The Stax Museum opened on May 2, 2003 and celebrated its 20th anniversary throughout 2023.
The Stax Museum is operated by the nonprofit Soulsville Foundation, which also operates the adjacent Stax Music Academy[1] and The Soulsville Charter School; the three distinct but related entities are all located on one campus in the heart of the neighborhood known as Soulsville U.S.A.
The Soulsville Foundation announced in August 2022 that its new President and CEO is now Pat Mitchell Worley, former Stax Music Academy Executive Director and longtime cohost of the internationally syndicated blues radio show, Beale Street Caravan. Jeff Kollath is the Stax Museum's executive director.
History
View of the studio from the mixing console
After Stax Records was forced into involuntary bankruptcy and closed in 1976, the Stax studio was sold by the Union Planters Bank for $10.00 to Southside Church of God in Christ, located nearby on McLemore Avenue. The church had plans to use the building as a community center and soup kitchen, which never materialized. As time went by, it was allowed to deteriorate and, despite many attempts to save the original structure, it was demolished in 1989. By 1998, the neighborhood had also fallen into a state of blight, and a group of concerned Memphis business people, anonymous philanthropists, and former Stax Records artists spearheaded a nonprofit revitalization effort for the area, which included a museum that would be a shrine to Stax Records and all American soul music, as well as a music school for urban youth.
Construction began on the Stax Museum and adjacent Stax Music Academy in April 2001. The Stax Music Academy, which had started programming at a nearby elementary school on June 1, 2000, opened in 2002 and the museum opened May 3, 2003. The Stax Museum is a replica of the Stax recording studio, the former Capitol Theatre, down to the sloping floor of studio A. It is a 17,000-square-foot (1,600m2) museum with permanent and changing interactive exhibits, videos, films, photographs, original instruments used to record Stax hits, stage costumes, vintage recording gear, and more than 3,000 other items of memorabilia including personal items that belonged to Stax Records stars. Some of the standout exhibits include an authentic circa-1906 Mississippi Delta church from Mississippi, reconstructed in the museum to help show the gospel roots of soul music; the Soul Train dance floor, Isaac Hayes' restored custom-built 1972 gold-trimmed, peacock-blue Cadillac Eldorado; and a near-exact recreation of the original Stax Records recording Studio A.
Newer additions include Stax Records founder Jim Stewart's original violin he played in various bands around town before starting Stax Records, Skip Pitts' guitar and the wah-wah pedal used while recording Isaac Hayes'"Theme From Shaft", Floyd Newman's saxophone that turned 100 years old in 2017, and the Academy Award statue Hayes won for Best Musical Score for "Theme From Shaft" in 1972.
In addition to being a world-class tourist destination that helps fuel the Memphis tourism economy, the Stax Museum is a community-focused organization that offers free programming throughout the year to residents of the Soulsville U.S.A. neighborhood and the general public. Events include concerts, listening parties, book and author events, film screenings, exhibit opening receptions, panel discussions, lectures, and free-admission Family Days designed for children. One such event was on August 2, 2022, to celebrate the Stax Museum's February 2022 inclusion into the United States Civil Rights Trail.
In addition to many other accolades, TIME magazine named the Stax Museum "The Most Authentic American Experience in Tennessee" and the museum was the recipient of the 2015 Tennessee Governor's Arts Award, the highest honor in the arts in the state. It has also been routinely named by USA Today as one of the best music attractions in North America.
The adjacent Stax Music Academy is a Stax Museum-supported facility where middle and high school students are taught and mentored through music education, unique performance opportunities. creative youth development programming, travel, college preparedness training, and other opportunities. Since 2008, all seniors enrolled in the Stax Music Academy have been accepted to college and since 2021 all seniors have received music scholarships to college. In 2019, Justin Timberlake and the Levi's Music Project visited the academy for several days and installed a permanent songwriting lab, which has led to the students creating more original music and studying music business.
The Soulsville Foundation also operates The Soulsville Charter School, an academically rigorous, musically rich college prep school where students study math, language arts, science, social studies, and other academic subjects of a classical education, along with strings orchestra, band, and choir. Their Soulsville Symphony Orchestra has played for the likes of Stevie Wonder, John Legend, and Isaac Hayes.[2] Since it began having graduating classes in 2012, every senior enrolled in the school has been accepted to college or another post-secondary educational path.
The Stax Museum of American Soul Music will celebrate its 20th anniversary throughout the year 2023.
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African-American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence in the mid-to late 1990s with the subgenre neo-soul, which added modern production elements and influence from hip-hop.
Booker T. & the M.G.'s were an American instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul. The original members of the group were Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums). In the 1960s, as members of the Mar-Keys, the rotating slate of musicians that served as the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King. They also released instrumental records under their own name, including the 1962 hit single "Green Onions". As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of its era.
Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, composer, and actor. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records, serving as both an in-house songwriter and as a session musician and record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. Hayes and Porter were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of writing scores of songs for themselves, the duo Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and others. In 2002, Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records.
Memphis soul, also known as the Memphis sound, is the most prominent strain of Southern soul. It is a shimmering, sultry style produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee, featuring melodic unison horn lines, organ, guitar, bass, and a driving beat on the drums.
Charles "Skip" Pitts was an American soul and blues guitarist. He is best known for his distinctive "wah-wah" style, prominently featured on Isaac Hayes' title track from the 1971 movie Shaft. He is widely considered to have been one of the architects of soul, R&B and funk guitar.
Hot Buttered Soul is the second studio album by American soul musician Isaac Hayes. Released in 1969, it is recognized as a landmark in soul music. Recorded with The Bar-Kays, the album features four lengthy tracks, including a 12-minute version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David cover "Walk On By" and an almost 19-minute long version of Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix;" both songs were edited significantly and released as a double A-side single in July 1969.
The Mar-Keys, formed in 1958, were an American studio session band for Stax Records, in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1960s. As the first house band for the label, their backing music formed the foundation for the early 1960s Stax sound.
Ardent Studios is an American recording studio located in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The studio was founded in the late 1950s by John King, Fred Smith, and John Fry. Over time, it has become a commercially successful recording studio.
David Porter is an American record producer, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Shaft is a double album by Isaac Hayes, recorded for Stax Records' Enterprise label as the soundtrack LP for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft. The album mostly consists of instrumentals composed by Hayes as score for the film. Three vocal selections are included: "Soulsville", "Do Your Thing", and "Theme from Shaft". A commercial and critical success, Shaft is Hayes' best-known work and the best-selling LP ever released on a Stax label.
King & Queen is a studio album by American recording artists Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. It is Thomas' fourth album and Redding's sixth and the final studio album before his death on December 10, 1967. Influenced by Marvin Gaye's duets, the album features ten covers of soul classics and the eleventh finishing song co-written by Redding.
James Frank Stewart was an American record producer and executive who in 1957 co-founded Stax Records with his sister Estelle Axton. Stax was one of the leading recording companies during soul and R&B music's heyday. The label also scored many hits on the Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart, and internationally, during this time.
Bobby Manuel is an American guitarist. In the early 1960s he was the lead guitarist for the local band, The Memphis Blazers. He was hired by Stax Records in the late 1960s as an engineer and also quickly began doing studio work as a guitarist, becoming one of the company's most dependable and oft-used session players.
Al Bell is an American record producer, songwriter, and record executive. He is best known as having been an executive and co-owner of Stax Records with Jim Stewart based in Memphis, Tennessee, during the latter half of the label's 19-year existence.
Hold On, I'm Comin' is the 1966 debut album by Atlantic Records soul duo Sam & Dave, issued on the Atlantic-distributed Stax label in 1966.
Willie Clarence Hall is an American drummer best known for his work with Isaac Hayes and as a member of the Blues Brothers band.
Soulsville is the ninth studio album from Huey Lewis and the News and the band's first since Plan B in 2001. The album was released on October 18, 2010, in the United Kingdom and Europe and November 2, 2010, in the United States. The album, a tribute to the artists and music of Stax Records, was the brainchild of the band's manager, Bob Brown. As lead singer Huey Lewis explained, "the public isn't clamoring for new Huey Lewis & the News material". Brown and the band decided "it would be cooler to go into the [Stax] catalog a little deeper and find songs that people hadn't heard and capture them faithfully". This album features new guitarists Stef Burns and Bill Hinds and baritone saxophonist Johnnie Bamont, replacing Chris Hayes and the late Ron Stallings.
The Soulsville Charter School (TSCS) is a charter school in South Memphis, Tennessee. It is located at 1115 College Street. The entire 2014 graduating class was accepted at 4-year colleges. Soulsville Charter School serves about 600 students in grades 6–12. It opened in 2005. The official nickname is The Soulsville Revolution, the school's teams compete as the Tornadoes, and the school colors are Royal Purple and Silver.
Stax Music Academy located in South Memphis, Tennessee, offers after-school and summer music programs for students in grades 6-12. Notable alumni include Kris Thomas from The Voice and Kirby Lauryen, a Roc Nation songwriter.
References
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