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Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion - Hardcover

Gordon, Robert

 
9781596915770: Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1596915773 ISBN 13: 9781596915770
Verlag: Bloomsbury USA, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

The enduring artistic and cultural history of the legendary Memphis record label, by the premier authority on the subject.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Gordon has been writing about Memphis music and history for thirty years and is the author of It Came from Memphis, Can't Be Satisfied, The King on the Road, The Elvis Treasures, and Respect Yourself. He won a Grammy in 2011 for his liner notes to the Big Star box set Keep an Eye on the Sky. His film work includes producing and directing the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story and also the Emmy-winning Best of Enemies. Gordon lives in Memphis.

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RESPECT YOURSELF

Stax Records and the Soul Explosion

By ROBERT GORDON

BLOOMSBURY

Copyright © 2013 Robert Gordon
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59691-577-0

Contents

Foreword by Booker T. Jones................................................ix
Preface: City Streets......................................................xi
PART 1: INTEGRATION........................................................
1. Cutting Heads and Hair (1957–1959)......................................3
2. A New Planet (1960).....................................................14
3. A Capitol Idea (1960)...................................................24
4. The Satellite's Orbit (1960–1962).......................................39
5. A Banker and a Gambler (1961–1962)......................................48
6. "Green Onions" (1962)...................................................62
7. Walk Right In (1962–1963)...............................................72
8. The Golden Glow (1963–1965).............................................87
9. Soul Men (1963–1966)....................................................97
10. A Rocket in Wing Tips (1965–1966)......................................109
11. Kings and Queens of Soul (1965–1966)...................................120
12. Unusual Success (1966).................................................131
13. Fatback Cacciatore (1967)..............................................143
14. White Carnations (1967–1968)...........................................154
15. "Born Under a Bad Sign" (1968).........................................173
PART 2: INDEPENDENCE.......................................................
16. "Soul Limbo" (1968)....................................................187
17. A Step off the Curb (1968).............................................202
18. The Inspirer (1968–1969)...............................................209
19. The Soul Explosion (1968–1969).........................................215
20. A Pot of Neckbones (1969–1970).........................................234
21. Shaft (1971–1972)......................................................257
22. Balance Sheets and Balancing Acts (1971–1972)..........................273
23. Wattstax (1972)........................................................289
24. The Spirit of Memphis (1972–1974)......................................308
25. A Vexation of the Spirit (1973–1974)...................................327
26. A Soul and a Hard Place (1975).........................................347
27. "I'll Take You There" (Epilogue).......................................358
A Wrap-up of Other Key Players.............................................379
A Note on Stax Recording Equipment by René Wu..............................383
Acknowledgments............................................................385
A Note on the Interviews...................................................389
Selected Bibliography......................................................391
Turn It Up, Baby: Notes on Sources, Reading, and Listening.................403
Index......................................................................441


CHAPTER 1

CUTTING HEADS AND HAIR

1957–1959


Jim Stewart sat in his barber's chair. Jim's hair was short, his face boyishand scrubbed clean. He wore thick-rimmed glasses and a necktie,his jacket on the barber's coat hook. It was 1957 and Jim was twenty-sevenyears old, working in a bank and taking business classes at night onthe GI Bill, with an eye toward becoming a lawyer. He played fiddle in acountry swing band on weekends.

Within ten years, this man would be responsible for some of the mostsoulful, swinging, and hip music ever made. Black people—of which hepresently knew approximately none—would be his closest associates. TheBeatles, to be unleashed in just a few years, would reach the height oftheir popularity, and in the thick of Beatlemania, the Beatles wouldphone Jim Stewart and ask if they could record at his studio. In ten years,Jim would have a hep goatee and his hair would be much longer than itwas before he sat down for this trim. But in this barber's chair, 1957, therewas no indication any of that would, or could, happen.

Jim had always inclined toward music. In his rural west Tennesseehome, not only did he play country fiddle, but also his sisters, father,and uncle were a gospel quartet. The church music was staid butpowerful—big broad notes that moved up and down like ballast on heavymachinery; it wasn't rafter-shaking, but with enough voices this style of"shape note" singing could, like Samson, tear this building down.

Where Jim had been raised, about seventy miles east of Memphis inrural Middleton, Tennessee, his sister Estelle, twelve years his senior, hadbeen his schoolteacher in the one-room school house. She soon moved toMemphis, the middle sister followed, and then Jim arrived after finishinghigh school in 1948. He worked a couple years as a stock clerk, finishedhis military ser vice in February 1953 (his fiddle got him into Special Services),and went to college. With his degree in business, he took a job inthe bond department at Memphis's First National Bank. He'd finish thedesk job, attend law school at night, and still find time to play fiddle in theCanyon Cowboys—"My love in music was Bob Wills, Leon McAuliffe,Spade Cooley—Texas western swing," Jim says. "If I could only fiddlelike Johnny Gimble ..."

Snip snip. Snip. Back in the 1957 barbershop, Mr. Marshall E. Ellisworked the scissors. Jim had become particularly interested in Ellis's recentexperience with a record label. A fiddle player himself, Ellis had investedin a portable tape recorder, and he'd made records for a few bandsaround town. His deal was pretty simple: It would cost the artist nothing,and if the record became successful, they'd get better gigs that attractedmore people. If the distributors paid Erwin Records—Erwin was the barber'smiddle name—then he'd pay the artist. The trick, Jim's barber explained,was to make sure that the song was an original and that the artistsigned over the publishing. Because—and surely the snipping stoppedhere—the money in the music business was in owning the publishingrights. For every record sold, a penny or two always went to the publisher.The publishing company filed some brief paperwork, and then if anyoneelse ever covered the song, the publisher got a check in the mailbox. Andout of the dozen or so records that Ellis had been involved...

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Verlag
Bloomsbury USA
Erscheinungsdatum
2014
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1596915773
ISBN 13 
9781596915770
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
480
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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