Stax: Soulsville USA, a four-part documentary series now streaming on Max, tells the story of the record label that integrated its business practices and recording studio personnel when its hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, was still segregated, the rights movement civilians was growing throughout the United States. and the sound of black music was changing the way people listened to music in America and around the world. Directed and produced by filmmaker Jamila Wignot (Ayley), Soulsville United States features interviews with Stax founder Jim Stewart, Booker T. Jones of Booker T & the MGs, musicians including Carla Thomas, Steve Cropper and David Porter, former Stax employees, and context from music historians and other observers.
ESTAX: SOULSVILLE USA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: An old recording shows Stax Records, the marquee of its headquarters in a former movie theater that extends over the sidewalk of McLemore Avenue in Memphis. Someone places a 45 rpm record on the platter. “I’m sitting on the dock in the bay, watching the tide recede…â€
The essence: Featuring big hits of the 1960s like “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” and his rousing, song-defining cover of “Try a Little Tenderness,” the music of Otis Redding, often created on the label” Stax Records’ in-house musicians, such as keyboardist Booker T. Jones and guitarist Steve Cropper, helped define the sound of Stax Records and the label’s status as a source of soul music influenced by the people and musical paths of the southern United States. United. Which is kind of crazy, because like Stax: Soulsville USA As you explore, Stax was founded by violinist Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton, white people whose laid-back style of collaboration (black and white musicians working together in the studio, with black and white people helping run things on the business side) €“ was completely unknown in Memphis at the time, let alone America in general.
“Music brought us together on a real level,” Jones says in Soulville of those Stax sessions. “There was a feeling, a permission, for that music to happen.” With hits from Redding, Rufus and Carla Thomas (“Cause I Love You”) and Sam & Dave (“Hold On, I’m Comin’â€), Stax’s status grew and a national distribution deal with Atlantic Records was another significant boost. But while the organic nature of writing and recording at Stax was integral to the sound he developed, it’s all there, the beats and soul between the notes of Booker T. & MGs single “Green Onions.” There was still an exposure gap when it came to marketing. Black artists were being played on black radio. But Stax, along with their new promotions director, Al Bell, needed to get their music to white radio. and greater sources of income, of course. But also because the material that came out of the Stax studio in Memphis was some of the most important and indelible music of the 20th century.
Soulsville United States features the Stax sound on many archival studio recordings and live footage captured before raucous crowds of the 1960s. But the docu-series also tracks the difficulties Stax and its group of artists encountered as the label and the sound grew, from the untimely death of Otis Redding and the ongoing racial tensions of the time, to failed business deals and subsequent decisions that would force the pioneering label into a period of bankruptcy.
What shows will it remind you of? The documentary Respect Yourself: The Story of Stax Recordsproduced for PBS in 2007, included interviews with many of the notable people featured in Soulsville United States And back in the 1960s, while Stax Records kept it in “Soulsville,” Memphis, Tennessee, there was also “Hitsville” in Detroit, MI, where Motown stars recorded. The 2019 documentary Hitsville: The Making of Motown It’s a deep, detailed pe into the origins of that label and scene, which often acted as a stylistic and economic counterweight to Stax’s influence.
Our opinion: Booker T. Jones is sitting at the piano. “Hm, that sounds a little strange,” he’s explaining a bit of music theory and the traditional twelve-bar blues chord progression, “but it sounds kind of cool,” and on Jones’s Hands, his idleness instantly transforms into the rhythmic, heavy, irresistible backbone of Stax’s 1962 hit, “Green Onions.” It’s a fantastic little segment on Stax: Soulsville USA, and its structure is eye-opening for anyone who was a fan of the soul and R&B that came out of the label at the time. But it also illustrates the creative spirit that made Stax so important. Black and white musicians brought shared and unique influences to their personal experience in a studio, giving them space to collectively write and produce songs that were later broadcast on the radio, and the wild hearts and dancing feet of black and white people. mostly children, were able to further encourage the sound with their voices and their pockets.
It is so important that Soulsville, as a documentary series, does not shy away from the bitter relationships and succession of business agreements that fueled the conflicts of Stax’s subsequent history. That’s as much a part of his legacy as the magic of those sonic singles that define an era. But Soulsville elevates that material too, with access to many of the key figures who made it, and a particular reverence for Otis Redding, whose influence as a successful black artist in a country riven by racial tension is felt nationally and within the country. around Stax. It is Redding who captivates in another tremendous piece of vintage footage, as he sings “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)” while signaling to the trumpet players and other musicians around him.
Sex and skin: None.
Parting Shot: There was a big stir when the Stax-Volt touring revue performers took to the London stage in 1966 and 1967. “At every show, I keep seeing all these white people jumping up and down, singing the songs,” Al Bell recalls. . It was a key reaction, because it influenced Bell’s future promotion of Stax artists. “I see that these people have no problem with our music. That’s all. “I’m going after white America.”
Sleeping star: Booker T. Jones, now in his 70s, is an insightful and thoughtful interview in Soulsville United States about how the vibe that came to define the sound of Stax Records was organically determined. In the label’s early days, Jones himself was still a high school student, skipping school to record sessions for songs that would become cold classics.
Most pilot line: “Stax had developed this amazing sound,” says historian and author Rob Bowman in Soulsville United States. “It’s black culture. But an interracial group is doing it, with elements of white pop and country.” And defined by songs like “Green Onions,” that fusion of a sound “established Stax as a place to make great R&B.” â€
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. Stax: Soulsville USA explores the important story of an innovative record label that operated during a time when America really needed the songs and sounds it created. Which isn’t to say America can’t still benefit from being swept up in soul, sweat and fervor and Otis Redding singing “Try a Little Tenderness.” In short, there is nothing small about influence. from Stax Records.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.TO
