Stax Records Totally Explained

Everything about Stax Records totally explained

Stax Records is an American record label founded in 1957, originally based out of Memphis, Tennessee. The label was a major factor in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul music styles, and frequently released early funk and 1960s Chicago blues recordings. While Stax was involved almost exclusively in the production of African-American music, the label is noted for having several popular ethnically-integrated bands.

History

Early years

Stax Records was first named Satellite Records and was founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart, (External Link

) initially operating in a garage. In 1961, upon realizing that there was another record company named Satellite, the label changed its name to "Stax," a portmanteau of the names of the two original owners of the company: Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton. Axton began her financial interest in the company in 1958 and briefly operated in Brunswick, Tennessee before moving into an old movie theater, the former Capitol Theatre, at 926 East McLemore Avenue in South Memphis. After initially issuing country music records, the company switched to more lucrative rhythm and blues music, as the demographics of the neighborhood around their building shifted towards a primarily African-American population. Stewart, a white country fiddle player, had little previous knowledge or interest in rhythm and blues music.

The Atlantic years

The first successful artists recorded by Satellite were vocalists Rufus and Carla Thomas, a father-daughter duo whose work attracted Atlantic Records, with whom Stewart made a distribution deal giving Atlantic first choice on releasing Satellite recordings. Another of the early bands signed to the company was a Memphis group, The Mar-Keys, formerly known as The Royal Spades. The Mar-Keys' 1961 single "Last Night" was the first to be nationally distributed on the Satellite label. Previous Atlantic issues of Satellite material were issued nationally on the Atlantic or Atco labels.
As "Last Night" was rising up the music charts, Stewart and Axton learned of another Satellite Records in operation in California, and changed the name of their label to "Stax". Shortly thereafter, pianist Booker T Jones joined the label and, along with members of The Mar-Keys, began performing as "Booker T. and the Memphis Group", later changing their name to Booker T. & the MGs. The MGs' sound exemplified the southern soul style that Stax was looking for, and the band soon became Stax's house studio band, just as The Funk Brothers were the primary musicians for Stax's main competitor, Detroit's Motown Records.
While Stewart ran the recording studio where the auditorium was, Axton ran the Satellite record shop where the refreshment stand was. The record shop gave the Stax staff first-hand knowledge of what kind of music was selling which was reflected in the music that Stax recorded.(External Link

) Atlantic Records distributed Stax recordings from 1959 until 1968, when the label was sold to the Gulf and Western conglomerate. Former Stax marketing executive Al Bell became the driving force behind the company by 1968, with Axton selling her interest and Stewart taking a less active role in the company. Atlantic co-owner Jerry Wexler was fascinated by the unique sound being produced at Stax, and he was startled to learn that the label's signature style was literally an accident. The Stax recording studio in the converted movie theater still had the sloped floor where the seats had once been. Because the room was imbalanced, it created an acoustic anomaly that translated into the recordings, often giving them a big, deep yet raw sound. By 1965, Stax had signed a formal national distribution deal with Atlantic Records.
   Wexler frequently brought some Atlantic artists to Memphis for recording sessions at Stax. For example, Atlantic artist Wilson Pickett's hits were Stax songs in all-but-name, as they were recorded at Stax and backed by Booker T. & the MGs, yet released on Atlantic. In contrast, Sam and Dave, a duo act on the Atlantic roster, were "leased" to Stax, which oversaw their music and put it out on the Stax label.
   In that era, many radio stations, anxious to avoid even the hint of the impression of payola, often followed a policy of refusing to play more than one or two new songs from any single record label at one time, so as to not appear to be offering favoritism to any particular label. To circumvent this, Stax, like many other record companies, created a number of subsidiary labels. The best known of these was Volt, founded in 1962, which was the label home of popular soul singer Otis Redding. Volt releases were issued by Atlantic on their Atco Records subsidiary. Other Stax subsidiaries included Enterprise, Chalice (a gospel label), Hip, and Safice.
   By the mid-1960s, Stax and its subsidiaries had hit their stride, regularly scoring hits with artists such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Booker T. & the MG's, and The Bar-Kays. Several Stax hits were written and produced by the team of Isaac Hayes & David Porter, both later recording artists in their own right.
   Unlike Motown, which frequently packaged its artists on review tours, Stax only infrequently sought to promote its acts through label-sponsored live concerts. The first of these was in the summer of 1965, in Los Angeles rather than in Memphis. While the show was a success, the Watts riots began the day afterward, and several Stax artists were trapped in Watts during the violence. Stax also sponsored a Christmas concert in Memphis for several years, the most notorious of which was held in 1968, when special guest Janis Joplin performed drunk and was booed off of the stage. The most successful Stax package revue was a tour of England and France in 1967. Playing to sold-out crowds across western Europe, Stax released several live albums from the tour recordings, including the best-selling Otis Live In Europe.

The break from Atlantic Records

In 1967, Atlantic Records was sold to Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, which activated a clause in the Stax/Atlantic distribution contract calling for renegotiation of the distribution deal. At this point, it was pointed out to Stewart that he'd unknowingly signed away the rights to the original master recordings for all of Stax's Atlantic-distributed recordings. The executives at Warner refused to renegotiate their contract with Stax or to return ownership of the Stax masters to Stewart. As a result, Stewart sold the company to Gulf and Western in March 1968. Stewart remained at the company, while Estelle Axton left Stax after the sale. As a result, Stax was forced to move forward without the most desirable portion of its back catalogue and without Sam and Dave, who remained at Atlantic after the split. To make matters worse, Stax's biggest artist, Otis Redding, as well as all but two of the members of the Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash on December 10 1967.
After the Atlantic distribution deal expired in May of 1968, Atlantic briefly marketed Stax/Volt recordings made after the split. These recordings feature the alternate Stax/Volt logos used on the album covers on their labels, as opposed to the original Atlantic-era logos, such as the "Stax-o-wax" logo. Stax label recordings were reissued on the Atlantic label, and Volt label material on the Atco label. Gulf and Western-owned Stax/Volt releases used new label designs, new logos (including the recognizable finger snapping logo) and new catalogue numbering systems to avoid confusion among the record distributors.

Stax as an independent label

Although Stax had also lost their most valuable artists, they recovered quickly. Johnnie Taylor gave Stax its first big post-Atlantic hit with "Who's Making Love" in 1968. Producer and songwriter Isaac Hayes stepped into the spotlight with Hot Buttered Soul, which sold over three million copies in 1969. By 1971, Hayes was established as the label's biggest star, and was particularly noted for his best-selling soundtrack to the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft. Hayes' recordings were among the releases on a third major Stax label, Enterprise, which had been founded in 1967.
   The label also enjoyed great success when it had the Staple Singers shift from Gospel music to mainstream R&B. Even Rufus Thomas, one of the first artists signed to the label, enjoyed a popular resurgence with a string of hits. However, Stax's record sales were down overall, under Gulf and Western's poor management. In 1970, Stewart and Al Bell, a former sales director who was now the label's vice president, purchased the label back. Stax subsisted on its own for a short period until 1972, when negotiations with CBS Records began. Stewart, unable to bear seeing the company die, began to channel his personal funds into keeping it afloat.
   As co-owner, Bell undertook an ambitious program to make Stax not only a major recording company, but also a prominent player in the black community. The Stax logo was slightly altered with the finger-snapping hand recolored brown. He began signing many more artists to the label, Johnnie Taylor and The Soul Children among them. For the first time, many of the label's acts began frequently recording at outside studios (such as Ardent Studios in Memphis and at recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama) and working with outside producers, signaling an end of the signature Stax sound. Bell even created a comedy subsidiary label, Partee Records, which released albums from the likes of Richard Pryor and Moms Mabley; and he made a bid for the white pop market by signing Big Star and licensing albums by Terry Manning and Lena Zavaroni. In addition, Bell also became heavily involved with various causes in the African-American community, and was a close friend of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and a financial supporter of his Operation PUSH.
   On August 20, 1972, the Stax label presented a major concert, Wattstax, featured performances by Stax recording artists and humor from rising young comedian Richard Pryor. Known as the "Black Woodstock," Wattstax was hosted by Reverend Jesse Jackson and drew a crowd of over 100,000 attendees, most of them African-American. Wattstax was filmed by motion picture director Mel Stuart (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory), and a concert film of the event was released to theaters by Columbia Pictures in February 1973.

Bankruptcy

Despite the success of Wattstax, the future of Stax was unstable. Bell and Stewart bought Stax back from Gulf and Western in 1970, and in 1972 Bell bought Stewart out and established a distribution deal with CBS Records. CBS Records President Clive Davis saw Stax as a means for CBS to fully break into the African-American market and successfully compete with Motown. However, Davis was fired by the company shortly after signing the Stax distribution deal. Without Davis at the helm, CBS very quickly lost interest in Stax.
The Stax labels' profits were cut severely, particularly since the CBS distribution agents bypassed the traditional small mom-and-pop record sellers in the black community which had been the backbone of Stax's distribution, and weren't pushing the Stax product to the larger retailers for fear of undercutting rack space for CBS artists. Reports came in to Stax of stores in cities such as Chicago and Detroit being unable to get new Stax records despite consumer demands, and the company attempted to annul its distribution deal with CBS. However, although CBS was uninterested in fully promoting Stax, it refused to release the label from its contract, for fear that Stax would land a more productive deal with another company and then become CBS's direct competition. The CBS deal proved disastrous, and led to Stax's bankruptcy in 1976.
The last big chart hit for Stax was "Woman to Woman" from Shirley Brown in 1974, and the single's success help delay the inevitable demise of the company for several months. By 1975, all of the secondary Stax labels had folded, with only the main Stax label remaining. Al Bell attempted to stave off bankruptcy with bank loans, while Jim Stewart mortgaged his Memphis mansion to provide the label with short-term working capital. However, bank officers soon got cold feet, and foreclosed on the loans, costing Stewart his home and the fortune he'd earned. Stax/Volt Records declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 1975, and its assets, catalogue, and McLemore Ave. headquarters sold for about a million dollars.

Stax revival

Fantasy Records bought the non-Atlantic Stax recordings in 1977 and continued to repackage and rerelease the Stax catalogue on the Stax label. Atlantic still has the rights to the Atlantic-era Stax recordings released up to May 1968, most of which have been reissued by co-owned Rhino Records or licensed to Collectables Records. Fantasy retained the rights to Atlantic-era Stax recordings which were not released by Atlantic Records. For several of its Stax compilations, Fantasy issued alternate takes of Stax hit records from the Atlantic era in place of the master recordings owned by Atlantic.
   In 1988, Fantasy issued the various artists album Top of the Stax, Vol. 1: Twenty Greatest Hits which marked the first time an album was issued with both Atlantic-owned and Fantasy-owned Stax material and was issued by arrangement with Atlantic Records. A second volume was released by Fantasy in 1991.
   In 1991, Atlantic issued The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968, a nine-disc compact disc boxed set containing all of the Atlantic-era Stax a-sides. This release earned Grammy Award nominations for boxed-set producer Steve Greenberg in the Best Historical Album category and for writer Rob Bowman in the Best Album Notes category. The boxed-set was certified gold in 2001, the largest collection of CDs ever to have earned that certification. Fantasy followed their lead and issued volumes two and three of the Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles series in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Volume two compiles the Stax/Volt singles from 1968 to 1971, while volume three completes the collection with the singles issued from 1972 to 1975. Volume three earned a Best Album Notes Grammy Award for Rob Bowman. In 2000, Fantasy issued a boxed set titled The Stax Story, which includes pre-1968 material by arrangement with Atlantic.
   Although the original Stax studio was torn down in 1989 after a decade of neglect, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, a replica of the Stax Recording Studios, was constructed at the site and opened in 2003. Concord Records purchased the Fantasy Label Group in 2004, and in December 2006 announced the reactivation of the Stax label. The formal relaunch came with the release on March 13, 2007 of Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration, a 2-CD box set containing 50 tracks from the entire history of Stax Records. (External Link

) The first acts signed to the new Stax include Isaac Hayes, Angie Stone (who released her fourth studio album, The Art of Love & War, on October 16 2007), and Soulive. (External Link

) The first Concord distributed Stax album of all new material is a various artists CD which was released on March 27, 2007 and titled Interpretations: Celebrating The Music of Earth, Wind & Fire.(External Link

) Soulive is the first Stax artist to release an album of all-new material with No Place Like Soul released July 10, 2007.
In the UK, Keith Strachan has written and directed a new musical called Sweet Soul Music which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first ever Stax/Atlantic tour. It tours nationwide from February 2007 and features tributes to all the major Stax artists.

Stax artists

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