PBS film chronicles unlikely rise, tragic fall of R&B movement

Mike Hughes | Lansing State Journal

For years, a vacant lot in Memphis, Tenn., reflected cascades of music history.

That lot now houses the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the Stax Music Academy. For a time, however, it was vacant and abandoned.

“It broke my heart to see that there was no symbol that represented what we were all about,” said Al Bell, the former owner of Stax Records.

Now fresh symbols are growing. There’s the museum, the academy, the revival of the label itself. There’s also a dynamic special tonight, under PBS’ “Great Performances” banner.

Stax was one of two soul music houses that transformed popular music.

In the North was Detroit and Motown, with a relatively sweet, smooth sound; in the South was Memphis and Stax. “It’s a trend in Memphis, actually, to go for the overall feel over the perfect recording,” said Robert Gordon, a music author who directed the PBS film.

This was the music that Stax founder Jim Stewart savored.

“Jim had been a country fiddle player, and … he started finding out about something called rhythm and blues,” Bell said. “And it took over his spirit and his heart and his soul.”

In 1957, Stewart, a bank clerk, started the label with his sister, Estelle Axton. (Their last names squeezed together to form “Stax.”) They moved it into a South Memphis theater in 1960; they soon brought in blacks as managers, co-owners and, eventually, owner.

It was a collective experience. “We worked together, ate together, laughed together,” Isaac Hayes said.

Forming a label

Otis Redding arrived as a roadie for Johnny Jenkins, Bell recalled.

“He was really sort of like a helper, a handyman and carried the clothing. … Otis had stayed around all day long and had been bugging everybody for an opportunity to be heard.

“Jim Stewart said, ‘OK, you know, we gotta listen to this guy.’\u2009” When Otis started singing ‘These Arms of Mine,’ “the rest is history.”

Then there was Hayes, who had moved to Memphis as a teenager. He played with bands, became the keyboardist for the Stax house band, then was teamed with David Porter to write; “we just clicked,” he said.

They wrote more than 200 songs, including the classic “Soul Man,” plus “B-A-B-Y” and “Hold On I’m Coming.” Deanie Parker — once a Stax performer, now president of the Soulsville Foundation — says the Stax sound was molded by Hayes, Porter, Booker T. and the MGs and, especially, Redding. “Those horn lines that we hear today on all of those Stax records … can be attributed to Otis Redding.”

At first, people felt Stax would be limited to a black audience. Then touring changed that.

“We had standing room only, throughout the continent of Europe,” Bell said. “Nothing but white people, appreciating Booker T. and the MGs, appreciating Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas.”

Stax was soaring. Then everything went wrong.

Its star, Otis Redding, died in a plane crash in 1967, at 26. Its distributor, Atlantic Records, exercised a clause Stewart hadn’t noticed; now it owned the Stax hits.

Hayes’ big break

That could have brought an early end to Stax. Instead, Bell made a gutsy decision in 1969 to release about 27 albums. That brought a second chance for Hayes, whose previous album had gone nowhere.

His “Hot Buttered Soul” drew raves. Hayes had the music and — it turned out — the look.

“A barber shop was next door to Stax,” Hayes recalled. “I said, ‘I want you to cut it all off.”

The bald-is-beautiful look worked and Hayes drew attention. When Stax made the 1971 movie “Shaft,” it hired famed photographer Gordon Parks to direct and Hayes to write the score.

“I did it in one day,” Hayes said. “The next day, I did the strings; the third day, I did the vocals.”

The “Shaft” theme became another classic and Hayes won an Academy Award.

The rest is history

At its peak, Stax was turning out “Midnight Hour,” “Respect Yourself” and “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” At its low point, it crumbled in 1975, amid court cases, criminal and civil. Both extremes are described in the PBS film

Now Stax has restarted, with Hayes is one of its performers. At 64, he talks quietly, with words sometimes eluding him. New generations know him as the voice of Chef on the “South Park” cartoon series.

And he brings grand memories. He spent the day of his “Shaft” Oscar win with his grandmother, who had raised him after his parents’ early deaths. They went to his Los Angeles mansion and then to the ceremony.

“I said, ‘Momma, what do you think?’\u2009” Hayes recalled. “She said, ‘Wow, I never thought I would see the day.”

She would see many more days, living to 105. Her grandson would become an actor, an author, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He would be a keeper of the Stax traditions, past and present.

ADELAIDE'S Guy Sebastian is writing a travel diary from the US for IE. Here's his first entry:
My journey has begun and here I am having just arrived in LA getting ready for what will be an incredible six weeks!

via News.com.au

I was on the same flight as Kyle Sandilands (Idol judge) and a whole bunch of WWF wrestlers so between him and them I knew there was enough buffness on board to resolute even the most aggressive security alert.

I'm at my hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, preparing for my week ahead. The room is comfortable and the mini-bar is full - for now. The reason I'm in LA for a couple of weeks is to do some songwriting for my next originals album before I head off to Memphis on the 14th.

Tomorrow, I'm writing with Printz Board, tomorrow who is the musical director and writer for Black Eyed Peas and Fergie. He's a legend.

Board wrote many of the songs on the last BEP album. He's currently on tour with Fergie so I was lucky to get some time with him, but we're sure to come up with something great.

After that, the whole week is choc full of sessions with other great writers and producers.

Apart from that I'm just getting over my jet-lag sitting by the pool surrounded by bikini-clad Hollywood babes (noticeably aided by Dr 90210) and preparing for my time in Memphis. I'm going to be recording a tribute album to the great soul music scene of East Memphis music scene. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Stax record label and Memphis soul music, so the timing couldn’t be better.

Soul music sits deep in my heart and is the reason I got into music in the first place, so this is a record I've always wanted to make

I've been researching the guys I'm recording with down there, and more and more I'm discovering the "royalty'' nature of them within the industry.

For example, today I conversed with Steve Cropper, who is playing on and producing the record.

He was the guitar player in legendary bands such as Booker T & the MG's and was part of the band in the original Blues Brothers movie

Cropper (or CropDog as he's known) supervised the recordings of Otis Redding and co-wrote hits by Wilson Pickett (In the Midnight Hour), Eddie Floyd (Knock On Wood), and Redding (Dock of the Bay), all of which I'm planning to record on the album.

Steve has assembled most of the original members of the Stax band for the sessions so it will be an amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Apart from that, later tonight I'm meeting up with my old bass player for dinner who's band has been signed here in LA.

Then I'm going to meet Aussie actor Chris Egan for a catch-up (top bloke).

BTW, I'm in shorts and a singlet ... It's been too cold in Adelaide for that for a while. Jealous?

Now I'm off to a tattooist - but more about that later.

via Chicago Sun-Times

Detours | There's more to Memphis than Graceland

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- If there is anything left to be unearthed on Planet Elvis, it can be found on the Ultimate Memphis Rock 'n' Roll Tour. Elvis can be an ordeal for longtime Memphians, much as "Sweet Home Chicago" is a drain on veteran Chicagoans. But the rock 'n' roll tour delivers fresh insight by introducing edgy Memphis culture into the King's court.

A week's worth of Elvis activities will be held Saturday-Aug. 19 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Presley's death as well as the 50th anniversary of his Graceland estate. This year's Elvis Week is anticipated to be the biggest ever in terms of attendance. More than 50,000 music fans are expected to descend on the Southern town.

Elvis Presley Enterprises has rolled out a new exhibit featuring 56 of the King's jumpsuits as well as the new Elvis After Dark museum. Both exhibits are in the plaza across the street from Graceland. Open until 8 p.m., Elvis After Dark features recent acquisitions such as the RCA television set the King shot out with a pistol while watching Robert Goulet. At least Presley isn't around for Taylor Hicks.

IF YOU GO
Ultimate Memphis Rock n' Roll Tour: The three-hour trip includes a choice of one stop at either Sun Records, Stax Museum, Graceland, Gibson's Guitar Factory or the Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum. Prices are $150 for two people, the Graceland side visit is $180. Call (901) 359-3102 or visit www.memphisrocktour.com.

Wilmott operates his Ultimate Memphis Rock 'n' Roll Tour from a silver 11-passenger Chevy van with music and photographs synched up with tour stops.

Wilmott meets the challenge of finding out-of-the-way Elvis connections such as the Assembly of God Church, 1084 E. McLemore, near the birthplace of Aretha Franklin (406 Lucy). The church is where a 19-year-old Presley heard the white gospel of the Blackwood Brothers. The King then walked one block south to the Rev. Herbert Brewster's East Trigg Avenue Baptist Church, 1189 Trigg Ave., to hear black gospel. Brewster wrote "Move On Up A Little Higher," recorded by Mahalia Jackson in 1948. Sam Cooke and Jackson were guest singers at the church.

Unique to Memphis, these black and white churches were 300 yards apart.

And Elvis really never left these buildings.

Wilmott's three-hour tour also covers glorious obscurities such as the Taco Bell at 1447 Union, which was the site of the Taliesyn Ballroom and one of the Sex Pistols final American gigs during their 1978 tour. Wilmott's tour is different than Tad Pierson's American Dream Safari (www.AmericanDreamSafari.com), where tourists tool around Memphis and the Delta in a 1955 Cadillac. Pierson's trip is about the experience, stopping off at juke joints and plantations. Wilmott gets deeper into music history.

For my recent tour, Wilmott customized it with Elvis stops. He said 90 percent of his clients request Elvis sites. "People enjoy the tour," said Wilmott, who has lived in Memphis since 1974. "But I don't think they have any idea of the breadth of Memphis music history. They know of Elvis, they know the blues, but they don't necessarily know the gospel or the depth of soul music beyond Stax."

Presley's early years

Wilmott spins by the refurbished 1935 public housing project Lauderdale Courts where the Presley family lived when they arrived in Memphis from Tupelo. (You can stay in Elvis' bedroom. Visit my Scratch Crib blog: blogs.suntimes.com/hoekstra, for a recap of my night in Elvis' crib.) Reservations are not accepted Aug. 14-19 -- Elvis Week -- when Apartment 328 is open for tours.

The tour also checks out Humes High School, where Presley attended, and the site of Crown Electric (now an Exxon gas station at Poplar and Danny Thomas Boulevard), the last place Presley worked as a delivery man before becoming the King. Poplar Tunes is still across the street at 309 Poplar (901-525-6348). The mom and pop record store was established in 1945 and Presley often popped in to cash his Crown Electric checks. You can still buy a record at Poplar. The tour includes the sites of all three studios Elvis recorded in Memphis: Sun Records, American Studios and Stax.

Wilmott, 43, is the former owner of Shangri-la Records, 1916 Madison Ave. (901-274-1916), one of my favorite independent record stores in America. Stop by for a burger and a beer across the street at Huey's, 1927 Madison Ave. (901-726-4372). Wilmott still owns the Shangri-la imprint, an umbrella for his tour, books and independent CD releases.

The tour is a spin off Shangri-la's popular Kreature Comforts: Low-Life Guide to Memphis that highlights Bluff City landmarks like the Mason Temple (930 Mason St.) where Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "Mountaintop" speech on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, and the site of the Chisca Hotel (272 S. Main), the home of WHBQ-AM and manic DJ Dewey Phillips, who in 1954 played "That's All Right, Mama," the first Elvis record. The empty building still stands. It is owned by the Church of God and Christ.

The tour takes in the vintage Sam Phillips Recording Service, 639 Madison. Wilmott looked at the art deco studio and said, "This is one of the few recording studios you will see here that was built as a studio. Memphis people are poor, thrifty and creative. Most of the studios are reusages of older buildings. Sun was an old car parts store. Stax and Hi [Records] were neighborhood movie theaters. But Sam had some money. This was state of the art." Elvis gave Sam his earliest RCA gold records and they are on display in the musician's lounge.

Music's the draw

Visitors can step outside of Wilmott's van and catch some fresh air at the Overton Park Band Shell in Overton Park in Midtown. The band shell was built in 1935 as a WPA project. Wilmott looked at the bandshell set off in a grove and said, "Right after recording for Sun in July, 1954 Elvis opened for Slim Whitman here." The shell has been closed for two and a half years, but a Memphis nonprofit is slated to reopen the shell next spring.

"Music is the big draw here," Wilmott said. "But it is tied in with the cotton, the culture and the food, of course." Kreature Comforts has a couple of pages of restaurant recommendations ranging from Ellen's Soul Food, 601 S. Parkway E., to Dyer's, 205 Beale, that feature burgers fried in grease that hasn't been changed since 1928.

My only beef with the tour were the empty spaces I saw. I suppose it is a philosophical question if that's a problem of the tour or an issue with the city of Memphis, but even ghost sites give tourists an idea how cultures collide in Memphis neighborhoods.

"Physically, the coolest thing on the tour is still the Overton shell," Wilmott said. "Symbolically, the most important thing is Lauderdale Courts. There's a boy from the projects who made it. And the most interesting thing is the black and white music Elvis was absorbing from the churches. Its an incredible story. And people want to get to know a little more of Elvis. They all want a piece of him."

On October 30, 2006, Ardent Studios was presented with a brass Note on Beale Street by Performa Entertainment. Ardent was celebrating it's 40th Anniversary that night with a huge celebration attended by over 400 guests from around the world.

Ardent's Note was sponsored by The Memphis and Shelby County Film Commission, Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan), and Ira Sachs (40 Shades of Blue). Mr. Brewer and Mr. Sachs both used Ardent Studios for their movie scores/soundtracks.

Darren Fant with Performa Entertainment was kind enough to provide some shots of the installation of Ardent's note. The note is located at the entrance to Handy Park on Beale Street. Check out the Gallery for more!

Actor extraordinaire Morgan Freeman was in the studio this month working on some voiceover material for a PBS series entitled Design:e². The series explores many environmental topics, centering around sustainability in a world with waning resources. For more information, check out http://www.design-e2.com/.

via Undercover.com.au

by Paul Cashmere - August 14 2007

40 years after R&B great Carla Thomas was recorded live in Washington, DC, the aborted tapes from the performance will finally be released as on CD.

The shows from the Bohemian Caverns were set-up by then Stax President Al Bell and musician Donny Thomas to create the momentum to launch the Thomas career nationwide.

She had already had a hit song with 'B-A-B-Y' and with her duet 'Tramp' with Otis Redding. The Bohemian shows were designed to take her career to the next level.

Although the shows went exactly to plan, for whatever reason, the planned live album was never released … until now.

According to Al Bell, "(Carla) was wanting to kind of spread her wings and reach over into the jazz/folk world. It was something that was pulling away inside of her."

The album was scrapped and the catalogue number Stax 724 was re-assigned to a Booker T. & The MG's release.

Now in the 50th anniversary of Stax, the album will finally be released 40 years later …but better late than never.

Carla Thomas Live At The Bohemian Caverns will come out on September 18th.

Via Monoxide's Myspace:

Monoxide Project will be returning to Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tn to team up with producer Jason Latshaw once again. The project is expected to start in early september. As of right now there are two songs that are expected to be recorded. "Oil Stamp" & "GlassPipe" will be singled. More information on when the songs will be finished and distributed will come in the near future.

From Rufus Thomas, Othar Turner, Laura Dukes, Charlie Musselwhite, Ann Peebles, to Alex Chilton, the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival has presented the best musicians, dancers, artisans and storytellers from our diverse Mid-South community. This year's 20th festival on September 1 and 2 will be no exception to that tradition.

"This year's festival will grow to five stages to present more than 100 performers in rock, blues, jazz, rockabilly, country, gospel and reggae along with crafts people, storytellers, dancers, puppeteers and culinary artists," said Judy Peiser, executive producer and co-founder of the Center for Southern Folklore.

"Our goal is to present the best musicians and artists in a safe, family friendly environment with stages that allow an up close experience with all of the artists," added Peiser. The festival is free and will take place in downtown Memphis at the intersection of Main Street and Peabody Place, on Saturday and Sunday, September 1 and 2, 2007.

Performances begin at 11:00 AM and will end by 11:00 PM each day. (For a complete schedule, please call the Center for Southern Folklore at 901-525-3655 or check out their website at www.memphismusicandheritagefestival.com.)

Guy Sebastian

John Fry, Terry Manning, Steve Cropper, and Guy Sebastian

Australian Idol winner and pop sensation Guy Sebastian is in the studio this month recording a new record with producer Steve Cropper, engineer Curry Weber, and assistant Alan Burcham. The record, which will feature soul classics with Guy's own special treatment, will also feature Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Steve Potts (all of Booker T and the MGs) as the backing band! Stay tuned for more details..

5-Minute Concert from Legendary European Tour Includes Performances by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T & the MGs, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd and the Mar-Keys

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stax Records and to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the historic Stax/Volt Revue, Stax Records (a division of Concord Music Group) and Reelin' In The Years Productions are proud to announce the October 2, 2007 release of The Stax/Volt Revue Live In Norway 1967 on DVD. Featured for the first time on this 75-minute concert DVD are 18 classic full-length performances by some of the greatest soul artists of all time. Highlights include an amazing five-song set by the great Otis Redding and a blistering four songs by Sam & Dave. Also featured are performances by the legendary Booker T & the MGs, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd, and the Mar-Keys. Issued with the full cooperation of the artists or their estates, this DVD captures the Stax/Volt Revue on an amazing night during one of most legendary and important concert tours of the last five decades.

The Stax/Volt Revue Live In Norway 1967 includes a wealth of staggering performances from start to finish. Otis Redding delivers jaw-dropping versions of "Shake," "Satisfaction," the only known filmed concert performance of "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" and a six- minute version of "Try A Little Tenderness" in which he comes back for four encores. Sam & Dave show why they were nicknamed "Double Dynamite," with powerful performances of "Hold On! I'm Comin'," "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" and a chilling version of "You Don't Know Like I Know." Other highlights include Booker T & The MGs' scorching rendition of "Green Onions," Arthur Conley's definitive version of his big hit "Sweet Soul Music," Eddie Floyd's soulful "Raise Your Hand," and the Mar-Keys' grooving take on their top-five hit "Last Night."

via MSN Music

With this week's premiere of the PBS documentary "Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story on Great Performances," one of the great chapters in popular American music is reopened and set before the public -- a public that, 50 years on, may never have known how deeply the chords of promise and denial struck during the civil rights movement reverberated through the now-classic records that poured out of the little soul label's studio in an old movie theater on East McLemore Avenue in a run-down section of Memphis, Tenn. Just as intriguing, this year augers a new chapter in the Stax saga: The airing of "Respect Yourself" coincides with an ambitious relaunch of the label that pairs classic gems from its vaults with new releases.

Begun in 1957 by the brother-and-sister team of Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, who combined the first two letters of their last names to come up with "Stax," the label was initially like hundreds of other small, regional outfits, recording a little country, a little pop, and whatever else caught their attention. That all changed when Memphis R&B disk jockey Rufus Thomas wandered in and convinced Stewart and Axton to let him cut "Cause I Love You," an original duet with his 17-year-old daughter, Carla.

A regional hit, the record led to a national distribution deal with Atlantic Records and Carla's follow-up, "Gee Whiz," became a top 10 hit. Before long, Stax was churning out monster hits by artists such as Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, Eddie Floyd, William Bell and Albert King, and Atlantic was sending some of its biggest soul stars including Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to Memphis to work with Stax's songwriters, producers and musicians.

At the core of the Memphis magic was a crew and spirit that defied the tenor of the times: Stax was a tight and completely integrated shop, from its key core of studio musicians such as Booker T. & the MGs, the Mar-Keys and the Memphis Horns; songwriters Isaac Hayes, David Porter and Steve Cropper; and all the way up to its executives. With an unfailingly funky, rock-steady sound, the Stax crew created extraordinary recordings such as "Hold On (I'm Coming)," "In the Midnight Hour," "Knock on Wood," "Try a Little Tenderness," "I'll Take You There," "Green Onions," "Soul Man" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay."

But if Stax seemed a harbinger of both a new music business and a new America, 1967 was the year it all went sour. First and foremost was the death of Otis Redding in a plane crash -- an event that Memphis music historian Robert Gordon, the co-director/producer of "Respect Yourself," says left the company and its staff reeling. The following year, Jim Stewart discovered he'd done more than sign a distribution agreement with Atlantic -- he'd signed away all the rights to the company's biggest hits. And then the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. -- who was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers and staying at the nearby Lorraine Hotel where the Stax staff frequently snuck off to cool down in the swimming pool or play cards -- shattered the comity that had defined the label.

"Looking back, I never got over the trauma," Deanie Parker says of the King assassination and the subsequent shattering of Stax. Briefly signed to the label as a singer, Parker stuck around Stax as a publicist, and became a driving force behind the launching of the Stax Museum and the music academy for local kids now housed at the former studio. "I have really grieved that abrupt interruption. I always wonder: What would we have achieved if we'd been embraced by a city rather than viewed suspiciously as people who were promoting integration?"

Though Stax soldiered on into the '70s, scoring big sellers with Isaac Hayes, Jean Knight and Richard Pryor and mounting and filming the "Wattstax" festival in Los Angeles, the label never regained its financial footing. Succumbing to bankruptcy, its hits stayed with Atlantic while the rest of its catalog was sold to Fantasy Records, where it largely languished. But with the sale of Fantasy to Concord Records, Stax now has the chance for a renaissance: Along with mounting recent 50th anniversary "Stax Revue" concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, Antone's in Austin, Texas, and the Memphis Orpheum featuring Stax veterans such as Booker T. & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Mable John, William Bell and Isaac Hayes (who has signed to the reactivated label), Concord has been releasing expanded versions of classic Stax albums by Johnnie Taylor and Carla Thomas. The label will also soon add a three-CD complete soundtrack to Wattstax as well as a new series of DVDs including a 1967 Norwegian performance of the Stax/Volt tour featuring Sam & Dave and Otis Redding, an expanded version of "Respect Yourself," and an original documentary including previously unseen performances and interviews entitled "The Dream Is Over: The Legend of Otis Redding," to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the singer's death.

Perhaps even more enticing than seeing the great catalog reintroduced is the idea that Stax will once again be an active soul label. Concord A&R executive Robert Smith says the label's new signings, including singers Angie Stone, Lalah Hathaway and N'dambi and the funk-jazz band Soulive, signal its determination to carry the Stax legacy forward. "You can't recreate the past," Smith says, "but you can recreate an artistic context. Stax stood for a kind of artist- and song-based soul: It was raw and funky, but the craft was high and more about a feeling than a definition. The intent isn't to find artists in the Stax mold but artists who demonstrate what soul is today and what it will become."

For lovers of Stax, the music and the promise are its legacy and lasting meaning. Filmmaker Gordon, who grew up in Memphis, says there was always a lot of lore attached to the label. "When I was a kid, if I saw a limo in traffic, I knew it was either Elvis or Isaac Hayes," he says. "Stax had that glamour. But it also came to mean this long-lasting music with integrity that was part of a culture of open-mindedness at a time when society was closed."

Fred Goodman is the author of "The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-on Co