Record Label: Stax

Style: Soul / Funk Jazz

Review: In all honesty, there aren't enough stars to rate this stellar album. Unfortunately, the last by these four members of Booker T. & the MGs. Booker T. Jones plays his B-3 organ with unbelievable fire and passion. Steve Cropper's rhythm and lead guitar is just unrivaled. Duck Dunn lays down some of his most inspiring bass lines ever, and as always, the perfect time keeping of the great Al Jackson, Jr. on drums makes this album a sonic delight from beginning to end. It opens with, in my opinion, the greatest piece of music ever recorded, the title cut, "Melting Pot".

From start to finish it is perhaps, the most fitting example of each member's equal contribution to the sound and soul of the band. Four guys doing four distinctive things, with it all coming together like magic, and all the while, none of them having enough of an ego to detract from the other. Tragic circumstances made this the last outing by these four, and the direction they were going in here makes it all the more tragic. However this was certainly a perfect crowning achievement for the group. Not many bands can go out as they came in. On fire.

Reviewed by: The Stax Man

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