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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.

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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.


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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

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In Memoriam: Nokie Taylor, Trumpeter for Isaac Hayes and Others

CREDIT: Shawn M. Carter

A lifetime ago, I was a cook at a deli/market called the Squash Blossom. Isaac Hayes and Alex Chilton were regular customers. Behind the scenes, the whole place bustled with the energy of would-be artists working their day jobs. But there was one person on the payroll who was neither a would-be nor a has-been, someone who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder onstage with both Hayes and Chilton, someone who brought dignity and a mischievous grin to his role as a dishwasher: Nokie Taylor.
courtesy Ditto Taylor

Nokie Taylor

Like most of us, he loved the soul-heavy oldies station that played as we worked, but few of us suspected how many of those hits Nokie had actually contributed to. Amused by my name, he’d walk in to work and say, “Hey! It’s the other Al Greene!” Later, that was shortened to, “Hey! It’s The Other!” Finally, that became, “Hey, T.O.!”

As 1989 drew to a close, I was slated to join Alex Chilton and a facsimile of The Box Tops, playing New Year’s Eve in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And who should appear in the horn section but Nokie on trumpet. Even then, I hardly guessed what a master of the instrument he was. It turned out his contributions to Chilton’s solo records were many and substantial, and he could often be seen in the local jazz scene. This guy was a player. Later I discovered that he had been a regular member of the Isaac Hayes Movement, playing on Black Moses, Shaft, Joy, Truck Turner, and Three Tough Guys, not to mention a slew of albums Hayes released with ABC after Stax was kaput.
courtesy Ditto Taylor

Nokie Taylor

This Christmas grew a little darker when I heard that Nokie had passed away on December 19th. It was not entirely unexpected — he’d resided in an assisted living facility for six years, under hospice care for the past two of those, and the isolation of quarantine had been hard on him. Above and beyond that, his close friend and colleague Herman Green had died in November.

Both had played pivotal roles in FreeWorld, those stalwart funksters of Beale Street for over three decades. When Nokie died, FreeWorld co-founder Richard Cushing wrote:

Where Herman became my musical father, Nokie became more like my cool musical uncle – no less influential, but in a more casual & roundabout fashion. Just a few years after that, Nokie & I were sharing an apartment together & he graciously agreed to be the horn section leader for our new, all original band “Mosaic”, and I can remember many late nights in a variety of CK Diners after our gigs, with Nokie intently listening to us dissect the show while he dispensed his own unique brand of wisdom & perceptions about both the music we were writing & performing and our personal & professional goals.

You see, we knew that Nokie had already been to the musical mountaintop, having played on MANY Top 10 R&B Hits that came out of Stax Records in the 60s & 70s (like Sam & Dave & Eddie Floyd, etc.) and had also toured with Isaac Hayes for many years – not to mention playing on Cybill Sheppard’s “Vanilla”, Big Star’s “Third”, and several Alex Chilton & Tav Falco – Panther Burns LPs – so his vast musical knowledge & experience were invaluable to a young, aspiring musician like myself. But Nokie was always quiet about his professional accomplishments, and was never one to boast or appear grandiose about whom all he’d played with, where all he’d been, & what all he’d done – even though his discography was broad & impressive.

He often played with FreeWorld throughout the years and was always a
showstopper with his circle breathing prowess on the cornet, his smooth vocal
style, and his frequently overt sexual innuendos insinuated into both his lyrics and his playing. (Too many stories to go into here, but trust me… Nokie was ONE BAAAD DUDE!!)
Shawn M. Carter

Nokie Taylor receiving a Beale Street Note in 2012

Trying to further grasp the passing of this life that touched so many, I reached out to his son, Dwayne “Ditto” Taylor, now living in Arkansas.

Memphis Flyer: Was Nokie a native Memphian?

Ditto Taylor: He was born March 6, 1941, in Orange Mound. His dad, William Taylor Jr., was a professional singer.  (My dad was William Isaac Taylor III). His father was affectionately known as “Billy” or “The Voice” … a baritone and a perfectionist. My mom said that he sounded like Billy Eckstine.
courtesy Ditto Taylor

William Taylor, Jr., father of Nokie Taylor

Nokie told me his dad would leave the house before him. And my dad had to find his own way to the gig, and find his way back. I don’t know if he was trying to get him away from the music business, you know, making him fend for himself.

Now Mickey Gregory was friends with my dad. And a week before Nokie’s father passed away, he told Mickey to look after his son. Because he was going away. Mickey said, “Where are you going?” And he just said, “Look after my son.” And a week later my grandfather passed away. 
Mickey was the stage manager for Isaac Hayes, so Mickey got Nokie hooked up with Isaac.

How old was Nokie at the time?

My dad had to have been around 25. He met my mom in college in Arkansas, at what is now called the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

He studied trumpet there?

Well, my dad was so good that he didn’t want to play in the band. He started his own band. He was too cool for the marching band. And that’s where he met my mom.

And then they settled in Memphis?

Yes, sir. They got divorced when I was five, and my mom and I moved to Arkansas. So I would go visit during the holidays or in summertime. He was traveling with Isaac all the time, doing his music. He sent me postcards from all over the world. Africa, Rome, and he even sent a picture from when they went to, at the time, Cassius Clay’s [Muhammad Ali’s] training camp.

I wasn’t an Isaac Hayes fan. I couldn’t understand his music. ‘Cause he was talking about love. I wanted to dance! My cousins in Memphis had to tell me, “Man, Isaac Hayes was the shit in the ’70s.” And then I found out that Maurice White wanted Nokie to join Earth, Wind & Fire, but Isaac was too hot back then.

Did he ever mention what his proudest moment as a player was?

Well, he mentioned that he and Miles Davis were good friends. I guess because of the trumpet. You know, Miles wasn’t an easy person to get along with. But my dad, being himself, they fell in love with each other. Maybe it was a trumpet-to-trumpet thing.

I could see how your dad could lighten Miles up a little. Nokie was so fun.

Right. Exactly. He loved to make people laugh and smile. He wanted everybody around him to have a good time. To enjoy themselves, enjoy life. It’s like, when he walked into a room, even though he spoke real cool, like a pimp, he could captivate an audience. Especially the women!

When I reflect on all the people that he touched, if he had stayed with my mom, he might have moved to Arkansas and never would have been who he became, affecting all the lives he impacted. It shocked me when Kirk Whalum called me and said, “Your dad really inspired me.” Nokie had to do his musical career. I was fortunate enough to be raised by four women who did an excellent job with me. But the times that my dad and I did share were … Ooooo weee!

How recently was he still actively playing?

The last time I saw him perform was maybe 2006, 2007. Down there on Beale Street. And he did that circular breathing, that little trick where he’d blow his trumpet for, like, three minutes straight. Which is normally not humanly possible. But after 45 seconds, I started clapping. I had never seen him do that before. I’m like, “Wow!” And everyone else was, too. He played that note for a long time, so they were calling him “One Note Nokie.”

One interesting thing: I was home on leave from the military and I drove up to Memphis, and he didn’t know I was coming. But I knew he was playing down on Beale Street. So me and my cousin and one of my good friends snuck in, and the singer saw me and she knew exactly who I was. She said, “We’ve got a very special guest tonight. Dwayne, would you please stand?” And Nokie wasn’t paying attention. He was over there playing with his trumpet keys, licking his lips, getting ready to start the set. But when I stood up and they threw the spotlight on me, the singer said, “Nokie, play for your baby.” Nokie turned around and it was the first time I ever saw tears come to his eyes.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nokie Taylor’s family will not host a memorial service for him at this time.

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RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends

Rance Allen (left) & the Rance Allen Group

Last week was a dark one in the history of Memphis music, as two of its legends passed away. The deaths of Stan Kesler on October 26 and Rance Allen on October 31 were noted around the world, as each of them, in their own way, had made profound marks on the musical achievements of Memphis for many decades.

In honor of their memories, we present a few of the masterpieces of the recording arts that they made possible, too often neglected in the standard top 100 lists of hit records from this city.

Rance Allen, known as the “Father of Contemporary Gospel Music” and ultimately attaining the position of Bishop in the Church of God in Christ for the Michigan Northwestern Harvest Jurisdiction, grew up in Michigan and formed The Rance Allen Group with brothers Thomas and Steve in his early twenties. In 1972, Stax Records signed the group to newly formed subsidiary label The Gospel Truth, and the combination of their vocal and instrumental talents with Stax created an unforgettably funky version of gospel that is still hard to beat.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (6)

Here they are performing that same year at the historical Wattstax festival in Los Angeles.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (2)

They went from success to success over the coming decades, eventually scoring their first gospel #1 in 1991. In 2007, the Rance Allen Group brought the house down at Stax’s 50th Anniversary celebration at the Orpheum Theatre.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (3)

Stan Kesler was born in Mississippi but moved to Memphis in 1950 and was soon playing with the Snearly Ranch Boys, who ultimately gravitated to Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records. Here’s one unforgettable track they cut there in 1955, co-written by Kesler, released on Sun offshoot label Flip Records. He went on to write many songs, including “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” and “I Forgot to Remember to Forget,” both recorded by Elvis Presley.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (9)

A multi-instrumentalist, he played bass on Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” among others. He also picked up his chops as a recording engineer at Sun, which he would make use of throughout his career. Growing into a producer in his own right, he developed an ear for artists and bands with character in their sound, helping to develop their distinct identities. Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs was the ultimate expression of his production style, and tunes like “Wooly Bully” and “Little Red Riding Hood” have entered the pantheon of pop achievements from that era.  Here are two other deep cuts, not heard often enough, from that same brilliant band.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (4)

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (5)

Later, at Quintin Claunch’s Goldwax label, he worked primarily as an engineer, but it was Kesler who assembled the crack backing band for soul artist James Carr: guitarist Reggie Young, drummer Gene Chrisman, keyboardist Bobby Emmons, and bassist Tommy Cogbill. These players were later recruited by American Sound Studio and became known for all time as The Memphis Boys. Here they are on two of Carr’s masterpieces, while still working for Goldwax.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (8)

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends (7)

Through the 80s, he joined a group of former Sun session musicians who traveled the world as Sun Rhythm Section, then retired from music. Looking back on his career in a 2014 profile in The Bartlett Express, he deemed “If I’m A Fool (For Loving You),” recorded by Presley at American Sound Studio in 1969,  as his finest achievement as a songwriter.

RIP Rance Allen & Stan Kesler: Deep Cuts from the Lives of Two Lost Legends

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Little Richard & Otis Redding: The Unsung Bond of Their Macon Roots

CREDIT: (l) courtesy Specialty Archives; (r) by Jean Pierre Leloir

(l) courtesy Specialty Archives; (r) by Jean Pierre Leloir

Little Richard & Otis Redding

“When I heard Otis sing ‘Lucille,’ I thought it was me!” That’s just one bombshell that dropped from the mouth of Little Richard many years ago, as he inducted Otis Redding into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Some such inductions transcend sheer pageantry, and, though there was pageantry in all he did, Little Richard’s tribute to the Big O was one of them.

It’s worth revisiting that moment, now that the rock and roll firebrand, the “architect of rock ‘n’ roll,” the Georgia Peach himself, has left us. Since Richard Penniman’s death on Saturday at age 87, few could have missed the outpouring of both grief and love by a world celebrating his influence on modern music, from the Beatles to Prince. But fewer have noted the supreme influence of the Georgia Peach on another transcendent talent, usually associated with Memphis and Stax Records: Otis Redding.

That it was a deep and abiding influence is clear within the first seconds of Little Richard’s appearance at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As the band revs up the classic Stax arrangement of “I Can’t Turn You Loose,” he steps up to the podium and starts to sing. And it’s eerie how much of Otis Redding’s unique timbre and delivery is captured by his elder and inspiration, Little Richard, almost fifty years after Redding’s own death. In that instant, you can hear the Richard in the Redding and the Redding in the Richard.

Little Richard & Otis Redding: The Unsung Bond of Their Macon Roots

As he dips into other hits from Redding’s repertoire, Little Richard’s evocation of Redding’s voice becomes more uncanny. Though the groove and feel of the Stax hits were very different from Little Richard’s, and Otis never directly copied Richard’s trademark “Wooooo!” (as the young Paul McCartney did), there is a deep resonance common to the delivery of both performers. And suddenly you can sense how powerful it must have been to be young and Black in 1950s Macon, Georgia, hearing and seeing a hometown hero ascend to immortality.
Courtesy Specialty Archives

Little Richard

“I can remember when Otis quit school he went out on the road with Little Richard’s old band, the Upsetters,” remembers his brother Rodgers Redding in Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music. “And he would send home $25 a week. That was a lot of money in those days…I remember Otis saying, ‘One of these days I’m going to be like them.’ He was just determined, there was nothing that could have stopped him.”

Little Richard & Otis Redding: The Unsung Bond of Their Macon Roots (2)

Indeed, it was when singing Little Richard’s “Heebie Jeebies” that the young Otis Redding tasted success for the first time. “That song really inspired me to start singing,” Otis told writer Stanley Booth. “I won the talent show for 15 straight nights with that song, and then they wouldn’t let me sing no more, wouldn’t let me win that five dollars any more.” 

Before long, Otis Redding was singing in guitarist Johnny Jenkins’ group, the Pinetoppers. When they had a regional hit with “Love Twist,” Joe Galkin of Atlantic Records took notice, and sent them to Memphis to cut some more sides in the Stax Records studio. Galkin, claimed a third of all of Otis Redding’s publishing royalties from that point on, and in return insisted that Stax’s Jim Stewart record Redding as well as the Pinetoppers that day. He sang “These Arms of Mine” with the Stax house band, and the rest is history.

Little Richard & Otis Redding: The Unsung Bond of Their Macon Roots (3)

Viewing Little Richard’s presentation from 1989, it’s clear that he watched Otis’ ascension with wonder and delight (and perhaps some envy?). As he sings one Otis hit after another, his internalization of the man’s phrasing is remarkable. It’s telling that, before that moment, Little Richard had not indulged in such music for decades. But when it was for Otis, he fired up the engines once more.

After the first number at the podium, Little Richard steps back to say, “I haven’t done that in 30 years! Ooh my God, I felt good doing that. You all gonna make me scream like a white lady!”

More songs follow. Richard doesn’t know all the words to “The Happy Song (Dum Dum),” but continues with fervor, undaunted, before noting, “Otis Redding was born in Macon, Georgia. His father was a preacher, and Otis Redding was a preacher,” seeming to know that we won’t take his words literally, knowing that we know Otis was a preacher in the church of soul.

When Richard invites Redding’s wife, Zelma, up, the affection and protectiveness he feels for her is palpable. He won’t let her speak until he takes her across the stage and exhorts photographers to “mash your button!” All in all, Little Richard’s moment is less an induction ceremony than a warm embrace of all that Otis Redding meant to us, seemingly repaying the favor of Redding picking up where Richard left off, so many years ago.
Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Otis Redding at his ranch near Macon, GA


Want to explore Otis Redding’s music? Start with his first album, Pain In My Heart, released in 1964 on ATCO Records, featuring his version of Lucille as the closing track.

To hear more Little Richard, there’s no better place to start than his debut album from 1957, Here’s Little Richard, recently remastered and reissued by Craft Recordings, complete with a second disc of studio outtakes and demos Richard recorded at home in Macon in 1955.

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Stax Online Archive Goes Live With “Deep Cuts” Project

CREDIT: Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Stax concert poster

If you’ve binge-watched too many movies and television series during this stay-at-home time, and have done every jigsaw puzzle in the house, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music might just have the solution for the social distancing doldrums. As of now, their massive digitized archive is online, free for perusing.

Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Stax trade ad

Though I personally feel that visiting the Stax Museum is an essential service, I realize that I’m in the minority, and, like most businesses these days, it’s not open to the public. But never fear, you can still crank up your Stax albums on the stereo and page through the many gems that the museum has diligently preserved.

The Grammy Museum Foundation has assisted with the new online project, known as Deep Cuts: Rare Items from the Stax Archives. The visual materials are broken down into categories of album cover art, posters and other artwork, children’s books, trade ads, the “Gettin’ It All Together” catalog from 1969, and the “Stax Fax” magazines produced by the company between 1968 and 1970.

Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Stax Fax newsletter

Of particular interest is the “Gettin’ It All Together” catalog, which features the 27 LPs released during Stax Records’ “Soul Explosion,” the massive sales summit at Memphis’ Rivermont Hotel in May, 1969. This was important both as a promotional stunt and as a morale-enhancing victory lap. By 1968, the entire Stax Records catalog from previous years was claimed by Atlantic Records, and the Memphis label was forced to reinvent itself with all new material. This richly illustrated program features album cover art and other information about the fresh wave of records released in the year that ensued.

Now fans can relive that pivotal moment in soul music history and more, via this generous online project. It’s just one of many ways to keep yourself occupied during these quiet days, and really, there’s no better respite from that gnawing coronavirus anxiety than the solid soul music of Stax Records. 

Stax Online Archive Goes Live With ‘Deep Cuts’ Project

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Booker T. Jones’ Heartfelt Homecoming at Crosstown Theater

CREDIT: Alex Greene

Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones and band with Carla Thomas

“My first guitar was a Sears Silvertone,” quipped Booker T. Jones during his appearance at Crosstown Theater Saturday. Looking up at the walls around him, he added, “I must have bought it right here.”

Crosstown Concourse, of course, was then the regional warehouse and retail center for Sears. He went on to recall how he quit buying records at Sears after he discovered the Satellite Record Shop, the storefront at the entrance to Stax Records in its heyday. At Sears, he noted, you couldn’t hear the record until you bought it. “But Steve Cropper was happy to play records for you.”

Such are the perks of hearing one of the progenitors of classic soul play his hometown, where, once upon a time, lightning was captured in a bottle, or at least on vinyl. And Jones seemed to revel in the memories.

But the magic of such anecdotes paled before the majesty of the music, unerringly played by Jones and his band (which included his son Ted on guitar, Melvin Brannon, Jr. [aka M-Cat Spoony] on bass, and Darian Gray on drums). Time stood still as the sounds of Jones on the Hammond organ, complete with rotating Leslie speaker, filled the auditorium with the harmonies known from so many classic records.

Though Jones’ latest album, Note by Note, surveys tunes from across his lifetime as a player and a producer, Saturday’s set was decidedly Memphis-heavy, with a heaping dose of originals by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. There was “Green Onions” in all its minimalist glory, and “Time Is Tight,” complete with its powerful coda. “Hip-Hug Her” also was honored, albeit with a twist: flowing lyrics rapped over the tune by Gray.  Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones and son Ted Jones

“And now, here’s a piece by George Gershwin,” Jones noted, before launching into the M.G.s’ arrangement of “Summertime,” as perfect a showcase of his organ mastery as any of their cuts.

But the legacy of that Silvertone guitar was also alive and well, as Jones picked up a Telecaster and sauntered to the front of the stage from time to time, delivering very personal interpretations of “Hey Joe,” a la Jimi Hendrix, “Purple Rain” by Prince, and others. At times, he sang sublime harmonies with his son.   Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones on guitar

But the most sublime harmonies of the night came when Jones called “an old friend” to the stage, none other than the Queen of Memphis Soul, Carla Thomas. Jones, noting the importance of the Thomas family, and especially Carla’s father Rufus, described seeing the movie Baby Driver and unexpectedly hearing her sing in the soundtrack. Then they launched into “B-A-B-Y,” one of Carla’s greatest Stax sides. She was in fine voice, her delivery full of her trademark sweetness and wit. It was a luminous moment, with Carla, Jones and the band breaking out into beaming smiles throughout.

It was a dramatic moment, especially because Jones typically approached each song with a solemnity that seemed to exhort the audience to listen with care. And listen they did, the entire room rapt with adoration for the grooves and the moves that helped put Memphis on the map.

Opening the set were students from the Stax Music Academy, who did right by such classics as “Soul Man,” “Soul Girl,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and even Peter Gabriel’s Stax-influenced “Sledgehammer.” For those who slept on it, let it be known that Memphis Soul is alive and well and kicking. 

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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.

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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.