As soul legend Rufus Thomas states during his MC stint at the beginning on this live document from 1972, when you speak about the blues Johnnie Taylor is a man who knows them from the letter A to the letter Z. And despite his attempts to shake off his early image as a blues shouter as he re-made his image into that of a deep soul singer, Taylor knew deep down in his heart that all great R&B had elements of the blues in it. It's a feeling and all the great soul singers knew it and had it in their collection of vocal weapons. Taylor was a master at it and, even better, he knew it. It was one of the reasons he was one of the top artists at Stax after Otis Redding passed away and it's one of the reasons this previously unreleased live album is so damn good. A versatile talent, Taylor was able to guide his career through the various R&B fads, becoming at various times a gospel singer, balladeer, deep soul singer, disco superstar and Southern soul singer by the time of his death.

Starting his mainstream career at the beginning of the '60's with singles on Sam Cooke's Sar label, by the time Taylor got to Stax, he was well seasoned and knew exactly what he wanted to be: a soul star. Under the watchful eye of the staff of producers and songwriters at Stax, Taylor's career happened exactly as Taylor wanted it. The best selling soul singer for the label after Redding passed, Taylor had hit after hit, became The Philosopher Of Soul, and ran the R&B charts until 1972 or so, when Isaac Hayes stepped away from his songwriting office and decided to make some groundbreaking albums on himself. After Hayes' ursurpment of Taylor's position at top of charts and top of the Stax foodchain, Taylor still had hits but was never able to rack up the hits in bunches like he had when he was at his peak. Eventually Stax went bankrupt and, after a stint on Columbia where he scored his biggest hit ever ("Disco Lady"), soul label Malaco signed Taylor and he continued to release deep soul albums right up until his death in early 2000.

Now, onto this cool Holy, Soul-ly Grail live album.

Besides being an unreleased live set from Taylor around the same time as the Wattstax film was shot, the show in itself is interesting as Taylor is working with his band augmented by players unfamiliar with his music and many mistakes are made by the band during the set. The story goes that Taylor decided not to play his set at the original Wattstax concert due to his placement in the lineup of acts.