‘Stax: Soulsville U.S.A.’

The bittersweet story of the rise and fall of the American soul recording label Stax working out of Memphis, Tennessee in the 1960s and ’70s.

Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Booker T. Jones – just a few of the Black Music superstars who were part of the Stax legend. Detroit had Motown, Memphis had Stax. Yet the recording studio and attached record shop were founded by brother and sister duo Jim Stewart and Estelle Axon as an outlet for country music! Cheap rents saw the siblings set themselves up in the black neighbourhood of South Memphis. And slowly, the community began to use the local resource – unusual for white and black to mix in ’60s Tennessee.

A bevy of interviews build the history of Stax – from founder Jim Stewart to former CEO Al Bell; artists Carla Thomas, Booker T., David Porter, Steve Cropper; songwriter Bettye Crutcher; sound engineers, marketing staff and more. But Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. also contextualises – an enormously successful Black-owned company in Memphis went against the grain. Al Bell in particular watched, learned, negotiated out of the suspicions of the (white owned) market: distribution contracts with Atlantic and CBS sadly went pear-shaped, a move onto the west coast culminating in the legendary Wattstax concert at the LA Colosseum attended by 100,000 people. But the record label also had to navigate the tragic death of Otis Redding and members of The Bar-Kays in a plane accident in 1967 and the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis itself.

Knock them down and back they come even stronger. Stax notched up more and more record sales and exposure, with one of their greatest achievements the Isaac Hayes Oscar for best song – the theme song to Shaft.

But sadly, the final nail in the coffin for Stax came in the late 70s when financial mismanagement and embezzlement at the Memphis Union Planters Bank implicated Stax and Al Bell in particular. Although cleared, the company was left bankrupt and Bell so disillusioned he left Memphis for good.

It’s an engrossing four part documentary with archival material of Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas in performance, home footage of life in ’60s Memphis, and interviews that leave little doubt that racism in Memphis and beyond was a major contributory factor into the decline of the company.

Rating: 78%

Director: Jamila Wignot (Ailey, Town Hall)