, unadorned and unvarnished, but thank goodness it exists. Sam Moore presents the absolute brutal truth about his life. It's simple and straightforward, detailed and articulate. As well as telling the story of his life, it also paints a vivid picture of the early days of the music business. Amazing.
August 24, 2023
Sam Moore talks about his life, Sam & Dave, drug addiction, and the music business. This was published after Dave Prater died so you do not get his perspective. One of the greatest acts of the 60’s.
May 21, 2018
First, this is not what I would really consider an "oral history." It features only two voices: 90% of the book is related to the author directly by Sam Moore, as Sam Moore remembers it, in Sam Moore's words. There is also one chapter, late in the book narrated by Moore's wife, Joyce McCrae.
Dave Prater's voice is entirely absent from the book. Though it was published 10 years after his death, many oral histories would've found a way around this by utilizing archival interviews (rather than omitting the life of half of a book's namesake).
At 127 pages, it's also a fairly slight book.
The book includes details that many artists might've omitted in the interest of preserving a certain image. Refreshingly, Moore is willing to tell stories that cast him in a negative light— usually a I a positive attribute in an autobiography (which is what I am considering this book). But many of these stories are about how poorly he treated women over the years (both in his personal life and when he "ran women" as a pimp) and while the details themselves are not the issue, there is a pervasive feeling of boastfulness that left a bad taste in my mouth.
There is a scene where Dave does something truly atrocious to his wife, and Sam tells him "I'll continue to sing with you, but I won't ever talk to you again." However Moore has spent 80 pages detailing all the terrible things he has done to the people in his life, and the story is robbed of any drama by the hypocrisy of its teller.
There are a couple of very good chapters about actually creating Sam & Dave's music at Stax with Isaac Hayes and David Porter. These hint at what a proper oral history (with Hayes, Porter, and some of the other key players included) might have been. I can't imagine anyone coming to this book without being a huge fan of Sam & Dave's, but their music is given pretty short shrift by this book.
I suspect there may be a book out there about Atlantic Records or Memphis Soul that might include all the better details of this book, and wish I'd had warning to seek out something like that for my Sam & Dave fix rather than this slim volume.
Dave Prater's voice is entirely absent from the book. Though it was published 10 years after his death, many oral histories would've found a way around this by utilizing archival interviews (rather than omitting the life of half of a book's namesake).
At 127 pages, it's also a fairly slight book.
The book includes details that many artists might've omitted in the interest of preserving a certain image. Refreshingly, Moore is willing to tell stories that cast him in a negative light— usually a I a positive attribute in an autobiography (which is what I am considering this book). But many of these stories are about how poorly he treated women over the years (both in his personal life and when he "ran women" as a pimp) and while the details themselves are not the issue, there is a pervasive feeling of boastfulness that left a bad taste in my mouth.
There is a scene where Dave does something truly atrocious to his wife, and Sam tells him "I'll continue to sing with you, but I won't ever talk to you again." However Moore has spent 80 pages detailing all the terrible things he has done to the people in his life, and the story is robbed of any drama by the hypocrisy of its teller.
There are a couple of very good chapters about actually creating Sam & Dave's music at Stax with Isaac Hayes and David Porter. These hint at what a proper oral history (with Hayes, Porter, and some of the other key players included) might have been. I can't imagine anyone coming to this book without being a huge fan of Sam & Dave's, but their music is given pretty short shrift by this book.
I suspect there may be a book out there about Atlantic Records or Memphis Soul that might include all the better details of this book, and wish I'd had warning to seek out something like that for my Sam & Dave fix rather than this slim volume.
June 16, 2025
Unsung kings of soul, their story is told in a charming way
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews