The Bar-Kays come home to Satellite Music Hall on Dec. 11

Stax's surviving house band plays its first Memphis show since 2022 at Crosstown's new room.

Some Memphis bands leave town and stay famous somewhere else. The Bar-Kays never really left. On Friday, Dec. 11, they play Satellite Music Hall at Crosstown. Showtime is 7 p.m., tickets run $69.50 to $99.50 through Ticketmaster, and it's their first Memphis show since Sept. 9, 2022, at the Landers Center.

The date was announced Oct. 21, and the venue lists it as a featured show with tickets on sale. Ticketmaster's listing showed a presale running when it was checked, so don't wait for the general on-sale if you want floor space.

The building is part of the story. Satellite Music Hall opened Sept. 4 at 1291 Autumn Avenue, a short walk from Crosstown Concourse. It holds up to 1,300 people in a two-story hall with a mezzanine, plus a smaller Vinyl Room and an on-stage LED wall. Live Nation pitched the opening as honoring Memphis' musical roots. Booking the Bar-Kays in the room's first season makes good on that.

Few bands have deeper Memphis roots. The Bar-Kays started as Stax's house band, and in 1967 their instrumental "Soul Finger" reached No. 3 on the R&B chart. The same year brought the worst day in the band's history: the plane crash that killed Otis Redding also killed every Bar-Kay aboard except trumpeter Ben Cauley. Cauley and bassist James Alexander, who wasn't on the flight, rebuilt the group.

What they built next was a different band. Singer Larry Dodson, who had come up in the Stax group the Temprees, joined, and the Bar-Kays moved toward funk.

Dodson retired around 2017. Chris J. took over lead vocals after what a Yoshi's listing calls a global talent search. Alexander is still there. In a Tidal interview he calls himself "the last man standing," the one founding member still with the band. Stax's own artist spotlight says the group still records and tours every year with a new cast of musicians under the Bar-Kays name.

That's the honest framing for Dec. 11. This isn't the 1967 lineup and doesn't pretend to be. It's a working band led by a man who was there at the start, playing a catalog that runs from Stax instrumental soul through decades of funk, in a room built to celebrate exactly that history.

A Stax house band, back in a Memphis room built to honor that history.

Practical notes: 7 p.m. is early for a Friday, so plan dinner around Crosstown first. Ticketmaster is the official seller.

Four years is a long time for a band this tied to the city to stay away. Welcome them home.

Sources: Satellite Music Hall — Tickets & Schedule (satellitemusichall.com); Bar-Kays Memphis tickets — Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.com); Satellite Music Hall events — Live Nation (livenation.com); Rent Satellite Music Hall in Memphis — Live Nation Special Events (specialevents.livenation.com); Honoring Memphis' Musical Roots: Satellite Music Hall Debuts at Crosstown Concourse — Live Nation Entertainment (news.livenationentertainment.com); Everything to Know About Satellite Music Hall — Memphis Travel (memphistravel.com); The Innovators: The Bar-Kays — Stax Records (staxrecords.com); The Bar-Kays: The band that rose from the ashes of Otis Redding's tragic plane crash — Far Out (faroutmagazine.co.uk); Soul Survivor: The Bar-Kays' James Alexander in Conversation — Tidal (tidal.com); The Bar-Kays — Yoshi's (yoshis.com); The Bar-Kays — SoulTracks (soultracks.com); Bar-Kays - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)