The Bar-Kays Celebrate 50 Years

Scholarships for College

The Bar-Kays Celebrate 50 Years!

Legendary funk band the Bar-Kays, with front men Larry Dodson and James Alexander will celebrate their 50th anniversary as a group this year. The Bar-Kays started as a house band for Stax Records and were selected to go on the road with R & B singer Ottis Redding in 1967. In December of that year, Redding and other band members were killed in a tragic plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin. Trumpeter Ben Cauley survived the crash and Alexander was on another plane. Cauley and Alexander went on to reorganized the group with the addition of Dodson as lead singer. When Stax records folded in 1975 the group later signed to Mercury Records where they had a sting of hits. They have garnered a total of 29 albums, including one platinum, five gold and 20 top ten singles including “Shake Your Rump To The Funk,” “Move Your Boogie Body,” “Sex-o-Matic,” “Anticipation,” “Freakshow On The Dance Floor,” “Hit and Run,” “She talks To Me With Her Body,” and many others. Alexander’s son is award-winning Atlanta-based producer, Phalon “Jazze Pha” Alexander, who was responsible for Ciara’s rise to fame.

The Bar-Kays announced on the Tom Joyner Moring Show that they will send three kid to college every year at LeMoyne-Owen, an HBCU in Memphis. The group has been supporting their college scholarship effort for ten years and has asked other entertainers to give a scholarship to one student at any historically Black College of their choice. The Bar Kays will host a 50th Anniversary show December and has asked Tom Joyner to present the scholarships along with the entertainers on stage at the event.