While I was on an instrumental soul and funk tip with The JBs, I began exploring the interweb for new discoveries in that vein. And I came across Oliver Sain.
Detroit, Memphis, Philly… we’re all familiar with those three as the home of soul music. But the St Louis scene had escaped my attention until now. The man who put Michigan on the music map was Oliver Sain, a saxophonist, songwriter, bandleader, drummer and record producer.

How he’s not a huge name is a mystery to me, though perhaps he is to soul aficionados. He’s certainly the biggest name in the RnB scene of St Louis, where he had his own studio, Archway.

The grandson of a blues guitarist from Memphis (Dan Sane) way back in the 1920s, Oliver started out in the late 1940s drumming for Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin’ Wolf.

He spent a few years in Chicago in the 1950s, before switching to sax after his Army service and joining Little Milton’s band in St Louis, eventually becoming his musical director. He also worked with Ike Turner and discovered Fontella Bass (whom he first recruited as a keyboard player for Little Milton’s band).

In the Sixties he formed his own Oliver Sain Soul Revue, with Fontella Bass and Bobby McClure as singers, and produced their hit single Don’t Mess Up A Good Thing at Chess Studios in Chicago, before setting up his own Archway Studio in St Louis.

You can find a couple of restrospective albums of Sain’s on Spotify, both of them funky fusions of soul and jazz, and more individual tunes on YouTube.

The highlights are two great instrumentals, Bus Stop and this one, Booty Bumpin’ (The Double Bump) from 1974, featuring plenty of his great sax playing. It reached the dizzy heights of number 78 in the American RnB chart.