Memphis has a long history of producing the gods American music, home of Sun Records, who in the 50s gave Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis their breaks in the music industry. These artists' mixture of African and American musical styles became Rock And Roll and dominated the musical landscape of the later 20th Century, then Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton formed Stax records in 1957 as Satellite Records, and along with Motown, took essentially black musical forms and sold them to white audiences as well the African-American population. The style of rhythm and blues that Stax created maintained the call and response vocality and charisma of the gospel singers and developed them into mutually beneficial overlaid harmonies, and instead of the sufferings and tribulations of faith we have all the dramas of Love and Politics; Stax's artists haven't got a political message in their music because the whole enterprise is political on a deeper level, in songs like 'Respect' by Otis Redding and 'Soul Man' by Sam & Dave, black experiences in the south transfer political clashes into the tribulations of emotion in which feeling is shown to be universal. On 'Cause I Love You' by Carl & Rufus we have the first hint of the national ascendency of Stax Records, the first song to be recorded in their old converted cinema building on McElmore Avenue, that still had the sloping floor of the auditorium which created an unusual, raw and dark acoustic sound that showed up Motown for its preppy pop polish. A young Booker T. Jones played baritone sax on the recording, before forming Booker T. and MGs, who would become Stax's house band, playing on most recordings between 1961 and 67.
Booker T. & The MGs defined the sound of Stax, all squelching horn hits and boozy bass sounds over soulful, multipart vocals. Whilst Motown was a predominately black operation, a factory line calling themselves the Corporation, Stax was racially integrated, with Booker T. & The Mgs having two white members, and also releasing odd singles by white artists, like The Fleets' 'Please Return To Me'. The Mar-Keys, who had Stax's first national hit with 'Last Night' were also a white band, young kids into the sound of black Memphis rhythm and blues. Stax was a colourless enterprise in the midst of racial segregation, one of the few places in the American South where blacks and whites could freely mix on an equal level. Stax was also a form of empowerment for black musicians. In the face of white recording artists using black forms of music to make vast sums of money, Stax was reclaiming soul, rhythm and blues and funk for the people who originated the styles. Otis Redding was the undoubted star of Stax, he stumbled in one afternoon in 1962 and convinced them to record him singing a version of 'These Arms Are Mine'. His European tour of 1967 that culminated in a performance at Monterey Pop Festival broke him into the mainstream, backed by Booker T. & The Mgs, his performance wowed the white audience (the first time he had played to a large group of white people in his home country), but within six months he had died in a plane crash in Wisconsin. Three days before his death he recorded what I imagine was the first Stax record I heard, Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay, bringing us neatly full circle.
