The Bar-kays was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1966, as a funky instrumental soul combo. The original members were Ronnie Caldwell, Jimmy King, Ben Cauley, James Alexander, Phalon Jones and Carl Cunningham. Just one year after the band was established, they had a huge success with the legendary Soulfinger-tune. The Bar-kays have worked with producer Allen Jones from the beginning, until his dead in the late 1980's. Bad luck also stroke in the early days of the band. In 1967, Otis Redding chose them as his supporting act, when the plane that brought them to a gig crashed, killing almost all the band members, as well as Otis. As a result, the line up of the Bar-kays changed and continued changing quite frequently throughout the 1970's and 1980's. In 1994, James Alexander put a new version of the band together, but it was short-lived, as there was little success.

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D i s c o g r a p h y

Soul finger	1967	Rhino
Gotta groove	1969	Stax
Black rock	1971	Volt
Do You see what I see?	1972	Stax
Coldblooded	1974	Stax
Too hot to stop	1976	Mercury
Flying high on your love	1977	Mercury
Money talks	1978	Stax
Light of life	1978	Mercury
Injoy	1979	Mercury
As One	1980	Mercury
Nightcruising	1981	Mercury
Propositions	1982	Mercury
She talks to me with her body	1983	Mercury
Dangerous	1984	Mercury
Banging the wall	1985	Mercury
Don't hang up	1987	Mercury
Contagious	1987	Mercury
Animal	1988	Mercury
48 hours	1994	Basix
the real thing	2003	JEA/Right Now