After several days in New Orleans my travels took me to Memphis. I spent a couple of days there visiting my brother-in-law and waiting for my wife to arrive and join up with the road trip. While there I took the opportunity to visit the (relatively) new Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
The Stax Museum is located on the site of the original Stax recording studio. It's in the middle of a residential neighborhood on the south side of Memphis. I really enjoyed the museum and found that I spent quite a bit more time there than I had anticipated. I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Memphis and anyone interested in the history of American popular music in the second half of the 20th century.
The museum tour opens with a 20 minute or so film (this seems to be a real trend - I've noticed a lot of newer museums sending people through an opening film that sets the stage for the tour of the museum - the National D-Day Museum is set up exactly the same way) which was informative and enjoyable. Of course it would be hard to not be enjoyable with all that great music to use as a starting point. Then the museum tour starts with an exploration of the roots of the great R&B/soul music recorded at Stax by talking about the Mississippi delta region that fed Memphis with the gospel and blues traditions. It then moved into the early days of the Stax record company, and then continued to jointly explore the evolution of Stax records as a business and of the artists and music recorded at Stax.
The music from Stax/Volt was always my favorite American music of that period in the mid to late 60s and into the early 70s - led by Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and Booker T. The Stax/Volt artists - along with James Brown - were to me the epitome of soul music and of great American R&B. I mean, I always enjoyed some of the Motown acts (how could you not love the Temptations), and Atlantic had their own stable of great artists - Aretha, Aretha, Aretha - but the Stax/Volt sound just seemed so much more elemental and driving to me. Of course, what the hell did I know - a white kid from Ohio and Indiana. But I loved that music.
What I didn't know was so much of the story behind it. While it was obvious even back in the day that one difference with Stax was the multi-racial element - you couldn't miss Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn backing up Otis or Sam & Dave - I didn't realize that the entire Stax company story was as integrated as it was. Of course, that eventually ended after the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis, but in the early days the sounds flowing out of Stax were the product of an integrated team of folks on both the artistic and the business side. I'm not sure what, if anything, that had to do with the differences in the Stax sound, but retrospectively it's an element of the Stax story that I find interesting.
If you love music and enjoy music museums like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland or the Music Experience in Seattle, I think you'll find a trip to Soulsville, U.S.A. to be worth your while.
Good comments about the Stax Museum. For more details about Stax Records, go to my site at http://staxrecords.free.fr
Posted by: Patrick Montier | August 09, 2004 at 04:15 AM