The best ideas have a momentum all their own, a force that propels them through a course of events affecting all those who come in contact. Stax Records was such an idea. Founded by Jim Stewart, and co-owned by his sister, Estelle Axton, the two converted an old movie theater at the corner of McLemore Avenue and College Street in Memphis, Tennessee, into a recording studio. Stax Records didn’t begin with a business plan or formula. It didn’t lead with an agenda or strict adherence to the bottom line. It began, as Steve Cropper once said, “as an accident,” the by-product of a collective love of music and song, of the gritty evolution of blues, gospel and rock that came to define the Memphis sound.

As former musicians themselves, Estelle and Jim were amazed at the depth of talent that literally surrounded them in their south Memphis neighborhood. After the studio had been converted and opened for business, former WDIA disc jockey Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla hustled over to record the label’s first hit, “Cause I Love You.” Soon after, the Mar-Keys, a local R&B group that included Estelle’s son, Charles “Packy” Axton, delivered “Last Night,” and for the next 14 years, Stax Records was the official architect of soul, launching the careers and recording hit after hit for the likes of Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave and Isaac Hayes. Of the approximately 800 singles and 300 LPs recorded at Stax, there were 166 Top 100 songs in the pop charts, and 265 Top 100 hits in the R&B charts, nine of them winning Grammys.

Under the visionary leadership of Al Bell, the marketing and promotional force behind Stax, the label became one of the first to evolve into a multimedia company, producing spoken-word recordings with such legends as Bill Cosby, as well as the acclaimed WattStax documentary. Known to many as the “Black Woodstock,” WattStax was the first cultural music film ever made and was largely responsible for starting Richard Pryor’s career. Culled from seven hours of live concert footage of the 1972 Watts Summer Festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the documentary features performances by Isaac Hayes, Rufus and Carla Thomas, The Bar-Kays and the Staple Singers, as well as interviews on the 1965 Watts Revolt.

Though the Stax songs covered or sampled by contemporary artists, such as Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, the Black Crowes, D’Angelo and Willie Nelson, number in the thousands, it is almost impossible to quantify the musical, political and social influence the label continues to have on American culture.

For more information, please contact
Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau:
800.873.6282 (U.S. and Canada Only)
www.MemphisSoul50.com

Regena Bearden
V.P. Marketing
regena@mcvb.org

Jackie Reed
Communications Manager
jreed@mcvb.org

Peter Short
Travel Media Manager
pshort@mcvb.org