Digging Back Through the Stax

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During the next phase at Stax, from June 1968 through December 1975, the label, still a multiracial operation in the front office, produced several smash singles, including Rufus Thomas' 'Do the Funky Chicken,' Isaac Hayes' 'Theme from Shaft,' and a host of memorable tunes from the Staple Singers. The trade-off: Key members of the original Stax family were supplanted by studio musicians from around the country, and recordings were made in other locales where string parts and overdubs, inspired by early-'70s funk, could more easily be incorporated into the mix.

'After May 1968 everything changed at Stax, including its sound,' Bowman writes in his liner notes. 'In December 1967 Otis Redding and two-thirds of the original Bar-Kays perished in a tragic plane crash. In April 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated . . . forever changing race relations throughout the country, in Memphis, and at Stax.'

Concord Music Group, which recently purchased the Stax catalog, will celebrate the label's 50th anniversary this year by releasing remastered recordings from both periods as well as unheard gems from the vault, and producing related events around the country. Later this year, Concord plans to record brand-new R&B material that will be released on its Stax imprint (Isaac Hayes and Angie Stone are already lined up to record).

Deanie Parker is now president of the Soulsville Foundation, which raises funds for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, built on the site of Stax's original studio, and the Stax Music Academy, which uses music to mentor at-risk inner-city youth. She hopes Concord's promotional effort and the involvement of musicians such as Hayes and William Bell will attract more tourists to Soulsville, make city residents proud, and give the musicians who lived through those dark days in 1968 a sense of closure.

'The people who produced this indelible soul music did not have an opportunity to exit gracefully,' she says. 'Their lives were interrupted for reasons they didn't understand and over which they had no control. Until now, the city had never had a chance to say 'Thank you, we appreciate what you did and we're grateful for what you stood for.' '

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