THE MEMPHIS SOUND: THE SOUL EXPLOSION (Part 2)
It’s sunny in California and it’ll rain in New York, and today there’ll be a soul explosion in Memphis, Tennessee.
Welcome back to part two of this three-part deep dive into the Memphis sound.
Last week’s topic was the beginning of the success of a small independent music label, Stax Records, in Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, the great ascension of Stax came to a screeching halt in 1967 when the indie label’s distributor, Atlantic Records, had been acquired by the giant Warner Bros.
As you can tell, the story of the Memphis sound did not end there. Stax Records fought, and fought hard to get back on its feet.
1968: THE AFTERMATH
Needless to say that Steward was furious and felt betrayed by Wexler, the one who approached him for the deal at Atlantic Records. After all, Warner Bros. owned the masters of every Stax Records’ artists’ works between 1960 and 1967; and thereby, Stax Records was left without its back catalog.
Wexler continued to maintain that, just like Steward, he never read the contract. In fact, in his 1993 autobiography Rhythm and the Blues, he wrote:
“There was no righting this wrong, Jim was screwed, and I feel bad about it to this day”.
After the Atlantic Records distribution deal fiasco and the death of Stax’s brightest star Otis Redding in 1967, Jim Steward sold Stax Records to Paramount Pictures on May 13th, 1968. Stax was now in co-ownership with Dot Records, Paramount’s pop label active from 1950 to 1978 – it then had a revival in 2014 but was once again closed in 2017.
The first big hit after the various blows Stax Records had to take was Who’s Making Love? by Johnnie Taylor. That was the catalyst for the Soul Explosion.
THE SOUL EXPLOSION
Do you remember Al Bell? In 1965 Al Bell, a former DJ, was hired by Stax Records to promote the label’s artists. In 1969 he became the vice-president and co-owner of Stax Records, and he had a precise vision of the direction the label should have taken: Stax Records had to rebuild its back catalog, and fast.
Steward’s sister, Estelle Axton, and Al Bell were in disagreement on their vision for the label. That led to numerous and furious disputes which culminated with Bell’s threat of leaving Stax Records. Steward was forced to choose between his sister and his vice-president.
In 1969 Estelle was let go from Stax Records. In 1970 she sold all of her shares at the previous label and founded her new label, Fretone Records, which got its first commercial success in 1976 with Disco Duck by Rick Dees.
In 1969, under Bell’s steering, Stax Records had such a prolific period that the label released 30 singles and 27 albums in an eight-month timespan. That period was later known as the Soul Explosion in Memphis, Tennessee.
HOT BUTTERED SOUL
If you’re a huge South Park fan as I am, you can probably guess who I’m about to mention. Yes, the one and only Chef, aka Isaac Hayes (1942-2008).
Isaac Hayes used to be a Stax songwriter and studio musician. In 1969, during the Soul Explosion, Al Bell asked Hayes to produce an album. He was given full artistic freedom, and he also had no pressure to produce any radio-friendly hits. Isaac heard the latter loud and clear.
In 1969 Isaac Hayes released the sexiest album of the year, Hot Buttered Soul, with four tracks which included the famous Walk On By and Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic. Hayes’s first album sold over 3 million copies in 1969 alone and made him Stax’s biggest star after Otis Redding.
Alongside with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Isaac’s album normalized African Americans releasing full length albums.
STAX RECORDS’ NEW VERNAL RENAISSANCE
New artists signed to Stax Records: The Dramatics, Frederick Knight and The Soul Children, and even Rufus Thomas.
Despite the renaissance of the label, the sales were down due to Stax’s deal with Paramount. In 1970, Steward and Bell decided to take matters into their own hands and buy the label back. They got a “little” financial help from Deutsche Grammophon, a German company owned by PolyGram, whose parent company is Universal Music Group (UMG) since 1999.
Deutsche Grammophon’s financing helped distribute Stax Records’ recordings outside of the United States through the German-British record label Polydor Records, which today operates under UMG.
WATTS SUMMER FESTIVAL. LOS ANGELES, 1972
Al Bell’s vision did not only entail a rebuilding of the back catalog of Stax Records but also an expansion of the label all over the United States. Watts Summer Festival was the perfect occasion for that. On August 20th, 1972 Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, the Bar-Kays and others played at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the seventh Watts Summer Festival (also known as the Black Woodstock).
The live recording of the concert by Mel Stuart (yes, the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory Mel Stuart) sold more than 500,000 copies just weeks after its release achieving Bell’s goal: getting nationwide awareness.
FUN FACT: did you know that in July and December 1973, Elvis Presley recorded three albums (Raised on Rock, Good Times, and Promised Land) at Stax Records? Those albums contained four top 20 hits!
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF: THE DECLINE
In 1972 Steward and Bell negotiated a distribution deal with CBS Records with then CBS Records President Clive Davis. Unfortunately, he was fired shortly after for misappropriation and misusage of company funds.
That wasn’t the end of the Stax-CBS distribution deal, though. In fact, the deal was altered. Stax Records’ profits were cut by 40% since CBS wasn’t pushing Stax Records’ works in favor of its own artists such as Earth Wind and Fire, the Isley Brothers, and Sly & the Family Stone, and in favor of Philadelphia International Records. For example, in Chicago and Detroit Stax record stores hadn’t any records from Stax available despite costumer demands and interest.
In November 1972 Stax’s private security agent, Johnny Baylor, was detained at Memphis International Airport. He had a total of $130,000 cash in his briefcase. Baylor declared that money was his. Unfortunately, this incident caught the eye of the IRS: Stax Records was now under IRS investigation.
A VERY DIM LIGHT
In 1974 Shirley Brown released Stax Records’ last big chart hit, Woman to Woman. The success of this single helped curb the financial troubles of the label which was getting closer to its inevitable demise.
To stave off bankruptcy Al Bell got bank loans from Memphis' Union Planters Bank and Jim Steward mortgaged his Memphis mansion. All these were attempts to provide short-term working capital to Stax Records. And these measures would be indeed short term: The Union Planters Bank foreclosed on the loans costing Steward a fortune and his mansion.
THE END NO ONE SAW COMING: BANKRUPTCY
You might be asking: “By all you’ve told me so far, how was bankruptcy not the logical conclusion?” Bankruptcy was, and still is, the logical conclusion. However, not for the reasons you would expect.
In December 1975, Stax Records was forced into involuntary bankruptcy. Federal marshals seized Stax Records’ building demanding everyone to vacate it within 15 minutes. The accusations came from three creditors who had worked with Stax. They claimed that the label owed them $1,900.
As any bank does when someone does not pay their debts, the bank took everything, even the master tapes. The Stax Museum’s website reports that “Al Bell was escorted from the building at gunpoint”.
Stax Records was closed on January 12th, 1976, following the order of federal bankruptcy judge William B. Leffler. Three days before the proceedings, Union Planters Bank was meaning to produce an album in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and donate the proceeds to Stax Records, but nothing ever happened.
All right! This was a solid second part of the history of Stax Records which created the Memphis sound. Subscribe and tune in for part three next Wednesday. You’ve guessed it: the story is not over just yet.
Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any observations and drop a like if you’re a South Park fan as well! See you next Wednesday!