Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion Author: Robert Gordon | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EME5MMG | Format: EPUB
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion Description
The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a record company that becomes a monument to racial harmony in 1960’s segregated south Memphis. Their success is startling, and Stax soon defines an international sound. Then, after losses both business and personal, the siblings part, and the brother allies with a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, they fall from great heights to a tragic demise. Everything is lost, and the sanctuary that flourished is ripped from the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick to once again bring music and opportunity to the people of Memphis.
Set in the world of 1960s and ‘70s soul music,
Respect Yourself is a story of epic heroes in a shady industry. It’s about music and musicians -- Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, and Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Stax’s interracial house band. It’s about a small independent company’s struggle to survive in a business world of burgeoning conglomerates. And always at the center of the story is Memphis, Tennessee, an explosive city struggling through heated, divisive years.
Told by one of our leading music chroniclers,
Respect Yourself brings to life this treasured cultural institution and the city that created it.
- File Size: 5720 KB
- Print Length: 480 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (November 12, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EME5MMG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,481 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Soul - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Blues - #6
in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Soul
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Soul - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Blues - #6
in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Soul
I read an electronic version of this book compliments of NetGalley. The opinions expressed here are mine alone.
From beginning to ending this book is the story of Stax Records. Stax was founded by a brother and sister, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, who were interested in music and wanted to promote the funky music that was being created in their home base of Memphis. Financed primarily by a second mortgage on Estelle's home, they worked on a shoe string budget that required day jobs to pay the bills and studio business was transacted in their spare time.
In its entirety this is an interesting story. These were two people with a dream, but not exactly positioned to run a business and have it become hugely successful. Even more improbable, Stewart and Axton were white and most of the people who worked for them and also comprised their talent base were black. While segregation was huge in the south, once inside Stax there was racial equality and an intoxicating sense that the music would bring this diverse group forward both professionally and personally. Unfortunately, Jim's relative lack of expertise as the business grew and Estelle's role of mother hen had them often at odds with one another. Eventually, Jim nudged Estelle out of the company that she co-founded and Jim took on an African American partner who took the company to national prominence. Eventually, Stax became a victim of its own success and crashed and burned only to be revived again for another generation.
Though not exactly heavy reading, I found this book consistently interesting as an equally interesting cast of characters came and went which included Carla Thomas, Booker T and the MG's, Issac Hayes, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve Cropper, and the Staple Singers.
Memphis, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s was segregated, and many think that it still is today." "Everything came down to race....Being treated like an equal human being...was really a phenomenon....The spirit that came from Jim and his sister Estelle Axton allowed all of us, black and white, to . . . come into the doors of Stax, where you had freedom, you had harmony, you had people working together." Al Bell recalled in an interview, reported in Robert Gordon's book.
Gordon is obviously enamored with his hometown, but does not shy from describing the discordant race relations and the dystopia of segregation that prevailed; his main subject is music; and what great music it was and still is.
The book gets its name from the title of a song by the Staple Singers,( Mavis on vocals and Pops on guitar), one of many great R & B artists in the talent stable of Stax Records.
The record company was started in 1957, by bank employee and part-time country fiddle player, James Stewart, and his older sister Estelle Axton. Initially they began their enterprise in Estelle's garage, equipped with a mono tape recorder, and named the company Satellite Records. Two years later, Estelle mortgaged her home so that they could rent the former Capitol Theater in a black (not yet called African-American then) neighborhood. They named the studio Stax (Stewart/Axton) and promoted an open-door attitude. This attracted walk-ins, many that would become future stars, such as 16 year old Carla Thomas and her father Rufus; they recorded some of the studio's original big hits.
A few early successes with black musicians and an alliance with DJ/singer Rufus Thomas led Stax to focus on black music, which grew into the sound we that now call soul.
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