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Motown Records
Parent company	Universal Music Group
Founded	1959
Founder(s)	Berry Gordy Jr.
Distributing label	Universal Motown Records Group (U.S.)
Genre(s)	R&B/soul music, pop music, hip-hop music
Country of origin	United States
Official Website	Official website of Motown Records

Motown Records, also known as Tamla-Motown outside of the United States, is a record label originally based out of Detroit, Michigan ("Motor City"), where it achieved widespread international success. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as the first record label owned by an African American and primarily featuring African American artists to regularly achieve crossover success and have a widespread, lasting effect on the music industry.

Incorporated on January 12, 1959 by Berry Gordy, Jr. as Tamla Records, Motown has, over the course of its history, owned or distributed releases from more than 45 subsidiaries in varying genres, although it is most famous for its releases in the musical genres of R&B, hip hop, pop, and soul. Motown left Detroit for Los Angeles in 1972, and remained an independent company until 1988, when Gordy sold the company to MCA. Now headquartered in New York City, Motown Records is today a subsidiary of the Universal Motown Records Group, itself a subsidiary of Universal Music Group.

In the 1960s, Motown and its soul-based subsidiaries were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as The Motown Sound, a style of soul music with distinctive characteristics, including the use of tambourine along with drums, a prominent and often melodic bass line played by the electric bass guitar, a distinctive melodical and chord structure, and a call and response singing style originating in gospel music.

History

"Hitsville USA": 1959 - 1972

The Hitsville U.S.A. building in Detroit, Michigan, which served as Motown's headquarters from 1959 until 1968.

Berry Gordy, Jr. got his start as a songwriter for local Detroit acts such as Jackie Wilson and the Matadors. Wilson's single "Lonely Teardrops," co-written by Gordy and Roquel Billy Davis, became a huge success; however, Gordy did not feel he made as much money as he deserved from this and other singles he wrote for Wilson. He realized that the more lucrative end of the business was in producing records and owning the royalties.

In 1959, Billy Davis and Berry Gordy's sisters Gwen and Anna started Anna Records. Davis and Gwen Gordy wanted Berry to be the company president, but Berry wanted to strike out on his own. Therefore, in 1959, he started Tamla Records, with an $800 loan from his family. Gordy originally wanted to name the label "Tammy" Records, after the popular song from the film Tammy and the Bachelor. When he found the name was already in use, he decided on Tamla instead.

Gordy's first signed act was The Matadors, a group he had written and produced songs for, who changed their name to The Miracles when Tamla signed them. Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson became the vice president of the company (and later named his daughter "Tamla" and his son "Berry" out of gratitude for Gordy and the label). Many of Gordy's family members, including his father Berry, Sr., brothers Robert and George, and sister Esther, had instrumental roles in the company. By the middle of the decade, Gwen and Anna Gordy had joined the label in administrative positions as well.

Also in 1959, Gordy purchased the property that would become Tamla's Hitsville U.S.A. studio. The photography studio located in the back of the property was modified into a small recording studio and the Gordys moved into the second floor living quarters. Within a few years, Motown would occupy several neighbouring houses with administrative offices, mixing, mastering and rehearsal studios.

Among Tamla's early artists were Mable John, Barrett Strong and (on the Motown label) Mary Wells. Tamla's first release was Marv Johnson's "Come to Me" in 1959. Its first hit was Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" (1959), which made it to #2 on the Billboard R&B charts; its first #1 R&B hit was "Shop Around" by the Miracles in 1960. "Shop Around" peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100, and was Motown's first million-selling record. Also in 1960, Gordy launched Motown Records as a sister label. Because of the "Motown" name's association with "Motor City" Detroit, the blanket record company under which both Motown Records and Tamla Records operated was incorporated as "Motown Record Corporation". A year later, The Marvelettes scored Tamla's first US #1 pop hit, "Please Mr. Postman." By the mid-1960s, the label, with the help of songwriters and producers such as Robinson, William "Mickey" Stevenson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Norman Whitfield, was a major force in the music industry.

In the 1960s (from 1961 to 1971), Motown had 110 Top Ten hits and artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Jackson 5, were all signed to Motown labels. The company operated several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown imprints. A third label, which Gordy named after himself, featured The Temptations and Martha and the Vandellas. A fourth, V.I.P., released recordings by The Velvelettes and The Spinners, and a fifth, Soul, featured Jr. Walker & the All Stars and Gladys Knight & the Pips (who were the first act to have been successful before joining Motown, as 'The Pips' on Vee-Jay). Many more Motown-owned labels released recordings in other genres, including Workshop Jazz (jazz), Mel-o-dy (country), and Rare Earth (rock). Under the slogan "The Sound of Young America", Motown's acts were enjoying widespread popularity among black and white audiences alike.

In Britain, Motown's records were released on various labels: at first London (only the Miracles' "Shop Around"/"Who's Lovin' You" and "Ain't It Baby"), then Fontana ("Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes was one of four), Oriole American ("Fingertips - Pt. 2" by Little Stevie Wonder was one of many), EMI's Stateside ("Where Did Our Love Go" by the Supremes and "My Guy" by Mary Wells were Motown's first British top-twenty hits), and finally EMI's Tamla-Motown ("Ain't That Peculiar" by Marvin Gaye among many others). [1]

[edit] Artist development

A posed photograph from Motown's landmark 1965 tour of the United Kingdom. Second from left is Pete Moore of The Miracles, to the right of Moore are (l to r) Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, and Mary Wilson of the Supremes; Bobby Rogers of The Miracles, Martha Reeves of Martha & the Vandellas, Ronnie White of The Miracles, Motown chief Berry Gordy, Jr., Rosalind Ashford and Betty Kelley of Martha & the Vandellas, and, holding up the sign directly above the "UK", Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson. To the right of Robinson is Funk Brothers bandleader Earl Van Dyke.

Artist development was a major part of Motown's operations. The acts on the Motown label were fastidiously groomed, dressed and choreographed for live performances. Motown artists were advised that their breakthrough into the white popular music market made them ambassadors for other African American artists seeking broad market acceptance, and that they should think, act, walk and talk like royalty, so as to alter the less-than-dignified image commonly held by white Americans in that era of black musicians. Given that many of the talented young artists had been raised in housing projects and were short on social and dress skills, this Motown department was not only necessary, it created an elegant style of presentation long associated with the label. The artist development department specialized primarily in working with younger, less experienced acts; experienced performers such as Junior Walker and Marvin Gaye were exempted from artist development classes.

Many of the young artists participated in an annual package tour called the "Motortown Revue", which was popular first on the "chitlin circuit", and later around the world. The tours gave the younger singers a chance to hone their performance and social skills and also to learn from more experienced artists.

Production process

Motown's music was crafted with the same ear towards pop appeal. Berry Gordy used weekly quality control meetings, held every Friday morning, and veto power to ensure that only the very best material and performances the company came up with would be released. The test was that every new release needed to "fit" into a sequence of the top 5 selling pop singles of the week. As a result, several tracks which later became critical and commercial favorites were initially rejected by Gordy; the two most notable examples being a pair of Marvin Gaye songs, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "What's Going On". In several cases, producers would re-work and re-re-work tracks in hopes of eventually getting them approved at a later Friday morning meeting, as producer Norman Whitfield did with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and The Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg".

Many of Motown's best-known songs, such as all of the early hits for The Supremes, were written by the songwriting trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland (brothers Brian & Eddie Holland and colleague Lamont Dozier). Other important producers and songwriters at Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. recording studio and headquarters included Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Frank Wilson, Motown artists Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and Gordy himself.

The many artists and producers of Motown Records collaborated to produce numerous hit songs, although the process has been described as factory-like (such as the Brill Building). The Hitsville studios remained open and active 22 hours a day, and artists would often be on tour for weeks, come back to Detroit to record as many songs as possible, and then promptly set back out on tour again.

The Funk Brothers

For more details on this topic, see The Funk Brothers.

In addition to the songwriting prowess of the writers and producers, one of the major factors in the widespread appeal of Motown's music was Gordy's practice of using a highly select and tight-knit group of studio musicians, collectively known as "The Funk Brothers", to record the instrumental or "band" tracks of the Motown songs. Among the studio musicians responsible for the "Motown Sound" were keyboardists Earl Van Dyke, Johnny Griffith, and Joe Hunter; guitarists Joe Messina, Robert White, and Eddie Willis; percussionists Eddie "Bongo" Brown and Jack Ashford; drummers Benny Benjamin, Uriel Jones, and Richard "Pistol" Allen; and bassists James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt. The band's career and work is chronicled in the 2002 documentary film Standing in the Shadows of Motown.

"Hitsville West" 1972 - 1998

After Holland-Dozier-Holland left the label in 1967 over royalty payment disputes, the quality of the Motown output began to decline, as well as the frequency with which its artists scored #1 hits. Norman Whitfield became the company's top producer, turning out hits for The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Gladys Knight & the Pips. In the meantime, Berry Gordy established Motown Productions, a television subsidiary which produced TV specials for the Motown artists, including TCB with Diana Ross & the Supremes and The Temptations, Diana! with Diana Ross, and Goin' Back to Indiana with The Jackson 5.

Motown had established branch offices in both New York City and Los Angeles during the mid-1960s, and by 1969 had begun gradually moving some of its operations to Los Angeles. The company moved all of its operations to Los Angeles after 1972, with a number of artists, among them Martha Reeves, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Motown's Funk Brothers studio band, either staying behind in Detroit or leaving the company for other reasons. The main objective of Motown's relocation was to branch out into the motion picture industry, and Motown Productions got its start in film by turning out two hit vehicles for Diana Ross: the Billie Holliday biographical film Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and Mahogany (1975). Other Motown films would include Thank God It's Friday (1978), The Wiz (1978) and Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon (1985).

Despite losing Holland-Dozier-Holland, Norman Whitfield, and a number of its other hitmakers by 1975, Motown still had a number of successful artists during the late 1970s and 1980s, including Lionel Richie and The Commodores, Rick James, Teena Marie and DeBarge. By the mid-1980s, Motown was losing money, and Berry Gordy sold his ownership in Motown to Music Corporation of America (MCA) and Boston Ventures in June 1988 for $61 million. In 1989, Gordy sold the Motown Productions TV/film operations to Motown executive Suzanne de Passe, who renamed the company de Passe Entertainment and runs it to this day.

During the 1990s, Motown was home to successful recording artists such as Boyz II Men and ex-New Edition member Johnny Gill, although the company itself remained in a state of turmoil. A revolving door of executives were appointed by MCA to run the company, beginning with Berry Gordy's immediate successor, Jheryl Busby. Busby quarreled with MCA, alleging that the company did not give Motown's product adequate attention or promotion. In 1991, Motown sued MCA to have its distribution deal with the company terminated, and began releasing its product through PolyGram. Polygram purchased Motown from Boston Ventures three years later. In 1994, Busby was replaced by Andre Harrell, the entrepreneur behind Uptown Records. Harrell served as Motown's CEO for just under two years, leaving the company after receiving bad publicity for being inefficient. Danny Goldberg, who ran PolyGram's Mercury Records group, assumed control of Motown, and George Jackson served as president.

Universal/Motown: 1999 - present

By 1998, Motown had added stars such as 702, Brian McKnight, and Erykah Badu to its roster. In December of 1998, PolyGram was acquired by Seagram, and Motown was folded into the Universal Music Group. Ironically, Seagram had purchased Motown's former parent MCA in 1995, as such Motown was in effect reunited with many of its MCA corporate siblings (Seagram had in fact, hoped to build a media empire around Universal, and started by purchasing PolyGram). Universal briefly considered shuttering the floundering label, but instead decided to restructure it. Kedar Massenburg, a producer for Erykah Badu, became the head of the label, and oversaw successful recordings from Badu, McKnight, Michael McDonald, and new Motown artist India.Arie.

In 2005, Massenburg was replaced by Sylvia Rhone, former CEO of Elektra Records. Motown was merged with Universal Records to create the Universal Motown Records Group, an umbrella division of Universal Music which oversees the releases and catalogs for Motown, Universal, Blackground, Republic, Cash Money, Casablanca, and other labels. Motown's current roster includes R&B singers India.Arie, Erykah Badu, Mýa, Kem, Yummy Bingham, pop singer Lindsay Lohan, reggae singers Damian and Stephen Marley, and rappers Trick Trick and Nick Cannon.

Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and The Temptations had remained with the label since its early days (although both Ross and the Temptations each briefly recorded for other labels for several years). Ross left Motown in 1981 but returned in the 1990s, Robinson left the label briefly in 1999, and the Temptations in 2004. Wonder is today the only artist from Motown's "classic" period still on the label.

Notable Motown singles

See also: List of Motown No. 1 singles in the United States

The following are examples of Motown singles which reached number-one on either the Billboard Hot 100 or the Billboard R&B singles chart.

Notable Motown artists

The following is a list of Motown's best-selling or historically significant recording artists, grouped by the decade they joined the label. For a full list of Motown artists, see List of Motown performers.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stax Records
Parent company	Concord Music Group
Founded	1957
Founder(s)	Jim Stewart, Estelle Axton
Distributing label	Concord Records (In the U.S.), Universal Music Group
Genre(s)	R&B, soul music, blues
Country of origin	U.S.
Official Website	http://www.stax-records.com

Stax Records is an American record label, originally based out of Memphis, Tennessee. The label was founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, and changed its name in 1961 to "Stax", a portmanteau of the names of the two original owners of the company: Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton. Stax was a major player in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul music styles, and frequently released early funk and 1960s Chicago blues recordings. While Stax was involved almost exclusively in the production of African-American music, the label is noted for having some of the first popular ethnically-integrated bands.

Atlantic Records distributed Stax recordings from 1959 until 1968, when the label was sold to the Gulf and Western conglomerate. Stax went bankrupt in 1976, and Fantasy Records purchased the label and its backlog. The label's current owners, Concord Records, acquired Stax when they purchased Fantasy in 2004, and reactivated the label to release new recordings while continuing to reissue older material.

History

Early years

The classic "Stax-O-Wax" logo used during the Atlantic distribution years

Satellite Records was founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart, [1] initially operating in a north Memphis garage. His sister Estelle Axton began her financial interest in the company in 1958 and briefly operated in Brunswick, Tennessee before moving into an old movie theater, the former Capitol Theatre, at 926 East McLemore Avenue in Memphis. After initially issuing country music records, the company switched to more lucrative rhythm and blues music, as the demographics of the neighborhood around their building shifted towards a primarily African-American population. Stewart, a white country fiddle player, had little previous knowledge or interest in rhythm and blues music.

The Atlantic years

The first successful artists recorded by Satellite were vocalists Rufus and Carla Thomas, a father-daughter duo whose work attracted Atlantic Records, with whom Stewart made a distribution deal giving Atlantic first choice on releasing Satellite recordings. Another of the early bands signed to the company was a Memphis group, The Mar-Keys, formerly known as The Royal Spades. The Mar-Keys' 1961 single "Last Night" was the first to be nationally distributed on the Satellite label. Previous Atlantic issues of Satellite material were issued nationally on the Atlantic or Atco labels.

As "Last Night" was rising up the music charts, Stewart and Axton learned of another Satellite Records in operation in California, and changed the name of their label to "Stax". Shortly thereafter, pianist Booker T Jones joined the label and, along with members of The Mar-Keys, began performing as "Booker T. and the Memphis Group", later changing their name to Booker T. & the MGs. The MGs' sound exemplified the southern soul style that Stax was looking for, and the band soon became Stax's house studio band, just as The Funk Brothers were the primary musicians for Stax's main competitor, Detroit's Motown Records.

Atlantic co-owner Jerry Wexler was fascinated by the unique sound being produced at Stax, and he was startled to learn that the label's signature style was literally an accident. The Stax recording studio in the converted movie theater still had the sloped floor where the seats had once been. Because the room was imbalanced, it created an acoustic anomaly that translated into the recordings, often giving them a big, deep yet raw sound. By 1965, Stax had signed a formal national distribution deal with Atlantic Records.

Hip Hug-Her by Booker T. & The MG's (1967), showing the two different Atlantic era Stax logos

Wexler frequently brought some Atlantic artists to Memphis for recording sessions at Stax. For example, Atlantic artist Wilson Pickett's hits were Stax songs in all-but-name, as they were recorded at Stax and backed by Booker T. & the MGs, yet released on Atlantic. In contrast, Sam and Dave, a duo act on the Atlantic roster, were "leased" to Stax, which oversaw their music and put it out on the Stax label.

In that era, many radio stations, anxious to avoid even the hint of the impression of payola, often followed a policy of refusing to play more than one or two new songs from any single record label at one time, so as to not appear to be offering favoritism to any particular label. To circumvent this, Stax, like many other record companies, created a number of subsidiary labels. The best known of these was Volt, founded in 1962, which was the label home of popular soul singer Otis Redding. Other Stax subsidiaries included Enterprise, Chalice, Hip, and Safice.

By the mid-1960s, Stax and its subsidiaries had hit their stride, regularly scoring hits with artists such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Booker T. & the MG's, and The Bar-Kays. Several Stax hits were written and produced by the team of Isaac Hayes & David Porter, both later recording artists in their own right.

Unlike Motown, which frequently packaged its artists on review tours, Stax only infrequently sought to promote its acts through label-sponsored live concerts. The first of these was in the summer of 1965, in Los Angeles rather than in Memphis. While the show was a success, the Watts riots began the day afterward, and several Stax artists were trapped in Watts during the violence. Stax also sponsored a Christmas concert in Memphis for several years, the most notorious of which was held in 1968, when special guest Janis Joplin performed drunk and was booed off of the stage. The most successful Stax package revue was a tour of England and France in 1967. Playing to sold-out crowds across western Europe, Stax released several live albums from the tour recordings, including the best-selling Otis Live In Europe.

The Stax Museum on McLemore Avenue in Memphis, founded in 2003, is a replica of the Stax studio, built on the same site where many of the historic Stax recording sessions took place. The original Stax studio was torn down in 1989.

The break from Atlantic Records

In 1967, Atlantic Records was sold to Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, which activated a clause in the Stax/Atlantic distribution contract calling for renegotiation of the distribution deal. At this point, it was pointed out to Stewart that he had unknowingly signed away the rights to the original master recordings for all of Stax's Atlantic-distributed hits. The executives at Warner refused to renegotiate their contract with Stax and return ownership of the Stax masters to Stewart. As a result, Stewart sold the company to Gulf and Western in March 1968. Stewart remained at the company, while Estelle Axton left Stax after the sale. As a result, Stax was forced to move forward without the most desirable portion of its back catalogue and without Sam and Dave, who remained at Atlantic after the split. To make matters worse, Stax's biggest artist, Otis Redding, died in a plane crash in December 1967.

After the Atlantic distribution deal expired in May of 1968, Atlantic briefly marketed Stax/Volt recordings made after the split. These recordings feature the alternate Stax/Volt logos used on the album covers on their labels, as opposed to the original Atlantic-era logos, such as the "Stax-o-wax" logo. Stax label recordings were reissued on the Atlantic label, and Volt label material on the Atco label. Gulf and Western-owned Stax/Volt releases used new label designs, new logos (including the recognizable finger snapping logo) and new catalogue numbering systems to avoid confusion among the record distributors.

Stax as an independent label

Although Stax had also lost their most valuable artists, they recovered quickly. Johnnie Taylor gave Stax its first big post-Atlantic hit with "Who's Making Love" in 1968. Producer and songwriter Isaac Hayes stepped into the spotlight with Hot Buttered Soul , which sold over three million copies in 1969. By 1971, Hayes was established as the label's biggest star, and was particularly noted for his best-selling soundtrack to the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft. Hayes' recordings were among the releases on a third major Stax label, Enterprise, which had been founded in 1967.

The label also enjoyed great success when it had the Staples Singers shift from Gospel music to secular R&B. Even Rufus Thomas, one of the first artists signed to the label, enjoyed a popular resurgence with a string of hits. However, Stax's record sales were down overall, under Gulf and Western's poor management. In 1970, Stewart and Al Bell, Stax's sales director, purchased the label back. Stax subsisted on its own for a short period until 1972, when negotiations with CBS Records began. Stewart, unable to bear seeing the company die, began to channel his personal funds into keeping it afloat.

As co-owner, Bell undertook an ambitious program to make Stax not only a major recording company, but also a prominent player in the black community. The Stax logo was slightly altered with the finger-snapping hand recolored brown. He began signing many more artists to the label, Johnnie Taylor and The Soul Children among them. For the first time, many of the label's acts began frequently recording at outside studios (such as Muscle Shoals, Alabama) and working with outside producers, signaling an end of the signature Stax sound. Bell even created a comedy subsidiary label, Partee Records, which released albums from the likes of Richard Pryor and Moms Mabley; and he made a bid for the white pop market by signing Big Star. In addition, Bell also became heavily involved with various causes in the African-American community, and was a close friend of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and a financial supporter of his Operation PUSH.

On August 20, 1972, the Stax label presented a major concert, Wattstax, featured performances by Stax recording artists and humor from rising young comedian Richard Pryor. Known as the "Black Woodstock," Wattstax was hosted by Reverend Jesse Jackson and drew a crowd of over 10,000 attendees, most of them African-American. Wattstax was filmed by motion picture director Mel Stuart (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory), and a concert film of the event was released to theaters by Columbia Pictures in February 1973.

Bankruptcy

Despite the success of Wattstax, the future of Stax was unstable. A distribution deal was signed with CBS Records, where label President Clive Davis saw Stax as a means for CBS to fully break into the African-American market and successfully compete with Motown. However, Davis was fired by the company shortly after signing the Stax distribution deal. Without Davis at the helm, CBS very quickly lost interest in Stax. The Stax labels' profits were cut severely, particularly since the CBS distribution agents bypassed the traditional small "Mom 'n Pop" record sellers in the black community which had been the backbone of Stax's distribution, and weren't pushing the Stax product to the larger retailers for fear of undercutting rack space for CBS artists. Reports came in to Stax of stores in cities such as Chicago and Detroit being unable to get new Stax records despite consumer demands, and the company attempted to anull its distribution deal with CBS. However, although CBS was uninterested in fully promoting Stax, it refused to release the label from its contract, for fear that Stax would land a more productive deal with another company and then become CBS's direct competition.

The last big chart hit for Stax was "Woman to Woman" from Shirley Brown in 1974, and the single's success help delay the inevitable demise of the company for several months. Al Bell attempted to stave off bankruptcy with bank loans, while Jim Stewart mortgaged his Memphis mansion to provide the label with short-term working capital. However, bank officers soon got cold feet, and foreclosed on the loans, costing Stewart his home the fortune he had earned. Stax/Volt Records declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 1975, and its assets, catalogue, and McLemore Ave. headquarters sold for about a million dollars.

Stax revival

Fantasy Records bought the non-Atlantic Stax recordings and continued to repackage and rerelease the Stax catalogue on the Stax label. Atlantic still has the rights to the Atlantic-era Stax recordings released up to May 1968, most of which have been reissued by co-owned Rhino Records or licensed to Collectables Records. Fantasy retained the rights to Atlantic-era Stax recordings which were not released by Atlantic Records. For several of its Stax compilations, Fantasy issued alternate takes of Stax hit records from the Atlantic era in place of the master recordings owned by Atlantic.

In 1988, Fantasy issued the various artists album Top of the Stax, Vol. 1: Twenty Greatest Hits which marked the first time an album was issued with both Atlantic-owned and Fantasy-owned Stax material and was issued by arrangement with Atlantic Records. A second volume was released by Fantasy in 1991.

In 1991, Atlantic issued The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968, a nine-disc compact disc boxed set containing all of the Atlantic-era Stax a-sides. Fantasy followed their lead and issued volumes two and three of the Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles series in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Volume two compiles the Stax/Volt singles from 1968 to 1971, while volume three completes the collection with the singles issued from 1972 to 1975. In 2000, Fantasy issued a boxed set titled The Stax Story, which includes pre-1968 material by arrangement with Atlantic.

Although the original Stax studio was torn down in 1989 after a decade of neglect, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, a replica of the Stax Recording Studios, was constructed at the site and opened in 2003.

The Concord Music Group purchased the Fantasy Label Group in 2004, and in December 2006 announced the reactivation of the Stax label. The formal relaunch came with the release on March 13, 2007 of Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration, a 2-CD box set containing 50 tracks from the entire history of Stax Records. [2] The first acts signed to the new Stax include Isaac Hayes, Angie Stone, and Soulive. [3] The first Concord distributed Stax album of all new material is a various artists CD which was released on March 27, 2007 and titled Interpretations: Celebrating The Music of Earth, Wind & Fire.[4]

In the UK, Keith Strachan has written and directed a new musical called Sweet Soul Music which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first ever Stax/Atlantic tour. It tours nationwide from February 2007 and features tributes to all the major Stax artists.

Notable Stax artists

See also

• List of record labels
• Stax Museum

Bibliography

• Rob Bowman (1997). Soulsville U.S.A: The Story of Stax Records. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-8256-7284-8. 
• Shaw, Arnold (1978). Honkers and Shouters. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 0-02-061740-2. 

Sample

• Download sample of Otis Redding's "Mr. Pitiful", released in 1964 on Stax.

External links

• Stax 50th Anniversary official site
• Stax Records Myspace page
• Stax Museum
• History of Stax
• Unofficial Stax website
• P.O.V. Wattstax companion website (featuring streaming audio of performances and a podcast interview with director Mel Stuart)
• The Otis Redding French site
• MP3 audio interview with Stax Records expert Rob Bowman on the radio program The Sound of Young America

Sweet Soul Music

Arthur Conley