Delaney & Bonnie

Stax records didn't know what to do with a white couple from Mississippi and Illinois, so they sent them to Memphis to cut 'Home' with the M.G.'s and Isaac Hayes. Delaney was a Shindig! regular with a chip on his shoulder and Bonnie was the first white Ikette to ever back Ike and Tina Turner. They didn't have a polish or a gimmick, just a soul-shaking vocal blend that made every superstar in 1969 feel like a fraud. You can hear it on those early sessions—they weren't trying to sound like the South, they were the South, and they dragged the British blues elite into the mud with them. Everything changed when Eric Clapton heard 'Accept No Substitute' and realized he'd rather be a sideman in their band than the frontman of Blind Faith. Suddenly, the Bramletts were the center of a gravity well that sucked in George Harrison, Dave Mason, and the core of what would become Derek and the Dominos. It was a traveling circus of ego and talent fueled by heavy drinking and genuine spiritual fervor. When the dust settled, they’d changed the DNA of 70s rock, turning it from clinical blues-rock into that loose, gospel-drenched boogie that defined the decade.

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