When I first began researching the story of Stax Records in the summer of 1985, little did I know that 12 years later I would still be working at bringing this project to a conclusion. My initial motivation was simple. Although born and bred in Toronto, I had long been intoxicated by the music, black and white, of the Southern United States. Consequently, when it came time to do my Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, I enrolled at the University of Memphis. I chose a Southern school because I wanted to live within the culture that had produced wave upon wave, genre upon genre of the most exciting music I had ever known. It seemed obvious to me that I might just get that much closer to grokking the essence of this music if I actually lived within the culture that had produced it. It was the best decision I have ever made.
For those who have never lived in Memphis, let me state emphatically that it is a very odd city. Lying at the heart of the mid-South, everything moves at a much slower pace in Memphis than I was certainly used to. To make any headway at all, I had to learn to gear down. It is also a city where some of the rawest, most exciting music humans have ever created might be heard on any given weekend night. But, just as likely, nothing will be happening. The great musical moments in Memphis happen infrequently and, especially in the case of black Memphis, are often not publicized outside of a small sector of the community. Tourists rarely see any of it. Most locals are totally oblivious to either its existence or its magic.
All of this is a long way of saying that if I hadn’t lived in Memphis, this book could never have been written. In fact, it never would have been written because I had never planned to devote a decade of my life to Stax Records. Stax was only one of several topics that fascinated me. What led me ultimately down the long winding path that has culminated in this book was a growing disgust I had with the fact that most Memphians seemed blissfully unaware of the importance of the legacy of Stax Records. While most people at least had some vague notion that it had existed, very few had any sense of the impact the records produced by Stax had on the popular music of the last 35 years, and just as few realized the importance this company had for the local African-American populace.
While I found this lack of knowledge and interest particularly galling in Memphis itself, the general neglect of Stax extended well beyond the Memphis city limits. At the time that I began this project, there were eight books out on Motown, but not a single volume had been written about Stax. Having worked my way into the local music community, I had already met a number of the people who had worked at Stax. Hence, I decided that I was the right person in the right place to do something about this injustice. I set out to document with as much richness, dignity, and grace as I could muster the story of those that had created the mighty Stax Records.
And so began an incredible journey. In the intervening dozen years, my Stax activities have included: innumerable lectures; academic and popular press articles on various Stax artists; a four-part radio special; over 65 compact disc reissues of Stax material; and a film. In some respects, Stax had become a full-time job, dominating a significant number of my waking hours. I conducted over 200 interviews with those who in one way or another were involved with Stax, including virtually every artist, songwriter, session musician, engineer, and producer as well as all three owners and several of the key office personnel. These interviews have taken me into a wide variety of milieus, ranging from roach-infested homes, reflecting the most abject poverty you could imagine, to mansions in the East Hamptons. The former was the site for a fascinating interview with one of the members of one of the great vocal groups at Stax; the latter was where I interviewed Atlantic Records co-owner Jerry Wexler, whose company distributed Stax. The two interviews were conducted within days of each other and provided a perfect insight as to who makes money in the music industry and who does not!
In the process of doing all of these interviews, I was graciously allowed into the lives of dozens of people, many of whom remain friends of mine to this day. My life has been that much richer for all these experiences. I consider myself blessed. Much of this book is derived from those interviews, and as often as possible I have tried to tell the story of Stax in the words of those that lived it.
Working on a project over this length of time has impressed upon me the urgency of conducting historical research earlier rather than later. Nine people that I interviewed for this book have passed away. Another five passed away before I found the time to talk to them and, of course, a very few such as Otis Redding and Al Jackson had passed away while the story was still unfolding. I have also become aware of a significant erosion in the memories of many of the people whom I have interviewed more than once. Details that in 1985 or 1986 came readily had all but vanished by 1996. Thank God for Maxell tape!
When I first began writing the history of Stax, I thought I was writing about a bunch of records that I loved. I quickly realized the story was much richer than that. As an integrated company in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1960s, Stax was a political and/social phenomenon. As its ownership passed from being white to half-white/half-black to 100 percent black, Stax also became important as an innovative black business enterprise. The tale of its gradual unraveling at the hands of the United States government, CBS Records, and Memphis’s Union Planters National Bank begged to be told.
Throughout its two very distinctive periods, Stax was a very special place to work. In the 1960s there was clearly the feeling of a Stax family. In the 1970s, as the company grew to include over 200 employees, the nature of that family changed, but for those who still toiled away at the McLemore Studio the family feeling remained. Most of those who were lucky enough to be a part of the company in either period describe their time at Stax as the best years of their lives. Several people got positively teary-eyed during the course of our interviews as they recalled the joy and occasionally the heartbreak of their time at Stax.
Doing justice to such a multifaceted story was much more difficult than I ever imagined it might be. The book you currently hold in your hands is two-and-a-half times as long as my publisher wanted. It is also longer than I had envisioned, and yet I found that, even at this length, I had to leave out dozens and dozens of interesting stories that people had shared with me over the years. While I have used footnotes throughout the book to include as much detail, for those who want it, as possible, it became impossible to work in the stories and recordings of a host of artists who never achieved fame but made truly great records. Amongst that group I include Wendy Rene, Ruby Johnson, Mable John, Linda Lyndell, Hot Sauce, and many others. It was also impossible to give adequate space to several artists with an extended series of records issued at Stax, including the Mad Lads, the Bar-Kays, the Emotions, the Temprees, and the Soul Children.
The decision to leave this material out was made somewhat easier because I had the opportunity to write booklets that accompany three boxed sets that feature every rhythm and blues single issued by Stax. For those who crave details about these records, the boxed sets have it all, the combined liner notes being about half the length of this book.
I initially planned to have absolutely no duplication between my liner notes for the boxed sets and the current book. A number of people, including some of those who were part of the Stax story, talked me out of that approach, reasoning that not everyone who would buy this book would have all three boxed sets. For those that do, about 15 percent of the material included here has been recycled from the boxed sets. Please accept my apologies. The vast majority, though, of what you will read here is brand-new material, never before published.
By and large, Soulsville U.S.A. is the story of a company that produced records. While I never would have written this book if it hadn’t been for those records, the focus in this text is squarely on the incredible saga of the corporation that made possible the production of those records.
Those who have read much of what has been written on Stax will notice that at various points facts, stories, and perspectives differ in this account from what I and others have previously published. In all cases, that is because as I have continued to dig at this story from every conceivable angle I have uncovered a wealth of new information, contradictory facts, and/or more reliable facts than I or anyone else had found previously. I assume that this process will continue and that I will have at least a few corrections to make for the second edition. Anyone with corrections and/or further information can write to me care of the Music Department at York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. As well, despite my best efforts, there are a few people that I have never been able to interview. Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Tom Nixon, Rhonda Washington a.k.a. Hot Sauce, Barbara Stephens, Earl Cage, or Prince Conley, please contact me at the above address.
While I like a good tale as much as anybody else, personally I am obsessed with accuracy. For a variety of reasons, much that is and has been propagated about Stax Records is impregnated with an awful lot of fanciful fiction. Myth making is part of the local Memphis psyche and has been developed into a fine art by a handful of quotable individuals who, although being important players in the history of Memphis rock and roll, were never an important part of Stax Records. I interviewed these people and over time found that much of what they told me was just plain wrong, consisting of little more than third-hand knowledge filtered through too many years, a fair bit of substance abuse, and too many agendas, the latter often as not connected to the fact that they never were able to work their way into Stax. Despite the fact that a lot of what I was told were often great stories and/or insights, if they didn’t pan out through the corroboration of other individuals or documentary evidence, I didn’t use them. As best as I can do it, then, this is the truth, much of it less romantic than what has been written before, but all of it in the service of telling accurately the story of Stax Records.
In addition to the interviews that I conducted, in the course of my research I have had access to all of the Stax-related files in the hands of Fantasy Records, which purchased Stax in 1977. This includes most of the company’s press releases, artist bios, sessions sheets, royalty statements, artist and producer contracts, distribution contracts, inter-company memos, and so on. I have also been able to audition just under 200 hours of Stax recordings that have never been issued. A significant percentage of the detail that is found in this book comes from the access Fantasy and their European licensee, Ace Records, have granted me.
The end of Stax was wrapped up in an inordinate number of lawsuits. The records retained by the courts pertaining to those lawsuits contain, in between more legalese than I ever cared to read, a wealth of hard data in the form of trial transcripts, affidavits, depositions, and interrogatories. In addition to providing a fascinating window on the events that eventually destroyed the company, these documents included a wealth of hard factual detail about the company’s operations that is not in the files owned by Fantasy Records and that would be otherwise inaccessible. Much of this material is cited in the body of this text. Other hard data came through the largesse of a few key individuals who had kept company memos, speeches, and other materials that they graciously lent to me.
Which brings me to those that I need to thank. First and foremost are all those who participated in the Stax experience and have put up with my constant entreaties for multiple interviews over the past 12 years. This book is dedicated to them. Unless noted in the text, every quote is from an interview conducted by myself from 1985 to 1997. They are, in alphabetical order: James Alexander, Ron Alexenburg, Joe Arnold, Clarence Avant, Estelle Axton, Homer Banks, James Banks, Ron Banks, Al Bell, William Bell, Earlie Biles, Pete Bishop, J. Blackfoot, Eddie Bond, Eddie Braddock, Bertram Brown, Randy Brown, Veda Brown, William Brown, Henry Bush, Sam Byrnes, Gilbert Caple, Ron Capone, Randle Catron, Ben Cauley, the late Dave Clark, Judy Clay, the late Dick “Cane” Cole, Dee Cotton, Steve Cropper, James Cross, Mary Cross (Wendy Rene), Bettye Crutcher, Jeanne Darling, Don Davis, Theresa Davis, Larry Dodson, Tom Dowd, Duck Dunn, Eddie Floyd, the late Willie Gordon, Julius Green, Sandra Hall, Carl Hampton, Robert Harris, Roger Hawkins, Isaac Hayes, the late Monk Higgins, David Hood, Ollie Hoskins, the late R. B. Hudmon, Sheila Hutchinson, Wanda Hutchinson, Luther Ingram, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Robert Jackson, Wayne Jackson, Mable John, Curtis Johnson, Jimmy Johnson, L. V Johnson, the late Allen Jones, Booker T. Jones, E. Rodney Jones, Samuel Jones, Margie Joseph, John KaSandra, Johnny Keyes, Frederick Knight, Jean Knight, Little Milton, Little Sonny, Andrew Love, Benny Mabone, Terry Manning, Bobby Manuel, Eddie Marion, the late O. B. McClinton, Barbara McCoy, Larry McKinley, Chips Moman, Sam Moore, Floyd Newman, Larry Nix, Deanie Parker, Jasper Phillips, David Porter, the late Dave Prater, Dave Purple, Zelma Redding, Mack Rice, Rudy Robinson, Joe Rock, Ewell Roussell, Harvey Scales, Harold Scott, Ray Scott, Joe Shamwell, Larry Shaw, Alvin Standard, Mark Stansbury, Mavis Staples, Pops Staples, Lewie Steinberg, Jim Stewart, Randy Stewart, Ronnie Stoots, Henry Stone, Ronnie Stoots, Ted Storey, Tommy Tate, Johnnie Taylor, Henderson Thigpen, Carla Thomas, Marvell Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Michael Toles, Jim Tyrrell, Phil Walden, Hy Weiss, Norman West, Logan Westbrooks, Jerry Wexler, Carson Whitsett, Tim Whitsett, Bill Williams, John Gary Williams, Mike Williams, Ronnie Williams, and Dino Woodard. A number of other individuals who made a solitary record for Stax or who crossed paths with Stax for a brief minute were also interviewed. They are also due my thanks.
Extra special thanks are due to a few individuals who have spent an inordinate number of hours talking to me over the years and/or helped out in other ways far above and beyond the call of duty. In alphabetical order they are AI Bell, Steve Cropper, Isaac Hayes, Bobby Manuel, Sam Moore, Deanie Parker, David Porter, Marvell Thomas, Michael Toles, and Tim Whitsett. This book could not have been written without their participation.
For the use of photographs in this book, thanks go out to API Photography in Memphis, Bill Belmont at Fantasy Records, Ron Capone, Hugh Jeffreys, Deanie Parker, Don Paulsen, Mark Stansbury, Tim Whitsett, and Muhammed Ziyad and the Stax Historical Preservation Commission.
In the Stax world, one interview often led to one or more other interviews as various people gave me phone numbers, suggestions as to how to find people, and/or vouched for me to those who might have been hesitant to speak on the record. Thanks to all those already cited who contributed in this manner. Thanks in this regard are also due to a few non-Stax people, specifically Don Dortch, Dan Greer, Peter Guralnick, and Muhammed Ziyad, who helped to set up interviews with a couple of key players who otherwise might not have been willing to talk to me.
A few individuals that were absolutely key to my accessing of the court records and other documents have asked that their names not be mentioned. They know who they are and they know how indebted I am to them.
Bill Belmont and Roger Armstrong at Fantasy and Ace Records, respectively, have bent over backwards to assist my research. I am truly eternally grateful to both, and I consider them to be ongoing friends. Terri Hinte and Lisa Gifford at Fantasy also are due many thanks. For the funneling of articles from reams of rare fanzines and/or for tapes of rare Stax recordings, inordinate thanks are due to Rene Wu, Terry Riley, Robert Pruter, Eddie Richardson, and my dear friend Paul Williams. (Be sure to check out Paul’s Audiomania Record Shop when visiting Memphis.) For various tapes and some of the records that were used for the cover shot, thanks go out to Martin Koppel. For runnings around of various natures in the Memphis area when I couldn’t be there I need to thank Deborah Camp, Jim Cole, and Ruth Youngblood. David Sanjek also deserves many thanks for absolutely indispensable research assistance.
Much of my earliest research was carried out as cheaply as possible. That meant imposing on a lot of people’s hospitality. For homes away from home, thanks are due to Jay Orr, Jo Ttanna, and Nis Hansen, and especially Ross and Lauren Johnson. One couldn’t ever hope for better friends.
For my first major Stax-related liner note assignment, thank you Kim Cooke. For constant perspective when I sorely needed it, thank you Matt Vander Woude. For financial assistance at the very end of the project I am grateful for a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thanks to my agent Dick McDonough for continuing to work the book when it appeared no one wanted it. Extra special thanks to my editor Richard Carlin, who went to bat for me once I realized this book was far bigger than anything he had contracted for.
Finally, thanks to Payne’s Bar BQ and the Four Way Grill in Memphis: ribs and soul food simply don’t come any finer than what one will find at these two Memphis eateries. And, thanks to my family, Susan, Ryland, and Miranda, for putting up with everything Stax.
ROB BOWMAN
Toronto, September 1997