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    ‘Stax: Soulsville, U.S.A.’ Review: Looking for a Little Respect

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    An HBO series tells the triumphant, tragic story of the record label Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers called home.Multipart music documentaries come at us these days with the insistence and abundance of the old K-tel collections, scrambling to satisfy the cravings of every variety of pop nostalgist. Recent months have added “James Brown: Say It Loud” (A&E), “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” (MGM+), “Kings From Queens: The Run DMC Story” (Peacock) and “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story” (Hulu), among others, to the rotation.That’s four Rock & Roll Hall of Fame acts right there. But if you are looking for something even bigger — the arc of America across the 1960s and ’70s, set to a rough and infectious soundtrack — I know a place: “Stax: Soulsville, U.S.A.,” premiering Monday on HBO.The stormy, relatively short history of Stax Records (it went from founding to bankruptcy in 18 years) is rich material, shaped by a serendipitous blend of personality, geography and studio acoustics and propelled by the regional dynamics of race, class and music in Memphis, away from the record-industry centers of New York and Los Angeles.The director Jamila Wignot, who has profiled Alvin Ailey for “American Masters” and directed episodes of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “Finding Your Roots,” brings more organizational sense than imaginative flair to the four-episode series. “Soulsville, U.S.A.” gives a conventional talking-heads treatment to a story that calls out for more. But that story, tracking from innocence to cynicism and triumph to calamity, is so involving that Wignot’s straightforward approach isn’t fatal.And the interviewees doing the talking are a notably varied and engaging group. They include the white farm boy Jim Stewart, earnest, folksy and disastrously naïve, who founded the label with his sister Estelle Axton; the charismatic Black businessman Al Bell, who came on as promotions director and saved the company when it seemed doomed, only to preside over its eventual demise; and Booker T. Jones, leader of the house band Booker T. and the M.G.’s, who looms over the early episodes like a cool, cryptic, scholarly guru of soul.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      12 Key Music Collections, From Future to the Who

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      Whitney Houston’s gospel music, Future’s prolific mixtape run, a chunk of Joni Mitchell’s archives and a soundtrack of Brooklyn’s early discos arrived in new packages this year.Artists were eager to revisit the past in 2023 — some tweaking recent albums (like Taylor Swift), others revisiting long-dormant work in the vaults (like the two surviving Beatles). Boxed sets and reissue collections serve a different purpose, helping put catalogs and musicians into context, and bringing fresh revelations to light. Here are a dozen of the best our critics encountered this year.Julee Cruise, ‘Floating Into the Night’(Sacred Bones; one LP, $22)The absorbing, unconventional debut album from the deep-exhale vocalist Julee Cruise, who died in 2022, was produced by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch; the three had previously collaborated on music for Lynch’s 1986 alt-noir film “Blue Velvet.” This batch of songs, released in 1989, plays as an extension of that fun-house mirror, lightly terrifying universe, with twisted 1950s melodies meeting destabilizing, plangent guitars meeting Dali-esque shimmers. “Falling” became the theme song for “Twin Peaks” in instrumental form, but its full vocal version is the essential one. Songs like that, “The Nightingale” and “Into the Night” feel, even now, sui generis — not exactly dream-pop or new age, but something utterly amniotic. And lightly harrowing, too. JON CARAMANICADeYarmond Edison, ‘Epoch’(Jagjaguwar; five LPs, four CDs, 120-page book, $130)Anna Powell Denton/JagjaguwarBon Iver didn’t come out of nowhere. Before he started that project, Justin Vernon was in DeYarmond Edison, a pensive, folky but exploratory band that made two albums before splitting up; other members formed Megafaun. DeYarmond Edison — Vernon’s middle names — delved into folk, rock, Minimalism and bluegrass, learning traditional songs but also experimenting with phase patterns. It made two studio albums and left behind other songs, including “Epoch.” This extensively annotated boxed set includes songs from Mount Vernon, DeYarmond Edison’s jammy predecessor, along with DeYarmond Edison’s full second studio album (though only part of its first), unreleased demos, intimate concerts, collaborations outside the band and Vernon’s 2006 solo recordings. It’s a chronicle that opens up the sources of a style getting forged. JON PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Jean Knight, Who Struck Platinum With ‘Mr. Big Stuff,’ Dies at 80

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      Her anthem of female strength topped the Billboard R&B chart and reached No. 2 on the pop chart in 1971. Its appeal has endured.Jean Knight, a soul singer whose memorable single “Mr. Big Stuff,” a brassy anthem of female strength, rose to No. 1 on Billboard’s rhythm and blues chart in 1971, died on Wednesday in Tampa, Fla. She was 80.Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Mona Giamanco, a publicist for Ms. Knight’s family. She did not specify the cause.The gutsy narrator of “Mr. Big Stuff,” which was released on the Memphis-based Stax label, tells a wealthy ladies’ man — with his “fancy clothes” and “a big fine car” — that she will never love him:Mr. Big StuffWho do you think you are?Mr. Big StuffYou’re never gonna get my love.When she sang “Mr. Big Stuff” on the television show “Soul Train,” Ms. Knight exhibited the narrator’s disdain for the wealthy man in her facial gestures and in the way she defiantly planted her hand on her right hip and wagged her right index finger. But her strong voice softened when she sang that she would rather have a “poor guy that has a love that’s true.”Ms. Knight received a Grammy Award nomination for best female R&B vocal performance (Aretha Franklin won for “Bridge Over Troubled Water”), and “Mr. Big Stuff” was nominated for best R&B song (Bill Withers won for “Ain’t No Sunshine”).“Mr. Big Stuff,” written by Carrol Washington, Ralph Williams and Joseph Broussard, topped Billboard’s R&B chart and rose to No. 2 on the magazine’s Hot 100. It was also certified double platinum for selling at least two million units.The music historian John Broven, the author of “Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans” (1978), said in an email that “Mr. Big Stuff” “marked the end of the Golden Age of New Orleans R&B and helped to kick-start the city’s funky soul era.”He added, “It was also remarkable for being recorded on the same day as an earlier No. 1 R&B hit, ‘Groove Me,’ by another New Orleans artist, King Floyd, by talented producer Wardell Quezergue” at a time when “New Orleans was suffering from a dearth of big hits.”In 2002, before singing “Mr. Big Stuff” at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Ms. Knight told the audience that the royalties she received from it had helped sustain her financially.“‘Mr. Big Stuff’ is better for me now than 31 years ago,” she said. “All I have to do is sit at home and wait for the mailman.”It would be her only major hit, but it had a long afterlife. It can be heard on the soundtracks of numerous movies and TV shows. It has been sampled by Heavy D, Eazy-E and John Legend.Ms. Knight at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2003. She was a regular at the festival and last appeared there in 2016.David Redfern/Getty ImagesMs. Knight was born Jean Audrey Caliste on Jan. 26, 1943, in New Orleans. Her father, Louis, was a storekeeper, and her mother, Florence (Edwards) Caliste, was a homemaker.After graduating from high school, Ms. Knight sang at a cousin’s New Orleans bar. In 1965, she recorded a version of Jackie Wilson’s hit 1960 song “Doggin’ Around” as a demo. That led to a contract with the Jet Star/Tribe record label. Around that time, she changed her surname to Knight, because she believed that Caliste was difficult to pronounce.She earned money in the 1960s as a baker’s assistant at two New Orleans universities.After she recorded “Mr. Big Stuff,” according to a tribute to Ms. Knight on the Stax Museum website, the song was shopped to national labels, but each entreaty was rejected — until “Groove Me” became a hit and “a producer at Stax Records remembered Knight’s recording of ‘Mr. Big Stuff’ and released it.”Ms. Knight had another hit single in 1971, “You Think You’re Hot Stuff,” which rose to No. 19 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 57 on the Hot 100. Fourteen years later, her cover of the zydeco musician Rockin’ Sidney’s novelty song “My Toot Toot,” recorded for the Mirage label, peaked at No. 50 on the Hot 100 and No. 59 on the R&B chart.Ms. Knight graduated from nursing school in the 1980s and was a licensed practical nurse for about 15 years. She also continued to perform around New Orleans, but she was displaced from her home by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and lived in a FEMA trailer for about six months.She was a board member of the Louisiana Music Commission and was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2007.Ms. Knight was a regular at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, last appearing there in 2016. Its producer and director, Quint Davis, said she had been integral to the event.“Jean Knight is a core artist in R&B, certainly in New Orleans and Gulf Coast R&B,” Mr. Davis said in a phone interview. “She wasn’t only a singer and artist; she was a performer who knew how to reach the crowd and work it.”She is survived by her son, Emile Commedore; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Her marriages to Thomas Commedore and Earl Harris ended in divorce.During her performance at the 2007 festival, Ms. Knight told the story behind “Mr. Big Stuff.” First she sang its melody as originally written; then she demonstrated how she had changed it.“That ain’t got no bite to it,” she recalled telling one of the songwriters, in response to which he said, “Jean, everybody knows how sassy you are” and encouraged her to alter it.“It worked — in one take, she insisted,” The New York Times quoted her as saying. And when the song is played, she added, “The checks come to me.” More

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      Jim Stewart, Unlikely Entrepreneur of Soul Music, Dies at 92

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      His background was in country music. But Stax, the label he founded with his sister, achieved a level of success with Black artists that rivaled Motown’s.Jim Stewart, who with his sister founded Stax Records, home to R&B luminaries like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave — and, after Motown, the best-selling soul music label of the 1960s and ’70s — died on Monday in Memphis. He was 92.His death, at a hospital after a brief illness, was confirmed by Tim Sampson, communications director for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis.A former banker, Mr. Stewart first ventured into the music business in 1957, when he and his sister Estelle Axton established Satellite Records in a relative’s garage. Intending to release recordings of country and rockabilly music, Mr. Stewart and his sister, who died in 2004, never suspected that three years later their label would be producing some of the most enduring Black popular music of the era.“I had scarcely seen a Black person till I was grown,” Mr. Stewart, who grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry on a farm in rural West Tennessee, was quoted as saying in Peter Guralnick’s “Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom” (1986).“When I started, I didn’t know there was such a thing as Atlantic Records; I didn’t know there was a Chess Records or Imperial,” he continued, referring to record companies that promoted Black vernacular music. “I had no dream of anything like that.”His remote upbringing notwithstanding, Stax placed more than 100 singles on the pop chart during Mr. Stewart’s tenure at the label, among them Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wood” and Isaac Hayes’s theme from the movie “Shaft.” The influence of its catalog on generations of performers has proved wide and deep, extending to Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones as well as to the many hip-hop and R&B artists who have sampled Stax recordings.In a 2013 interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Stewart attributed his decision to start recording Black music to a single epiphany: hearing Ray Charles sing “What’d I Say.”“I was converted immediately,” he said. “I had never heard anything like that before. It allowed me to expand from country to R&B, into jazz, into gospel, wrapped all in one. That’s what Stax is.”Mr. Stewart was the audio engineer, and often the credited producer, on many records made at Stax, including Mr. Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” and Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.”The label began to make its mark in 1960, shortly after Mr. Stewart and his sister moved their operations to the former Capitol Theater at 926 McLemore Avenue in South Memphis. One day the popular singer and local disc jockey Rufus Thomas walked into the record shop that Mr. Stewart and Ms. Axton operated at the front of the building and announced that he wanted to record a duet with his daughter Carla.The record in question, “’Cause I Love You,” was only a regional hit, but “Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes),” a dreamy ballad released the same year, reached both the R&B and pop Top 10 for Ms. Thomas in 1961. The same was true of 1961’s “Last Night,” a slinky saxophone-driven instrumental by the Mar-Keys, the R&B combo that evolved into Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Stax’s storied house band.Mr. Stewart and Ms. Axton in an undated photo. Mr. Stewart’s decision to start a record company would not have been possible had Ms. Axton not taken out a second mortgage on her home to buy him recording equipment.Charlie Gillett Collection/RedfernsThe success of “Gee Whiz” and “Last Night” changed the artistic and commercial direction of Satellite Records. It also acquired a new name, combining the first two letters of the owners’ last names to form the portmanteau Stax, after Mr. Stewart and Ms. Axton learned that another label owned the rights to Satellite.In 1962, “Green Onions,” by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, further cemented the label’s credibility on the emergent soul music scene, climbing to the pop Top 10 (and No. 1 on the R&B chart). A gutbucket instrumental, “Green Onions” served as a prototype for the groove-steeped, blues- and gospel-bred music that became synonymous with Stax — a sound as lean and funky as Motown’s was lush and refined.Just as inspiring as the music made at Stax was the social climate Mr. Stewart cultivated there. Known for its laid-back and inclusive vibe, the label was guided by a spirit of good will — almost all the recording artists were Black, the house musicians both Black and white — that bore witness to possibilities for racial harmony at a time when segregation prohibited Black and white people from sharing public spaces.“There was so much talent here, under circumstances that were almost considered impossible in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1960, with the racial situation here,” Mr. Stewart told The Associated Press in 2013, reflecting on the spirit of camaraderie that he helped foster at Stax. “It was a sanctuary for all of us.”James Frank Stewart was born in Middleton, Tenn., on July 29, 1930, one of three children of Dexter and Olivia (Cole) Stewart. His parents were farmers, and his father supplemented the family income with work as a bricklayer.Young Jim grew up playing gospel music at home on the fiddle with his father, uncle and two sisters. After graduating from high school, he moved to Memphis, where he worked at a local bank for several years before being drafted into the Army.In 1953, after completing two years of service, he returned to Memphis and resumed working as a bank clerk while playing fiddle in local country dance bands. He earned a degree in business from the University of Memphis.Mr. Stewart’s decision to launch Satellite Records in 1957 would not have been possible had his sister not taken out a second mortgage on her home to buy him recording equipment.A distribution deal with Atlantic Records further opened doors for Mr. Stewart’s fledgling label, especially after the success of “Gee Whiz” and “Last Night.” A few years later, Mr. Stewart hired the songwriting and production team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter, enabling Stax to expand its capacity to develop artists and repertoire and, ultimately, its roster.The arrival of Al Bell as national sales director in 1965 further strengthened the label’s capacity, lending it the promotional muscle needed to market its artists beyond Memphis and the South. But tragedy eclipsed this flush of prosperity when Mr. Redding and four members of his band, the Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash in 1967.Mr. Stewart in 1969 with Al Bell, left, who joined Stax as national sales director in 1965, and Isaac Hayes, who was a songwriter and producer at Stax in partnership with David Porter and also had hit records as a performer. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesAround the same time, Stax dissolved its distribution deal with Atlantic, a settlement that, because of a contractual loophole, cost the label the rights to virtually its entire catalog.The assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis in April 1968 cast even more of a pall over conditions at Stax, threatening the racial amity that had prevailed up to that point. Later that year Mr. Stewart, Ms. Axton and Mr. Bell, by then also an owner, sold Stax to Gulf & Western in exchange for stock in the company.Ms. Axton sold her stock in the label to Mr. Bell in 1970, and Mr. Stewart eventually followed suit.In 1975, following a revival of good fortune under Mr. Bell’s leadership, including the signing of the Staple Singers and others, creditors forced Stax into bankruptcy, leaving behind a legacy of some 800 singles and 300 albums.Stax’s foreclosure was a hardship for Mr. Stewart, who had invested much of his personal wealth trying to satisfy the creditors. He resurfaced in the early 1980s, occasionally supervising projects for former Stax artists, but soon retired from the business except for occasional appearances at the Stax Museum and Stax Music Academy. The label has since changed hands a few times.In 2002, after decades out of the public eye, Mr. Stewart was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the nonperformer category for his contributions to the creation and evolution of Southern soul music.Album covers on display at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis.Adrian Sainz/Associated PressHe is survived by his son, Jeff; two daughters, Lori Stewart and Shannon Stewart; and two grandchildren. Evelyn (White) Stewart, his wife of more than 50 years, died in 2020. Another sister, Mary Louise McAlpin, died in 2017.“Mr. Stewart was the unpretentious soft-spoken diminutive white guy with a Brylcreem-lathered hair part and fat-rim glasses that I met in 1962,” Deanie Parker, Stax’s longtime publicist, told The Memphis Commercial Appeal after Mr. Stewart’s death.“He gave us opportunities denied to most Blacks in America and we gifted him with an indelible Memphis Sound that, together, we created at Stax Records.” More

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      Mable John, Soul Singer With a Star-Studded Résumé, Dies at 91

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      She was one of the first female acts signed to Motown, and her career later intersected with Isaac Hayes and Ray Charles. But she eventually heeded a higher calling.Beyond her many other accomplishments — collaborating on a hit single with Isaac Hayes, singing backup for Ray Charles — Mable John earned a place in the music pantheon as one of the first female artists signed to the Motown Records empire, which altered the face of pop music in the 1960s.But none of it might have happened if Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, had not needed a ride.Ms. John was an aspiring blues singer working for a Detroit insurance company owned by Mr. Gordy’s mother, Bertha, in the 1950s when she found herself serving as the de facto chauffeur for the future music mogul, a former Lincoln-Mercury assembly line worker who had sky-high ambitions as a songwriter and music impresario and was hustling around town looking to conjure hits.It did not take long for him to recognize the vocal power of the woman behind the wheel. Before long, with Mr. Gordy serving as her pianist and mentor, Ms. John joined the Detroit nightclub circuit.“I was groomed for a full year before I did anything anywhere,” she later said, “because that was Berry’s motto — he wanted to make you an act, not a gimmick.”As a pioneering Motown act, Ms. John never churned out hits like those of Stevie Wonder, the Supremes or other stars of the Motown roster. But her influence on music was soon felt.With a voice that could reach breathy depths and then soar to the upper registers, Ms. John moved on to Stax Records in Memphis, known for an earthier kind of R&B, where she scored a hit single in 1966 with “Your Good Thing (Is About to End),” a wistful ballad of heartache that was later covered by Lou Rawls, Bonnie Raitt and others. She eventually spent more than a decade as a member of the Raelettes, Ray Charles’s backing vocal group.Ms. John signed with Stax Records in 1966. A publicity photo from the label misspelled her first name.Stax Museum of American Soul MusicMs. John died on Aug. 25 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 91. Her death was confirmed by her nephew Keith John, a longtime backup singer with Stevie Wonder.“She was definitely R&B royalty,” said the author David Ritz, who has written biographies of Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and others, and who collaborated with Ms. John on a series of semi-autobiographical novels centered on an R&B singer turned minister.In broad terms, Ms. John’s musical odyssey might be seen as a metaphor for the Great Migration of Black Americans who fled the South in the middle decades of the 20th century, looking for opportunity in the North. She was born in Bastrop, La., on Nov. 3, 1930, the eldest of 10 children of Mertis and Lillie (Robinson) John, who moved the family to Cullendale, Ark., shortly after her birth. When she was 12, her father left a grueling job at a paper mill and moved the family to Detroit in search of a better life. He found work in an automobile factory.With its swelling Black population, Detroit was a hotbed of African American music, and it became an ideal place for people to pursue their musical ambitions. Lillie John led a family gospel group, and by the mid-’50s Mable’s younger brother William had found fame as a singer under the name Little Willie John, scoring multiple R&B hits with songs like “All Around the World,” “Need Your Love So Bad” and “Fever,” which hit No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1956 and later became an enduring anthem of desire for Peggy Lee.With her sights on a music career of her own, Ms. John was soon singing, in a voice both sassy and vulnerable, at hallowed Detroit clubs like the Flame Show Bar, where she opened for Billie Holiday shortly before her death in 1959.Her career ambitions, and her decision to tour with her famous brother, got her booted from a statewide Pentecostal choir. “They disapproved of the music,” she said in a 2008 interview with The Guardian. “I had gone over to the Devil.”But she was on her way. In 1959, Mr. Gordy formed his landscape-altering sister labels, Tamla and Motown, and he soon signed Ms. John, who recorded “Who Wouldn’t Love a Man Like That,” written by Mr. Gordy and others, in 1960.A handful of singles over the next few years failed to make a splash. By 1966, Ms. John was living in Chicago and married to a preacher, and she told Mr. Gordy that she wanted to be released from the label. In a 1999 interview with the magazine, “Living Blues,” she recalled telling him: “The direction the company is going into, I don’t think I can measure up, because I’m not a pop singer. I’m a blues singer.”Her career, however, was far from over. She moved on to Stax, Motown’s bluesier rival, which proved more amenable to her musical vision.“At Motown, they gave you your songs and told you how to dress and how to dance,” Tim Sampson, the communications director of the Soulsville Foundation, which operates the Stax Museum in Memphis, said in an interview. “At Stax, they just brought you in and said: ‘Tell us your story. What makes you happy? What makes you sad? That’s what your music is going to be.’”Before long, Ms. John found herself meeting with two of the label’s top songwriters, David Porter and a not-yet-famous Isaac Hayes. In search of a song to record, she told them about an early marriage to an unfaithful man. As she spoke, Mr. Hayes began to play the piano, and Mr. Porter began to scribble lyrics.Ms. John in 2019 at the premiere of the Showtime documentary “Hitsville: The Making Of Motown.” She was one of the Motown Records empire’s first female artists.Leon Bennett/Getty Images“I had no idea how the music or the melody should go,” she told The Guardian. “I just knew it was a story that was inside of me. It was a pain, and it needed to get out. And when we got finished that night, we had ‘Your Good Thing (Is About to End).’”The song reached No. 6 on the Billboard R&B chart, but her tenure with Stax was brief. In 1969, she joined Ray Charles as a backing vocalist.Living up to Mr. Charles’s exacting musical standards was an accomplishment in its own right, Mr. Ritz said: “He was an uncompromising taskmaster in terms of musical excellence. You played the wrong stuff and you were out.” Ms. John, who had a strong moral sense and whose nickname was Able Mable, he added, also did her best to steer the band away from the temptations of the road.For Ms. John, her years with Mr. Charles were an opportunity to expand her musical horizons.“At the beginning, I thought I could only sing gospel,” she said in a 2007 interview with NPR. “With Berry Gordy, I found out I could sing the blues. I went to Stax, and I find out I could sing love songs. I got with Ray Charles, and we sang country — everything. And we could play to any audience. I wanted to sing what was in my heart to everybody that loves music, and Ray Charles was the place for me to be, to do that.”Ms. John’s survivors include a son, Limuel Taylor; a brother, Mertis John Jr.; and several grandchildren.She continued to perform off and on over the years. She also wrote three novels with Mr. Ritz: “Sanctified Blues” (2006), “Stay Out of the Kitchen” (2007) and“Love Tornado” (2008). And she dabbled in acting, portraying a seasoned blues singer in John Sayles’s 2007 film, “Honeydripper.”But Ms. John also felt a higher calling. She followed the stage-to-the-pulpit path taken by the likes of Little Richard and Al Green, and founded a small Baptist ministry in Los Angeles that organized food and clothing drives for the homeless.In a sense, she might have been heeding the wisdom that she recalled Billie Holiday imparting to her long ago: “Baby, if you intend to make it in this business, there is one thing you’re going to have to remember. You’re going to have to know when you’ve given enough, and then you have to stop.” More