Tag: Stax Music Academy

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Stax Hosts Virtual Black History Month Celebration

CREDIT: Courtesy of Stax Music Academy

Traditionally, the Stax Music Academy has hosted live, in-person performances in celebration of Black History Month. That’s now history due to the COVID-19 pandemic and safety-related issues.

This year, an online variety show will be made available for free to students, schools, and youth organizations. A pay-what-you-can donation option will be available for others to enjoy this show honoring Black history.

The performance event, Rhythm & Revolution: Expressions of Struggle, Collaboration, and Peace, will feature songs by well-known artists in a blend of R&B classics mixed with original music from Stax Music Academy students, plus Civil Rights Movement music and more.

Courtesy of Stax Music Academy

Young Stax Academy performer

“As important as the Black History Month lessons are in this virtual production, it is more than anything a show of sheer entertainment,” says Stax Music Academy executive director Pat Mitchell Worley.

Companion study guides will be available for those who register as “Educator” on Eventbrite. The guides will offer a deeper educational experience helping young people to process some of the thoughts and feelings that arise in the concert topics. Youngsters in grades 4-12 can also enter a songwriting competition with a cash prize for the winner.

Significant locations in Memphis including Stax Museum will be featured in the show. Also online for Black History Month is the Stax Museum Virtual Tour, featuring elements of a traditional museum tour with other components highlighting the history of Stax Records and Memphis music through those who lived it and continue to be impacted by its legacy.

Black History Month Celebration: Rhythm & Revolution: An Expression of Struggle, Collaboration, and Peace, Online from Stax Music Academy, staxmusicacademy.org, and Stax Museum, staxmuseum.com, Wednesday, Feb. 17, free with registration.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Stax Music Academy Students Bring Rhythm & Revolution Online

CREDIT: Courtesy of Stax Music Academy

The Stax Music Academy (SMA) is buzzing with activity these days, as students and instructors work in its studios, and fan out across the city, for a little R&R.

No, they’re not taking a vacation, and this is not for rock ‘n’ rollers only. Rather, the entire academy has shifted into high gear for its upcoming online presentation, “R & R: Rhythm and Revolution: Expressions of Struggle, Collaboration, and Peace.”

Courtesy of Stax Music Academy

Young Stax Academy performer

This virtual show replaces the two live performances typically held by the academy in celebration of Black History Month. Though most musical fans will be asked to pay a donation, the program will be made available at no cost to students, schools, and youth organizations across the world.

And the SMA is taking that last part seriously, offering a study guide so educators can present the show to students in a considered way. The guide includes a set of questions that can be used to help young people process some of the thoughts and feelings that may arise on topics the concert will address. And, for the first time ever, the SMA study guide also includes a songwriting competition for students in grades 4-12, with a cash prize for the winner.

Billie Worley

Stax Music Academy students creating video for Rhythm & Revolution

Aiming to be an “upbeat production designed especially for students who are currently lacking access to the arts during the COVID pandemic,” the online show will feature renditions of soul classics and original music by SMA’s students. Music of the Civil Rights Movement and more recent anthems will be highlighted, along with songs made famous by the likes of Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, Al Green, The Jackson 5, Janet Jackson and Albert King.

Billie Worley

Stax Music Academy students creating video for Rhythm & Revolution

The virtual Black History Month show is even now being filmed in various locations in Memphis, including the I AM A MAN Plaza at historic Clayborn Temple, Beale Street, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and Royal Studios, home of Hi Records, and artists like Al Green and Ann Peebles.

Pat Mitchell-Worley

“As important as the Black History Month lessons are in this virtual production, it is more than anything a show of sheer entertainment for students of all ages and parents alike,” said Stax Music Academy executive director Pat Mitchell Worley. “Our students are performing for other students and have been involved in every aspect of the show, from designing costumes to engineering and production to even filming dance lessons for other young people to emulate and enjoy.”

“R & R: Rhythm and Revolution: Expressions of Struggle, Collaboration, and Peace,”  available on the Stax Music Academy’s website starting February 17, 2021. Register as an “Educator” in the EventBrite Link for access to study guides.


Categories
Music Music Blog

For Inauguration, Justin Timberlake & Ant Clemons Drop Video Shot at Stax

CREDIT: Mark Nguyen

The music video begins inconspicuously, with a city cross section at night, a lonely train horn in the distance. Though, if you’re not in Memphis when you see it, you’ll do a double take, so familiar and distinctive is that sound. But when the image cuts to a dim recording studio and the guitar begins the song, only those who noted the street signs in the opening shot will guess what studio it is.
Mark Nguyen

Justin Timberlake & Ant Clemons

By then a listener will be focused on the powerful, earnest vocal delivery of Ant Clemons. It was his idea to make the video happen in the first place. And for a while, the significance of where Clemons is singing is not obvious. For so many who are watching the video premiere, the words that ring so true are what matter.

Cause we’re on our way to better
Better’s ahead
It gets worse before it gets better
But better’s ahead

Better days are coming

Clemons and Memphis homeboy Justin Timberlake originally created the song, “Better Days,” for “Rock the Runoff,” a virtual fundraiser held last December 3rd for Stacy Abrams’ organization, Fair Fight. Clemons began the composition months before last year’s presidential election and brought it to Timberlake, who also contributed to the songwriting. As fate would have it, Timberlake recorded his vocal track on election night as he watched the returns rolling in.

But last night’s video was a re-imagining of the song. And the makeover made it both more universal, as part of the prime time broadcast special, “Celebrating America,” honoring the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and more local, as expressed in the street signs you see when the video starts: East McLemore Avenue and College Street.

As the video goes on, and Timberlake takes a verse, you see more of the room they’re singing in as they walk along. When they walk out the front door, it’s unmistakable: They are at Stax. Clemons and Timberlake wing and walk down the empty street at night, the better to see the marquee and signs of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the Stax Music Academy, in all their neon glory. But as they stroll along, and the song’s intensity builds, others gather around them at  the crossroads. And many of those faces may have been familiar to Memphis viewers.

As it turned out, Clemons and Timberlake invited students and alumni of Stax Music Academy to perform alongside them in the new video, with a band led by Emmy-nominated musical director Adam Blackstone. The end result was a powerful moment in the history of Memphis music, and the history of America.

“The fact that the Stax Museum and Stax Music Academy were chosen by Justin Timberlake, Ant Clemons and the Presidential Inaugural Committee to represent Memphis, Tennessee, in the 2021 presidential inauguration, speaks not only volumes about the power, magic, and timelessness of soul music, but also casts a bright light on the work we have been doing here at the Soulsville Foundation for more than 20 years now,” said Soulsville Foundation President and CEO Richard Greenwald. “We are grateful to our friend Justin Timberlake for embracing our mission and genuinely caring about the young people with whom we work every day.”

Timberlake began his relationship with Stax Music Academy in 2019, when he partnered with Levi’s for their Levi’s Music Project, surprising students with a two-day songwriting workshop with Timbaland, Danja and Rob Knox and Elliot Ives. Levi’s and Timberlake also equipped the school with a new room called “The Song Lab” — a remodeled facility meant for songwriting workshops. Timberlake also brought attention to Stax Music Academy during a taping of Ellen’s “Greatest Night of Giveaways,” holiday special where he surprised one of the students with tickets to the Grammys, a full scholarship to the Grammys camp and $50,000 on behalf of Green Dot. In addition, Green Dot also gave Stax Music Academy $250,000.

Last night, the video for “Better Days” was a fine capstone to a day that positively blossomed with artful expressions of hope and determination, such as National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s recitation, or the Benediction by the Rev. Dr. Silvester Beaman. And it immersed viewers in a tableaux that rings true and familiar to many Memphians. At the song’s height, as people gather and sing, the gently lilting tune has risen to a wave of gospel fervor out in the streets. And then, suddenly, it ends, and we’re left standing there at the crossroads a while longer, back to the quiet, and the casual laughter of friends, and the train wailing in the distance.  

For Inauguration, Justin Timberlake & Ant Clemons Drop Video Shot at Stax

Categories
Music Music Features

Stax Music Academy to “Pump It Up” with Elvis Costello to Keep Music Flowing

CREDIT: Courtesy Stax Music Academy

Of all the gems in the crown of the thriving Memphis music education scene, the Stax Music Academy (SMA) may shine the brightest, by virtue of its location right beside the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Though it wasn’t yet in its current building, the music school opened 20 years ago at Stafford Elementary School and has gone from success to success ever since.

Despite the pandemic, the school is forging ahead with the new academic year, albeit with some new approaches in place. “We’re starting virtual,” says executive director Pat Mitchell-Worley. “We’re still going to keep the attention on the craft of being a musician, but instead of live performance, we’re focusing on recorded performance. And our students get to spend a lot more time in the studio this year, which is something we’ve always wanted to do, but preparing for all those live performances made it sort of impossible. So this is an opportunity. I want to focus on, what can we do that wasn’t possible last year?”

Courtesy Stax Music Academy

Booker T. Jones with Stax Music Academy students

One thing they’re doing is making up for the shortfall resulting from SMA’s suspension of all tuition charges when the pandemic hit. That’s the focus of a new fundraiser involving songwriter extraordinaire and longtime SMA supporter Elvis Costello, who is lending his voice to the cause. It’s not a recording or a performance, exactly, but a unique art object created by the London- and Austin-based Soundwaves company, which specializes in transforming audio recordings by musical artists, from Fleetwood Mac to Paul McCartney, into visual representations of the recordings’ waveforms.

Now, Soundwaves’ Tim Wakefield has created such a work based on Costello’s 1978 classic “Pump It Up,” and produced a limited-edition collection of prints, individually numbered and signed by Wakefield and Costello, as well as four originals. When first offered on July 15th, the originals sold out at $2,500 each, and roughly half of the prints sold for $450 each. Remaining prints are still available.

Courtesy Stax Music Academy

SMA students

As Costello observed in a statement, “I think this is the first time anyone has paid money to look at my voice. That said, I am really grateful to those who have made these contributions in support of the great work done by my friends at the Stax Music Academy.”

As Mitchell-Worley notes, Costello has often been involved with SMA. “He’s met with students,” she says, “and when he was in town last time, he did a testimonial video about the program.” The “Pump It Up” campaign is a perfect expression of that support. “It’s something I’m super excited about,” she says, “’Cause it’s just a cool thing. I’m like, is it wrong for me to buy one? ‘Cause I’m a fan!”

Costello isn’t the only musical genius to lend support to SMA. Direct financial assistance has come from a notable Stax alum. “Steve Cropper put up all the money for the cash prizes for kids, for the songwriting contests we’re doing,” says Mitchell-Worley. “The next one will be in August, and Cropper’s coming again with the prize money. He wants to encourage kids to write songs. He knows how important that was for him.”

The assistance of high-profile artists like Costello and Cropper is crucial now, according to Mitchell-Worley, as the SMA fills in where other avenues of music education have been curtailed due to the coronavirus. As she notes, simply taking a break from playing is not an option. “You’ve got to keep your skills up,” she says. “It’s just like math. If you go without math for a time, then that knowledge is lost. Continuing to practice, continuing to play is an important piece of growing as an instrumentalist and a vocalist.”

After virtual classes begin on August 17th, says Mitchell-Worley, “We’re playing it by ear. ‘Cause we know kids want to be back, and their families want them back, but safety, of course, is everybody’s first concern. For us, it’s still our 20th anniversary, COVID or not, and we’re still going to educate teenagers about music. We’re adapting to what the community needs are. It’s a really strange time, but we’re trying to figure out how we can help. These are the things I’m thinking about, the things that keep me up at night.”


Categories
Music Music Features

Time Is Tight: The Life and Times of Booker T. Jones

Most Memphians associate Booker T. Jones with the M.G.’s, the house band for the glory years of Stax Records and instrumental hitmakers in their own right. But Jones’ several decades’ worth of hits as a producer and distinguished sideman after moving to California should not be lost in the shuffled beats of McLemore Avenue.

This quickly becomes apparent when reading his vivid and thoughtful autobiography, Time Is Tight: My Life Note by Note (Little, Brown, 2019), which opens not on the tracking room floor of a studio, but with the words “Acapulco Gold,” the smoke of a joint wafting around him during his first brush with an earthquake in Malibu. From there, Jones presents vignettes from all chapters of his life, skipping like a stone over the river of his years. And, of course, many ripples extend outward from Memphis.

Piper Ferguson

Booker T. Jones

Still living in California, Jones spoke with me about how he came to write the book, his approach to music, and how he still treasures lessons he learned in the Bluff City long ago.

Memphis Flyer: Was your new book quite a long time in the making?

Booker T. Jones: Yeah, it was much longer than I thought it would be. I didn’t start out to write a book. Ten or 12 years ago, I was just writing some essays about my life. It was almost like practicing songwriting. I was just practicing writing. And my wife said, “Why don’t you make that into a book?”

I had a number of accomplished authors offer to write or help me write it. But I read some autobiographies of some very close friends, and the problem was, all the events were accurate, and the facts were accurate, but the voice was just not their voice. So that’s why I decided I’d just like to, right or wrong, do it in my own voice.

Your voice certainly comes through in the very personal passages, such as when a teacher caught you cheating on a test and took you straight to your father’s classroom in the same school.

Yes, and in the book, there’s a photo of him in his white shirt and tie, standing by his blackboard. And that’s right where the woman marched me, right up there in the front of the room, right next to him. That’s where I had to stand in front of everybody.

Reading the book, one thing that strikes me is the importance of families to the Memphis scene. The Steinbergs, the Newborns, the Jacksons, and your own.

I’m glad you picked that up. It’s amazing, how there’re a lot of indications of that. It’s in the language. The use of words. And a lot of it is in the nice sense of community, of well-meaning activities for young people in Memphis that I took advantage of.

I’m curious about your approach to minimalism, your restraint, through so much of the Stax material. You never really tried to play like, say, a Jimmy Smith.

It was a convergence of attitudes, fortunately, for me, when I got to Stax. It was always underneath the surface, but it came out into the open with Al Jackson Jr., and Duck [Dunn] and Steve [Cropper] in particular, and also Jim Stewart. We actually talked about it. We didn’t use the term minimalism, but it was almost like, “Keep it simple, don’t play too much.” It’s almost like there’s a spiritual revelation or accomplishment in simplicity.

We’re really getting into it here, Alex, with this whole idea behind minimalism and music. I mentioned in the book that when I was playing the song “Time is Tight,” I hold that note, that one G, for so long in the melody, but that also gives me a chance to kind of emote and be emotional while that note is playing, you know, underneath it. And it’s such a simple melody.

You work the Leslie [tremolo speaker] beautifully on that simple melody as well.

Thank you. I’m really glad to hear you say that. I wanted this to be a book for musicians, to relate to and get into some of the concepts, and do exactly what you’re doing with it.

Yes, you even have some musical charts in the back.

The music that is printed in the book represents ideas of mine that go with the chapters, that I’m trying to emulate some of the feelings of those chapters. It’s not really music that’s been recorded. It’s just three or four bars of sentiment about that particular chapter, in music.

Courtesy of Stax Museum

Booker T. Jones

Speaking of the power of simplicity, I was fascinated to read that you were inspired by Bach when you composed “Green Onions.”

It’s just those three chords, the one, the minor three and the four, and the inversion on the right hand, where the little pinky finger starts on the tonic and goes down to the fifth and then the third. And it’s the repetition of it. I feel like the voicing I’m using is Bach’s piano voicing. And that’s what I was studying at the time. I was trying to figure out Bach’s reasoning for moving the notes the way he did when he wrote all his contrapuntal fugues and so forth. And repeating all that over and over in a kind of jazzy, bluesy, groove, there’s just something about the imposing that on blues. I don’t know how to say it. There’s something about that. It’s still one of my favorite records. It still kind of hypnotizes me.

You might be interested to know that there’s a crack band of Memphis players, the MD’s, who play only Booker T. & the MGs music. And they’ve just launched a project based on imagining “what if the MG’s interpreted the Beatles’ Revolver just as they did Abbey Road?” In fact, the band learned the entire MG’s album, McLemore Avenue, before they did it. It’s really something. They call the new album Revolve-Her.

I’d love to hear that. Revolve-Her! That’s reminiscent of Hip Hug-Her! Well, they are really into it.. Cool. That’s so great. Send me whatever information you can. If they worked on McLemore Avenue, that would give them a jumping off point for how to do that, how to have a better understanding of doing Beatles music in the spirit of Booker T. and the MGs.

Reading the book, I was impressed at how deeply you studied music theory even at Booker T. Washington High School, and then later at the University of Indiana at Bloomington. Was there a conflict between your love of minimalism and the formal studies of complex music theory and arranging you were doing at BTW and Bloomington?

It was impossible for it to be a conflict for me, because so early on I had this curiosity about the different instruments and their textures. So I was compelled to know what key the French horn is in. What an F-clef was. I had the music in my head, and that was what I wanted to write down. So I never did get the chance to choose to be a by-ear musician. I knew a lot of people who were, and I could have been a by-ear musician.

Although actually, I was a by-ear musician. And I think I fooled a lot of people, because I could hear music and I could play it just ‘cos I heard it. A lot of by-ear musicians do that; they can play symphonies or whatever, without actually knowing what the notes are. But the minute you get that desire to reproduce for a group like the Memphis Symphony…

Anyway, I still do by-ear sessions. I just did one a couple weeks ago. I don’t always write it down. I think I function both ways, now that you mention it. I never really thought about this before. A lot of players, you can just hum it to them, and you say, “Put a harmony to this,” and they know what you mean. And in some ways it’s faster.

You know, we did head arrangements at Stax. But those guys also read music. So sometimes I wrote stuff down for them, but most of the time, we worked with artists who just hummed the lines to us, or just did our own head arrangements.

Otis would dictate horn parts…

Oh yeah, he would jump around singing and shouting and humming.

Did he suggest organ parts that way?

No, usually horns. He had song ideas, and definite ideas about horns. He left the keys pretty much open to me and Isaac.

I was shocked to read that that’s Isaac Hayes playing organ on “Boot-Leg.”

I was shocked too! I drove 400 miles from Bloomington to Memphis, and Cropper says, “Hey Book, I want you to hear something.” He played “Boot-Leg” and I was so confused. I thought, well maybe that’s a Mar-Keys record, when I heard the Hammond organ. But I don’t tune the Hammond that way; I have different drawbar settings. Yeah.

Well, you were gracious about it.

Thank you. It’s great, it’s absolutely a great track. Great bassline. I love it.

Were there any other MGs tracks that didn’t include Booker T?

That was the only one, while it was Booker T and the MGs. It was the MG’s without me, I think Carson Whitsett played with Al and Duck and Steve after I left Memphis. But “Boot-Leg” was the only one. It was a great one though.

Booker T. Jones

People don’t talk about your piano playing much, but it seems that’s as much your instrument as the organ.

Yeah, I am first and foremost a pianist. I do Hanon scales maybe twice a week or more. That’s my go-to when I want to whip myself into shape. The first time that music evoked an emotion in me was hearing my mother play Debussy, Liszt, and Chopin on the piano. Very emotional stuff.

You write in the book that scoring the movie Uptight! was fulfilling a long held dream of yours, to compose soundtracks. But I gather you didn’t do many soundtracks after that.

No, that’s true. I had dreamt of going to Hollywood and scoring movies at some point. I think that’s one of the reasons I went to Indiana. Of course, when I got to Hollywood there were no African-American musicians scoring music. Henry Mancini was trying to bring people like Quincy Jones in and Quincy was really the only one that kind of broke through that. Of course he came right to see me when he heard I was doing the score and sent aides over to my sister’s house, to help me.

So there was a lack of opportunity for black directors and composers as well. I was really disappointed in Hollywood in that area. Uptight! was a Jules Dassin film. Jules was very talented. But because of his political leanings, he was not a Hollywood favorite. I think he was pretty lucky to get that deal with Paramount. But he actually got kicked out of Hollywood because he was married to Melina Mercouri, and she went on the Johnny Carson show and told the nation that Greece was about to be overrun by a junta. So that happened, and the next morning we were up and out of Hollywood, just like that. Just gone, out of Hollywood. So we went to Paris.

But yeah, scoring films was an ambition of mine. I guess I used to go to the theater on Mississippi Boulevard and that was a fantasy of mine.

It seems things have changed now enough to where you could have more opportunities now.

The industry has kind of moved on. It’s completely changed. But it’s a hard job to score a film. It’s a lot of work. I know quality musicians that have left the field because it was so crazy. André Previn was the first one. He was making millions of dollars composing music and he quit because it was just too much. The deadlines. You work with a director, and music has just such a big role in pictures, and it’s just so arbitrary, I’ll say that. You have to be so disciplined as a composer for film, because it’s all about the story. It’s all about what’s happening on screen.

You sometimes work with students at the Stax Music Academy on your return visits.

Yeah, so much talent there. I used Evvie McKinney on my recording of ‘”‘Cause I Love You.” She sounds so good on that song. She’s a Stax graduate, and I’m sure there’s gonna be collaborations with others from Stax in the future.

Time Is Tight: The Life and Times of Booker T. Jones

I just started a record company, that’s why I’m saying this. It’s called Edith Street Records.  ‘”‘Cause I Love You” is the first release on Edith Street Records and it’s a companion to Note by Note album, which is a companion to the Time is Tight book.

What’s the rest of the new album like?

It’s a musical reproduction of my life. ‘”‘Cause I Love You” was the first song I ever played on at Stax. “Time is Tight” and some of those songs I recorded in Memphis are on there. And it kind of correlates with the chapters of the book. Each chapter has a musical song as its title.

You were relatively young when you moved out west. What does Memphis mean to you today?

Sometimes, when I’m preaching about how great it is to have come from Memphis and how lucky I was to have been born there, someone might say, “Well, I come from Cincinnati, and it’s great to be from there too!” But I do feel that Memphis is special, and I’m thankful that I grew up there and got my musical start there. And Time Is Tight is sort of a tribute to that, I think.

An Evening with Booker T. Jones, with Daily Memphian reporter Jared Boyd, takes place at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, 926 McLemore Ave., Friday, November 1st, at 7 p.m.; doors open at 6 p.m. A screening of an Aretha Franklin documentary takes place at 4:30. Free.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

“Feeling” Music: Funky Fridays with Kameron Whalum

CREDIT: Kevin Evans

“I play what I like to call ‘feeling’ music,” says Kameron Whalum, a successful trombonist from Memphis. “Basically, it’s a mixture of soul, hip-hop, jazz, gospel, and funk.”

Whalum, who’s due to go back on tour with Bruno Mars and the Hooligans in September, has been keeping busy during his time off, sitting in on his uncle’s Kafé Kirk series with brother Kortland, writing and recording solo music, and conducting artist talks at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

“I credit being a student at Stax Music Academy for my love of the soul music that has come out of there,” he says. “That’s why I keep coming back to work with them because I remember what it did for me, and it helped me take a little more pride in that kind of music.”

Kevin Evans

Kameron Whalum

This month, Whalum leads and covers various discussion topics at the museum’s Funky Fridays series. During this Friday’s session, entitled “Take This for A Sample: Memphis Music = It’s A Vibe,” he and producer C Major will discuss the history of sampling music and how the technique is used in hip-hop music. The pair will go over sampling basics and make a beat together for the audience.

“Somebody referred to it as a TED Talk,” he jokes.

Last week, dancers from L.Y.E. Academy joined him in a seminar about Stax’s impact on dance, and next week, he will get together with special guests, including Boo Mitchell and James Alexander, to discuss the difference between music then and now.

Funky Fridays with Kameron Whalum, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Friday, July 19th, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Free with museum admission.

Categories
Music Music Blog

A ‘biSOULtennial’ Playlist For the Ages From Stax Museum

CREDIT: Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Classic singles from the heyday of soul music at Stax

We’re seeing a lot of ways to honor the history of Memphis in this, its 200th year, but few are as fun as the Memphis biSOULtennial Countdown, sponsored by the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. It began with a special listening event and discussion at Crosstown Arts last month, where panelists Dr. Charles Hughes (Rhodes College), DJ Eddie Hankins (WEVL-FM), Tonya Dyson (Memphis Slim House), Kameron Whalum (Stax Music Academy artist in residence), and Jared Boyd (“The Daily Memphian”) discussed two selections from their personal top ten Memphis soul tracks from 1957-75.

Not content to leave it at that, Stax opened up an online ballot so everyone can pick their own favorites from that period. Anyone who wishes to voice their choice can still do so before June 30th.  To that end, Stax created a 200-song playlist on Spotify to review all the ballot selections, which may be the greatest outcome of the entire undertaking. Covering songs from nearly every major artist, studio and label from that era, it’s a must-listen for any fan of classic soul. Because they limit every artist to only five songs, mega-hits by the likes of Al Green, Isaac Hayes, or Otis Redding sit alongside lesser known gems by the Premiers, Wendy Rene, or the Astors.

Yes, your faithful correspondent has voted, and, in the interest of encouraging all readers to do the same, I post my ballot below. Feel free to comment on my selections below, or simply go vote for your favorites and be heard! The embarrassment of riches to choose from made this a near-impossible task, but I hunkered down and tried to select the best of the best. It was painful to bypass some personal favorites, like “Candy” by the Astors, or the Premiers’ “Make It Me,” but ultimately I had to ask myself: “Is this really better than ‘Love and Happiness’?” Fortunately, there’s even a spot to write in your own favorite if it’s not listed.

Try it yourself, and revel in the knowledge that we live in a land littered with such gems. Then be sure to visit the Levitt Shell on Saturday, June 29th, to hear the young players from the Stax Music Academy bare their musical souls, bringing many of these classics (and some originals) to life before your very eyes and ears. 

Categories
News News Blog

Pat Mitchell-Worley Named Director of Stax Music Academy

The Soulsville Foundation announced Wednesday that Memphis music veteran Pat Mitchell-Worley will be the new executive director of its Stax Music Academy. Mitchell-Worley, who began teaching part time in the academy’s after school program in 2017, has served as interim director since July.

Pat Mitchell-Worley

Mitchell-Worley is a familiar face and name on the Memphis music scene. She has been co-host of Beale Street Caravan for almost 20 years, a globally syndicated roots radio show broadcast from Memphis. Her voice can be heard narrating selections in The B.B.King Museum, Cotton Museum, Mississippi River Museum, and numerous documentaries on Memphis history and music. She regularly hosts Artist Q&As for organizations such as the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi and Oxford American.

She is also the founder of her own music-related community relations firm, FanFareCR, and prior to that served as the development director for the Memphis Music Foundation. Among her other roles was serving on the staff of the Blues Foundation during its early years in the 1990s, where she oversaw all of the international nonprofit’s communications and educational efforts alongside helping produce the W.C. Handy Blues Awards, the Lifetime Achievement Awards, and the International Blues Challenge. 

Categories
Music Music Blog

Jim Stewart Makes a Rare Appearance at Stax, With Special Donation in Hand

CREDIT: api photographers

api photographers

Estelle Axton & Jim Stewart

This Wednesday, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music will host a rare visit by the label’s original co-founder, who will present a rare piece of memorabilia to the museum, pay honor to alumni of the Stax Music Academy, and tell tales of the label’s early days. Jim Stewart, who lives in Memphis to this day, albeit with a low profile, is a spry 87, which perhaps accounts for his reticence with the media. I spoke with the museum’s executive director, Jeff Kollath, about the events scheduled for the evening and how Stewart views his legacy.

Memphis Flyer: It must be a big deal for Jim Stewart to return to Stax.

Jeff Kollath: Yeah, I think so. He’s attended Stax Music Academy concerts before, so he’s obviously incredibly supportive of what we’re doing. But I think the thing he’s most proud of, in terms of legacy, is what the Stax Music Academy does. I think he sees what those kids are doing as an extension of the type of things that he and his sister [Estelle Axton]  and [onetime executive vice president] Al Bell were trying to accomplish by giving young people in Memphis opportunities fifty-plus years ago. Obviously it’s in a formal educational setting now, as opposed to running a recording studio. But for us, the legacy he created with his sister and Mr. Bell, was one of espousing corporate social responsibility before anybody knew what corporate social responsibility was. And it’s totally true. In terms of enmeshing yourself in a community, being a part of that community, working with the community, supporting that community, and especially for two relative outsiders to come to South Memphis and do that 58 years ago, is pretty remarkable. Whenever he’s been around, that’s the part that always strikes me. When he sees the kids, it’s coming full circle.

It’s only gaining momentum as many years’ worth of students go on to play music.

Yeah, some of ’em aren’t kids anymore. Some of them are full-fledged adults. The Academy started before the museum did, back in 2000. Some of these kids are well into their thirties now. But I think music is just a means to an end. It’s part of the process. And I think the great youth development work that everyone at the Academy does, making informed, engaged, empathetic citizens, is just as much of a testament to Academy graduates as how great they are as musicians.

So they’ll be playing tomorrow night, too.

Yeah. The Stax Music Academy Alumni Band will be playing, and then John Paul Keith is going to play a couple songs from the early Satellite Records catalog, which he did for us during our 60th anniversary stuff last March. I think he’ll do “Blue Roses,” which is appropriate, because that’s the only song that Mr. Stewart has a songwriting credit for, and that was the very first single out on Satellite. I don’t know the other song he’s gonna do. He’ll do something else from the early, early days, from when Mr. Stewart used his wife’s uncle’s garage on the north side of Memphis. And then Krista Wroten is going to play a fiddle tune, since obviously Mr. Stewart got his start as a fiddle player. That was how his love of music really began, playing fiddle around West Tennessee, as Red Stewart and the Tennessee Cotton Pickers.

Jim Stewart Makes a Rare Appearance at Stax, With Special Donation in Hand

Will there be an open discussion?

Yeah, there’ll be some things at the start of the event, then we’ll do some talking, some music, and then Mr. Stewart and [onetime Soulsville Foundation President and former Stax employee] Deanie Parker will have a conversation. And then we’ll go into the rest of the music for the night. It’ll be a nice program. Hopefully some folks will hear some stories. It’ll be a good chance for former Stax employees and musicians to get together and see each other again. There’ll be a few folks floating around.

And he’ll also unveil the new bit of memorabilia that he’s donating to the museum?

Yes, we’ll do that at the start. That’s a surprise, we can’t tell you about that. But we’re pretty excited about it. We really wanna encourage folks to donate. If they’ve got it, share it with us and the world. We’ve been around 15 years, and we’ve got a lot of great stuff out, but we’ve got room for more. Jeff Dunn donated his dad [Duck Dunn’s] jacket that he’s carrying on the cover of [Booker T & the MGs album] McLemore Avenue. He donated that last summer when we did an event for the recent Duck Dunn book. We’re gonna put the McLemore Avenue jacket out on display this fall. 

McLemore Avenue, by Booker T & the MGs

An Evening to Remember, Wednesday, July 25th, 6-8 pm: a special celebration during which Satellite/Stax Records founder Jim Stewart will present the Stax Museum with a very special donation of memorabilia. Live music by the Stax Music Academy Alumni Band, John Paul Keith, and Krista Wroten. Free and open to the public. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Stax Music Academy to play Levitt Shell, European tour

Duck Dunn’s pipe

Yesterday I stopped by the Stax Museum of American Soul Music for the thousandth time. It never gets old; it is, as Steve Cropper once said of working there, “like going to church.” This time around, I focused on the little things that I may have passed by earlier. Duck Dunn’s pipe, the marked-up tape box for a Mar-Keys session, Al Jackson, Jr.’s “peace-sign bootjack to remove his boots after a day of studio sessions.” And then there were the current exhibits: Hit the Road, Stax! Wayne Jackson and the 1967 Stax/Volt European Tour (through Sept. 30), A Century of Funk: Rufus Thomas at 100 (through Aug. 31), and the most stunning, Portraits in Soul: Rare Images from the API Archive. This last exhibit, featuring gallery-quality prints of Stax artists’ publicity shots, most in stunning color, will end on Labor Day, so get there while you can. Bill Carrier, API Photographers

Sam & Dave publicity photo, from ‘Portraits in Soul’ exhibit.

But what’s most sanctified about the reborn Stax complex is that it’s not just a museum. I also stopped in to see where the Stax Music Academy summer students have been rehearsing, next door in the Soulsville Charter School gymnasium. At the time, they were taking a well-deserved break, shooting hoop and singing karaoke, but even then it was clear that these young people shared a powerful camaraderie. This year’s Summer Music Experience included the usual in-depth instruction in Stax history, vocals, instrumentals, marketing, audio engineering, songwriting, and choreography, as provided by the Stax Music Academy staff. Students also attended intensive sessions with multi-instrumentalist, keyboardist extraordinaire, and producer Booker T. Jones. As a grand finale for the summer program, they will light up the Levitt Shell this weekend, presenting such classics as Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft,” Shirley Brown’s “Woman to Woman,” and two dozen other Stax songs.

Stax Music Academy students at the Levitt Shell, 2015

Finally, on July 7, a select group of twelve students will embark on the Stax Music Academy European Tour, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the original overseas tour by the Stax/Volt Revue. In 1967, this tour represented an epiphany for many of the label’s artists, as they witnessed sold out shows across England and the continent. When the artists returned home, they had a new sense of their music’s appeal and importance, propelling them to even greater heights in the years to come. Following in their footsteps, the academy students (with funding by the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development) will open for Stax legend Mavis Staples on July 17th in Bristol, England at Colston Hall (one of the original 1967 tour venues), and open for Stax icon and recent GRAMMY winner William Bell on July 21st at the Sage Gateshead Americana Festival in Sage/Newcastle, England. Be assured that the students of today’s reborn Stax will return to Memphis on a note of inspiration, much as their forerunners did half a century ago.
http://www.staxstudenttour2017.com/

Stax Music Academy to play Levitt Shell, European tour