Sam & Dave

The most explosive duo in pop history, Sam & Dave (Sam Moore and Dave Prater) made a career out of trying to outsing each other on a series of vital singles recorded at the legendary Stax Studios in Memphis in the late '60s. Working with the songwriting and production team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter, and backed by arguably the greatest studio band ever, Booker T. & the MG's, Sam & Dave turned out gold with "Soul Man," "I Thank You," "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby," and many others. This four-disc set (it comes housed in a black wooden box with gold hinges) contains reissues of the albums Hold on, I'm Comin' (Stax, 1966), Double Dynamite (Stax, 1967), Soul Men (Stax, 1967), and I Thank You (Atlantic, 1968), and while there are classic tracks scattered throughout, there is also a lot of filler -- however well performed and produced it may be. Collectors may find this set interesting, if only for the fancy black box, but more casual listeners are probably better off picking up one of the greatest-hits collections like the two-disc Sweat & Soul anthology from Rhino/Atlantic, which keeps the hits coming one after another. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide