sign in sign up
<<
Home , Dave Prater, David Porter (musician), Estelle Axton, Hot Buttered Soul, Isaac Hayes discography, Rufus Thomas

Furman Magazine Volume 45 Article 4 Issue 4 Winter 2003

1-1-2003 Soulsville U.S.A. Mark R. Crosby '84

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furman-magazine

Recommended Citation Crosby, Mark R. '84 (2003) "Soulsville U.S.A.," Furman Magazine: Vol. 45 : Iss. 4 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furman-magazine/vol45/iss4/4

This Article is made available online by Journals, part of the Furman University Scholar Exchange (FUSE). It has been accepted for inclusion in Furman Magazine by an authorized FUSE administrator. For terms of use, please refer to the FUSE Institutional Repository Guidelines. For more information, please contact [email protected].

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY EXCEPT AS NOTEO.

n early January of this year, I flew out to San Francisco to spend two days I at Fantasy Records. The purpose of my visit was to listen to old recording sessions from the 1960s and '70s that took place at the long-gone recording studio, once located in Memphis, Te nn. Stax went bankrupt back in 1975, and Fantasy had acquired most of its assets, including the original master tapes of such hits as "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay," "Soul Man" and "." This was my third visit to Fantasy to listen to the Stax tapes. The five-story Fantasy Records build­ ing, located in Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco, is somewhat modern looking, with a tinted-glass and white concrete-slab exterior. The Stax tapes are kept on the second floor, in a vault-like room behind a door you'd think was for a hall closet. No nameplate; no number. Behind it are literally thousands of tapes representing the collections of several labels owned by Fantasy, including Stax. The floor-to-ceiling racks filled with Stax tapes run 1 00 feet or so along the room's concrete floor. They remain in their original "pizza-pie" boxes, stacked like books in a library, spines out, with handwritten names to a local church for a dollar. In 1989, like , Booker T. and the MG's, after remaining vacant for almost 15 , , and Sam years, the studios, which had been in and Dave - some of the stars who recorded an old movie theatre, were torn down to at Stax back in its heyday. make room for a community center that As with my previous visits, my task was was never built. For the ardent Stax fan to collect taped material from between takes, bent on visiting the Stax site, nothing including engineer and artist talk, various remained except some terracotta tiles misfires, false starts, and slates ("take one"). embedded in concrete near the former In time, with the help of Fantasy's recording studio's front entranceway. engineers, I was able to piece together I say "ardent" fan because that's what a fair amount of such material, resulting you had to be to find Stax. Not only was in a one-of-a-kind audio track of what cutting the building itself destroyed, but the Stax a record at Stax sounded like. site was squarely within one of the worst parts of Memphis, a poverty-stricken am an attorney. I live in New York. neighborhood in steady decline since Stax How and why I wound up being closed more than a quarter-century ago. I asked to do this, as well as so many A cast-iron historical marker, erected by the other things relating to Stax, requires an state of Te nnessee, was the only obvious explanation. But first let me say a thing indication that anything at all had taken or two about Elvis. place on the corner of East Mclemore In Memphis, Elvis is big business. Avenue and College Street. Huge business, actually. Elvis fans con­ Of course, it was not always so. tribute more than $150 million a year to On that very spot nearly a half century TOP: THE BROTHER-AND-SISTER TEAM OF the Memphis economy, making Graceland ago a young white couple with no industry AND JIM STEWART FOUNDED STAX IN 1959; FOR YEARS. the second most visited home in the United experience began working with neighbor­ States, after the White House. hood talent, both white and black, to forge ALL THAT INDICATED WHERE STAX HAD BEEN WAS A STATE If, on the other hand, you had in mind from the rich Memphis heritage of river and HISTORICAL MARKER ON AN EMPTY LOT. seeing where Stax stars like Redding race a new music, a music of the soul. BOTTOM: THE STAX . BOOKER T. AND THE MG"S. recorded "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay," It was the sound of an improbable and WAS INDUCTED INTO THE HALL OF FAME or where Sam and Dave recorded "Soul untested partnership -two races exulting IN 1992. IN FRONT: ORGANIST BOOKER T. JONES. STANDING. Man," you'd have your work cut out for you. in an attempt to bridge disparate cultures, FROM LEFT: DONALD ""DUCK"" DUNN ON BASS. After Stax went bankrupt in 1975, the to share the best of lessons learned from ON GUITAR, AL JACKSON ON DRUMS. empty, padlocked studios were turned over hardships known firsthand by each. ABOVE: THE STAPLE SINGERS WERE MAJOR PLAYERS IN

BOTH THE GOSPEL AND SOUL MARKETS. RIGHT: A WORKING

SESSION IN THE STUDIO AT STAX, WITH, FROM LEFT, ISAAC

HAYES AT THE PIANO; HIS SONGWRITING PARTNER, DAVID

PORTER; AND (SAM AND DAVE),

PERHAPS 'S GREATEST DUO; AND GUITARIST

STEVE CROPPER. BELOW HAMS IT UP WITH

AL JACKSON, DRUMMER FOR BOOKER T. AND THE MG'S.

Otis Redding. Sam and Dave. Rufus with his older sister, Estelle Axton (the name Thomas. Booker T. and the MG's. Isaac Stax came from the first two letters of their Hayes. The Staple Singers. More than last names), he probably had not heard 800 singles, 300 , 237 top ten hits of Berry Gordy. For Stewart, the model and 15 number ones. for success lay just around the corner It was the never before heard sound at , with its impresario, Sam of Stax Records. Phillips. Elvis, who had been discovered by Phillips, recorded at Sun, as did the likes o many people, Stax was (and is) the of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny southern counterpart of , its Cash. T far more famous and economically With money borrowed from his sister, successful rival. Unlike Stax, the name Stewart leased an old movie theatre in Motown is known by even the most casual a racially mixed neighborhood in south music fan and is synonymous with songs Memphis and converted it into a bare-bones made famous by such performers as recording studio. Stax was open for busi­ , The Supremes, The ness. Sun's homespun startand smashing Te mptations, Marvin Gaye and so many success left Stewart with the impression others. Motown's commercial success, that all he needed was a star most say, was the result of founder Berry of his own. Gordy's genius in taking what was pre­ Plenty of curious hopefuls stopped dominately a Southern-influenced, African­ by almost immediately, and Stewart was American sound and presenting it in an happy to give almost anyone who came in acceptable way to white audiences. the front door a shot at recording their music. the employees hung the name Soulsville, Besides having tremendous songs and Among the performers who walked in off USA, on the old theatre's marquee. In time, exceptional talent, Motown paid careful the street was , who'd had the entire neighborhood became known attention to the appearance and demeanor a hit with Sun Records a couple of years by the same name. of its artists. Dressed as if going to the earlier. Rufus brought along his 16-year­ senior prom, Motown stars would perform old daughter, Carla, and together they nlike Motown, Stax did not aim its carefully choreographed shows, often recorded Stax's first hit record, which was music specifically at white listeners. backed by a full orchestra. The company played and sold only in the Memphis area. U Owing in large part to the neighbor­ even employed a diction coach. Motown's The local response to "Cause I Love You" hood talent around Stax and the success "crossover'' appeal was unmistakable, as was strong enough to attract the notice of its first hit with Rufus and Carla, the hit after hit added fame and fortune to the of New York-based , and "little label that could" brought forth its label. not long afterward Stax, with Atlantic as own sound - a "Memphis" sound. It was Stax had no such marketing strategy. distributor and partner, began cranking out the untouched sound of people, both black When Jim Stewart, a white banker and part­ the hits. and white, making music for themselves ­ time country fiddler, founded Stax in 1959 Taking pride in their newfound success, and having fun doing it. 4 Most songs were laid down all at once, live. Feeling the music was all that mattered. Often the company would press a record for distribution simply because a take "felt" right, no matter its imperfections. To this day, the music recorded at Stax comes across with the same rawness and power as when it was first released. What mattered most to the musicians and singers was getting that feeling down on tape, and that feeling remains as fresh and powerful today as when first felt by the Stax artists themselves. Otis Redding's "Try a Little Te nderness" or Sam and Dave's "Hold On I'm Comin"' exemplified the sound of Stax. Because Stewart was content with pressing records that captured what was happening at Stax rather than playing to a bigger market, it took a number of years for the sound of Stax to "cross over'' into the more refined pop market. But just as the company's artists and music began gaining a wider following, tragedy struck. Not long after a performance at the 1967 Monterey (Calif.) Pop Festival that signaled his crossover stardom, Otis Redding was killed in a plane crash. Just four months later, Martin Luther King was shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel, one of the few places in Memphis where Stax musicians and artists could socialize together outside the studio. Redding's death and the national upheaval that followed King's murder deeply affected the working relationships at Stax, and interracial collaborations soon became more the exception than the rule. And as if completing a perfect storm for the com­ pany around this time, Atlantic Records exercised a small-print right in its "distri­ bution" contract with Stax that allowed it to take ownership of the entire Stax catalog POISED ON THE BRINK OF CROSSOVER from 1960 to 1967. For all intents and STARDOM, OTIS REDOING DIED TRAGICALLY purposes, it seemed, Stax was dead. IN A PLANE CRASH IN LATE 1967;

JOINED JIM STEWART AS A PART OWNER ut rather than fade away, Stax OF STAX IN THE MID-SIXTIES AND WAS THE regrouped and came back in 1968 MASTERMIND OF THE LABEL'S 1968COMEBACK. B with the power of a collapsed star, producing and releasing 27 albums in a rush of creative energy - and tapping the talents of every artist on its roster to do so. The onslaught was the brainchild of AI Bell, an African-American disk jockey formerly from Memphis whom Stewart had brought aboard in 1965 as a part owner. Bell's main job was to help create a market­ ing plan for the company. Stewart's leadership role, Stax began to "Theme From Shaff' and The Staple Among the albums released during the evolve in almost every respect from its mom Singers' "" represented the flurry was Isaac Hayes' . and pop beginnings. The music continued label's evolving sound. Prior to its release, Hayes' principal contri­ to reflect what was happening in and around Then, in 1972, Stax sponsored a major bution to Stax had been as the , Stax, but that landscape no longer so readily in . "," as the with , of most of Sam and held out the promise of racial reconciliation benefit concert(and eventual documentary) Dave's biggest hits. But Hot Buttered Soul and partnership. was known, was an all-day event cul­ hit big, ultimately becoming the label's The company continued to grow into minating in an hour-long performance greatest success. the early 1970s, and the sound of Stax by Isaac Hayes. Called the " Flush with this success, with Hayes soon came to embody a message of pan­ of black America," Wattstax was a smashing now a certified superstar and Bell assuming Africanism and black independence. Hayes' success, with more than 1 00,000 people cheap, and the museum would need a lot of it, I felt, to lure people into the now neglected south Memphis neighborhood where the museum was to be built. The board agreed, and for no other reason than that I lived in New York, where most of ''that stuff" was, they asked me to help them decide on how many films there should be and to help get them produced. Thus, I became the museum's de facto film producer, in addition to remaining its attorney in charge of intellectual property matters. Over time, my work on behalf of Stax has included the opportunity to select and collaborate with talented filmmakers in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York and Memphis in producing more than 25 short films for the museum. I have met film and photo archivists and collectors from across the and abroad. And I have made some remarkable

THE BAR-KAYS WERE AMONG THE MANY EXCITING discoveries. Last May in London, after pursuing two years' worth of leads, I ACTS TO PERFORM AT THE CELEBRATED WATTSTAX unearthed a collection of rusted film cans CONCERT IN 1972. transformed into a statement of warmth and containing never before televised, 16- affirmation." It "represented a temporary millimeter color films, with sound, of victory, a momentary cessation of hostilities Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, and others in which combatants hesitantly set aside from their 1967 European tour. The footage in attendance. The show began with Bell their differences and for an instant joined is now part of the museum's collection. standing alongside civil rights leader Jesse arms in a sea of troubles." More recently, I have functioned as Jackson, fists raised in a black power salute. Those times have passed - and with executive producer of a PBS special, "What time is it?" Jackson intoned. "Nation them, perhaps, the impetus for the feeling expected to air in the fall of 2003, of a Time!" the multitude responded. that so identifies and defines soul. gala May 1 opening concert for the Stax Once again, it seemed, Stax was But once more, things are set to Museum. Many Stax artists and other music poised for national prominence. But again, change. stars will participate. it was not to be. I've even been allowed to make one little over four years ago, a close of the short films myself, about the legacy he reasons for the demise of Stax friend of my younger brother Andrew of Stax. In doing so, I've had the chance vary, depending on who is telling the A (Furman '95) called me about Stax. to interview a variety of music critics, T story. Some blame mismanagement A group in Memphis, he said, was intent including , and many well­ within the company. Others cite the whole­ on purchasing the vacant lot where the known artists, from to Chuck sale failure of CBS Records, Stax's sole company had stood and rebuilding the old D. of Public Enemy, who discuss the national distributor, to honor the terms of studio as a museum that would celebrate influence of the Stax sound on their careers. its distribution deal, thereby keeping Stax's the spirit of soul music. Their plans included In short, the unfolding opportunities for my records off the shelves. an adjoining music academy for neighbor­ involvement with all things Stax have been And there are those who say racism hood children. They were to be called the nothing short of miraculous. played a part. When it closed, Stax was Stax Museum of American Soul Music and I have been part of a true community the fifth largest black-owned business in Stax Music Academy. I was asked to help effort to resurrect a deteriorating area of the country. It was also, by the mid-1970s, the group identify and resolve any intellectual my hometown. The music academy and a business that used its artists and music property issues that might come up. the museum are the first building blocks to propagate an unconventional (some The work was relatively straightforward in a multi-million-dollar effort to restore claimed militant) message of black indepen­ at first. For example, the museum did not a sense of vitality to the neighborhood dence. Moreover, the old-time Memphis even have the right to call itself the "Stax" surrounding Stax. The academy opened bank that financed Stax - and called in museum without a license from Fantasy last July and now serves more than 600 its loans during the CBS troubles- was Records, which owned the Stax name. at-risk youth from the Saulsville, USA owned and operated by whites, some of Drafting donor and lending agreements, neighborhood, offering them the latest in whom were said to be openly hostile to developing releases of various kinds, and multimedia technology and widespread Stax and its message. Regardless of the designing a copyright practices handbook opportunities for study and performance. reason, Stax went down, and this time it for the museum staff also kept me occupied But even more, I have helped to restore would not make it back. initially. the name of a business whose contributions Perhaps there were even larger factors But not too far into things, I began to American culture are permanent and that led to the end of Stax. As Peter suggesting to the newly formed board that ongoing, and to ensure that the heritage Guralnick writes in Sweet Soul Music, Stax it allocate as much money as possible and legacy of Stax Records itself, from "was the product of a particular time and toward developing (and clearing) for the its stars to its staff, receive the recognition place that one would not want to see museum's use as much film and video they so fully deserve. repeated, the bitter fruit of segregation, content as it could afford. It would not be The hits laid down at Stax have transcended the time and place of their When I arrived, an hour early, at the creation and are now woven into the fabric cavernous bar where the screenings were of our national culture. Stax songs have to be shown, I found a line of about a dozen been covered and sampled by a variety of people waiting outside. The small turnout artists, from the Brothers to hip-hop figured, I thought, given the weather. and rap groups. They can be heard in After reviewing my planned remarks television commercials, Hollywood feature with the filmmaker, I went back outside to films, and of course on the radio. look for two friends from Memphis. Neither Stax is today the most reissued inde­ the rain nor the wind had let up. But there pendent label in the world, proving itself in front of me was a line of hundreds of more popular than ever before. When Stax people, many without umbrellas, waiting went bankrupt, its music publishing rights to attend the screening. Of the 500 that weren't valuable enough to save it. Those we were able to accommodate that night, same rights today have been valued in at least that many were turned away. excess of $200 million. This event confirmed what I had come to suspect. Although we were more than y recent trip to California to gather a thousand miles from Memphis, a throng rough cuts of songs for the of people was willing to brave the elements M museum also had another to enjoy an evening of films about the largely purpose: It coincided with the first public unheralded Stax Records. The mood was screening of eight of the museum films with festive and lighthearted, and it bore a distinct which I've been involved. The filmmaker and unmistakable insider's air. had requested that I introduce him to an These people knew about Stax. And expected audience of about 200 to 300 of they knew something else, too: Stax was THIS POSTER TRUMPETED THE GROUNDBREAKING his friends and colleagues, and I was happy about to get its due. FOR THE STAX MUSEUM IN 2001. to do so. The night of the screening was Hold on. It's comin'. rainy and cold, and a whipping wind helped make conditions pretty inhospitable.