SOLID SOUL PAGE

The Stax label was the biggest rival to Tamla Motown for sales in the 60's and 70's. It was started by one Jim Stewart who was born in Middleton, Tennessee in 1930. He played a violin while in the army, then left to do business studies at the state university hoping to become a banker after graduating in 1956. While working in a bank he still played in a swing band around the Memphis area.

He started making recordings in a garage in 1957 and talked his older sister "Estelle Axton" into investing some money in a new record label which was called, Sattellite. After moving into an old Memphis movie theatre in 1960, Estelle set up a record shop in the front of the building and Jim set up a studio at the rear, they got friendly with a local DJ called "Rufus Thomas". Jim Asked Rufus and his 17 year old daughter "Carla" to record a song called "Cause I love you", it became a local hit and caught the attention of Jerry Wexler who was the president of Atlantic records. Wexler paid Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton $5000 for a 5 year lease option on any Sattellite recording, Carla Thomas then recorded a song she had written herself called Gee Whizz, which Jerry Wexler instantly hijacked and released on the Atlantic label, this got to number 5, and was the first big hit for Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton.

Estelle Axton had a son called " Packy " who played in a band called "the Royal spades" this band included among others the famous "Steve Cropper" who was later to produce and write for artists like "Otis Redding". The Royal spades changed their name to The "Mar-Keys" and released an instrumental single called "Last night" which was the next big hit for Jim and Estelle. The eventually discovered there was another label called " Sattellite " in California so decided to rename the label " stax " which was made up of parts of their names " STewart and AXton ".

A pianist called Booker T Jones who lived locally started to hang around the studio and became friendly with Steve Cropper and 2 other members of the Mar-keys, Dick Dunn and Al Jackson; They eventually became the Main backing for most of the Stax hits, they also released the hit "Green Onions" as Booker T and the Mg's ( short for Memphis Group).

Jim Johnny Jenkins came to the studio in 1962 to record a song for Atlantic but ended up, a disaster, so to use up the last half hour of studio time they recorded a ballad sung and written by Jenkins 21 year old driver "These arms of mine" The name of the driver was "OTIS REDDING". This was released on their new R & B subsidiary label "Volt" and was an instant hit, Otis also recorded a song on the Stax label shortly after called "Pain in my heart" which became an even bigger hit. Now it was starting to boil at Stax records with all the top talented acts already, there soon became a lot of interest in the label from other talented singers like William Bell and Eddie Floyd, Atlantic brought in two other talented acts in the shape of "Wilson Pickett (pictured below middle) and Sam & Dave (pictured top left) Another big addition to the fold was the writing and producing duo "Isaac Hayes and David Porter".

In 1965 Stewart hired a black Washington DJ named Al Bell as sales director who draughted in a lot of other top talented names to add to the already bulging repertoire of singers, But unfortunately for them and every other soul lover in the world Otis Redding was killed in a plane crash shortly after recording his biggest hit song, sitting on the dock of the bay. This was a very big blow to them but shortly after this the Atlantic deal was about to end it's lease and was due for re-negotiation and Jim Stewart discovered that the original contract had given Atlantic the rights to the Stax masters, so rather than work on with Atlantic Jim decided to sell the company to Gulf and Western for several million dollars which is where the numbering system changed. The biggest acts after Otis Redding was Sam and Dave who were really contracted to Atlantic, so they carried on recording on the Atlantic label from then on.

After the death of Otis Redding and the departure of Sam and Dave they still continued to have hits with William Bell and Booker T, they formed a subsidiary label called "Enterprise" and released an album by one of their producers " Isaac Hayes " and called it " presenting Isaac Hays " which flopped, but then they released another album called "Hot buttered soul" this went triple Platinum.

In 1970 there were a few problems in the company with low sales and pressure from Gulf and Western and eventually in July that year Jim Stewart bought back the company convinced he could rescue it, the numbering system again changed and he recruited some new acts like, the Staple singers, Jean Knight, Mel and Tim and the emotions. He formed another subsidiary comedy label called "Partee" and recorded an album by Richard Pryor called " That Nigger's crazy " which was a big hit, he also formed other subsidiaries such as Gospel Truth, Respect and Hip.

In 1972 Al Bell made a deal with Columbia records to distribute Stax products which led to a six million dollar loan to expand the company, he used the money to buy out Jim Stewart who agreed to stay on for 5 years as President although he no longer owned the company, Al Bell had a verbal deal with Clive Davis of Columbia to pay Stax for every record delivered but Clive Davis was sacked and Columbia cut the payments by 40% which in turn led to the financial decline of Stax records. In 1975 the company could not pay their employees and was judged bankrupt on the 12th of January 1976.

THE SOULSURVIVOR 28th November 2000.

The Stax masters before the split in 1968 are still owned by Atlantic but the masters after that are now owned by Fantasy Records of San Francisco.

This article was written with information from an article by D Edwards and M Callahan titled the Stax/Volt story. 18/7/99