Stax/Volt Records

…Cropper (who practically resided at Stax Records), Jackson, and Dunn. United by a passion for soul music, they became the core of a shifting alignment of musicians (including the Mar-Keys, the Bar-Kays, and the Memphis Horns) that acted as the house band for Stax Records, assisting in the creation of…

…a session musician for Memphis-based Stax Records; he went on to become one of the label’s most successful songwriters. Although Hayes’s debut solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes (1967), did not fare well commercially, his next release, Hot Buttered Soul (1969), sold more than one million copies and established him as…

…Missouri, from 1956 before joining Stax Records in Memphis, where he released such albums as Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and Live Wire/Blues Power (1968). His blend of simple declamatory vocals with the distinctive wailing of his trademark Gibson Flying V guitar, “Lucy,” were widely imitated by such performers…

…on the site of the Stax recording studio and operates an adjacent music school. Also located in the city is the Memphis Rock ’n’ Soul Museum, which was developed in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. A park on Mud Island, in the Mississippi, includes a five-block-long scale model of the…

…to record at the famed Stax studios, Redding sang two songs of his own at the end of the session. One of the two, “These Arms of Mine” (1962), launched his career, attracting both a record label executive (Jim Stewart) and a manager (Phil Walden) who passionately believed in his…

…Memphis, Tennessee, to record for Stax/Volt Records, for which Atlantic acted as distributor. There, backed by Stax’s extraordinary house band, Sam and Dave became the premier messengers of the songwriting-production duo of Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Among their hits were “You Don’t Know Like I Know” (1965), “Hold On!…

In Memphis, Tennessee, Stax/Volt Records was built on an unshakable foundation of straight-up soul. Singers such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, and Isaac Hayes screamed, shouted, begged, stomped, and cried, harkening back to the blues shouters of the Deep South. Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler, who had participated in…

Founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1960 by country music fiddle player Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton, following a previous false start with Satellite Records, Stax maintained a down-home, family atmosphere during its early years. Black and white musicians and singers worked together in…