Asymmetric Music

Corporate rock has a bad name sometimes, but an "in-house" approach (studio band with singers not writing their own songs in most cases) has produced some of the rock era's best music. This is especially true of black music. Memphis- based Stax-Volt had such Soul luminaries as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, Atlantic featured such performers as Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, and you know about Motown. Taken together, the above labels represent a majority of the quality black music during that era.

In fact, one of the only black performers who had his own band and wrote most of his own songs was James Brown (In this, he was more like Paul McCartney and Wings.). I can't think of a black band (not vocal group) that wrote their own songs and considered each member as an equal.

Given the record above and including classical music and opera, it's odd that some people (i.e., my classic rock brethren) find a self-sustaining band inherently superior.

Anyways, I'll discuss it more at length later. I only bring it up because of this story reporting that Sam Moore asked Barack Obama to stop using its song, Hold On, I'm Coming as his campaign song. It's from Stax, written by Isaac Hayes and Porter, and you may recognize the backing band as Booker T. and MGs. Enjoy: