Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Graduate College
2015
The role of soul: Stax Records and the civil rights
movement in Memphis, Tennessee
Jason Danielson
Iowa State University
Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd
Part of the African American Studies Commons, Music Commons, and the United States History
Commons
Recommended Citation
Danielson, Jason, "The role of soul: Stax Records and the civil rights movement in Memphis, Tennessee" (2015). Graduate Theses and
Dissertations. Paper 14687.
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at Digital Repository @ Iowa State University. It has been accepted for
inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Repository @ Iowa State University. For more information,
please contact [email protected].
The role of soul: Stax Records and the civil rights movement in Memphis, Tennessee
by
Jason Danielson
A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Major: History
Program of Study Committee:
Brian Behnken, Major Professor
Tunde Adeleke
Isaac Gottesman
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
2015
Copyright © Jason Danielson, 2015. All rights reserved.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I THANK YOU: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
iii
ABSTRACT
viii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: THE ROLE OF SOUL
1
CHAPTER 2. BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER
27
CHAPTER 3. WOMAN TO MAN
60
CHAPTER 4. I’LL TAKE YOU THERE
93
CHAPTER 5. BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
124
CODA: TAG THE ENDING, REPEAT AND FADE
155
BIBLIOGRAPHY
159
iii
I THANK YOU: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the spring of 2003, a young history education major played keyboard in a blues band
called Magic Mike and the Blue Side. The band received the good fortune of winning the Iowa
Blues Challenge, and was thrilled to discover that part of their winnings included opening for B.
B. King the next night in Des Moines. The young man – who was primarily a jazz musician –
became enthralled with the depth of expression from the King of the Blues and his amazing
band, though he was not aware at the time that King had grown up in Memphis, Tennessee,
where he would travel with Magic Mike in January of 2004 to participate in the International
Blues Challenge.
When the band of friends made the twelve hour drive from northern Iowa to western
Tennessee, they knew they would visit a city rich in American music history and hear some of
the finest blues musicians in the world, but this young pianist and future high school history
teacher had no idea of the degree to which this trip would eventually change his life. The day
after visiting Sun studios, posing for pictures like the Million Dollar Quartet, and playing their
first set on Beale Street, Magic Mike and the Blue Side visited the Stax Museum of American
Soul Music. For a twenty-three-year-old, recently married and full of confidence in his musical
abilities and newly developing historical understanding, it was an eye-opening experience. This
was music and history come alive in a way he had never imagined, and he could not get enough.
The young man immediately bought Rob Bowman’s masterpiece, Soulsville, U.S.A., and fell in
love with the music and the people of Stax Records.
This young white teacher from Des Moines, Iowa, made sure that all of his students knew
the value of black popular music. He spent far more time than the curriculum recommended
iv
having students study black history and analyze black music. He showed Wattstax at the end of
the year, carefully watching the door for administrators during Richard Pryor’s scenes, which
were simply too important to the overall film to censor. He developed presentations that he
shared with other teachers about how the music spoke to the African American experience,
particularly the civil rights movement, and he took special pride in his argument that Southern
Stax represented the proud black nationalist voice of Malcolm X while Northern Motown chased
the integrationist dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. And then, in his thirties, he finally started to
really learn.
Upon entering graduate school, the not-so-young, overconfident white history
teacher/musician from Des Moines read and did history like he never had before. He learned
about spectrums and anti-essentialism, about competing academic theories among historians of
various specialties, and about the ever-growing literature on his favorite topics, civil rights and
African American music. He learned that Memphis and Stax offered an enormous opportunity
for his academic growth, and he learned that it was a city filled with rich history, beautiful music,
amazing food, and some of the kindest, smartest, and most helpful people he would ever meet.
Most importantly, he learned that he had a great deal to learn, and he continues to learn that
lesson every day. This work serves as the story of what he has learned thus far.
If ever there was a true labor of love, it was researching and writing this thesis. It has
been a dream come true to combine music and history, visit Memphis, work with some of the
greatest historians and musicians I could imagine, and write about some of the greatest music
and most inspiring activists of the twentieth century. To work on a graduate degree while
teaching full-time and raising children sometimes felt like an impossible task, but the difficult
v
work remained inspiring and exciting because the work I do and the family I come home to
provided support, understanding, joy, and motivation that has meant the world to me.
I owe my MA in History, literally and figuratively, to the James Madison Memorial
Fellowship Foundation. The guidance and financial support they have provided made this work
possible, and the academic and personal inspiration from the regular Madison Memos, the 2012
Summer Institute at Georgetown University, and the ongoing correspondence with Foundation
people and Fellows across the country has been incredible. In particular, I extend my sincere
thanks to Lewis Larsen for having the faith to make me a Fellow in 2011 and continuing to
support my work, and to Herman Belz for his unmatched knowledge of the Constitution and
uncanny ability to pull out the very best from his students. While I have enormous gratitude for
the many friendships I developed at the Summer Institute, I am particularly grateful to my
favorite Fellows, Ashely Heyer for convincing me to write a thesis, and Joe Sangillo for making
me aware of just how difficult it would be.
I find it difficult to truly express how much it has meant to me to work with the history
department at Iowa State University. To Brian Behnken, my major professor and civil rights
guru, I offer my highest thanks for your guidance and my highest praise for your ongoing
contribution to the field of civil rights history. You are a true credit to your profession, and I
hope I have made you proud. To Isaac Gottesman, your education history course was a breath of
fresh air and an inspiration to several areas of my work, and your expertise as a member of my
committee is of enormous value to me. Tunde Adeleke, one of my great regrets is that my
schedule never allowed me to study with you personally, but your work is of the highest caliber,
and I am grateful to you for lending your knowledge and experience to my committee. During
my coursework at Iowa State, I was also incredibly fortunate to learn how to write history from
vi
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg and to be exposed to feminist history and theory as well as the weird
and wonderful world of postmodernism by Jana Byars, and I thank them for that. I am also
grateful to Seth Hedquist, my comrade in both music and history and one of the most valued
friends in my life, for making music with me, eating pancakes with me, teaching cool kids with
me, and especially for reading my thesis before our professors got a hold of it.
I made the ten-hour drive to Memphis twice and corresponded countless times with
amazing people from this amazing city, and I could not have asked for a better experience.
Levon Williams and Deanie Parker from the Stax Museum and world-class trumpeter Wayne
Jackson provided wonderful stories, kind words, and incredibly valuable information and
analysis for which I will always be grateful. Ed Frank and his staff at Special Collections at the
University of Memphis demonstrated the highest level of professionalism, generosity, wisdom,
and kindness, and I can only hope that this humble offering serves as a partial tribute to the
incredible assistance they provided. Wayne Dowdy was an absolute inspiration through his
written contributions to Memphis history, and his generosity and brilliance at the Memphis and
Shelby County Room meant the world to me. Charles Hughes wrote a brilliant book on
Southern soul music and went out of his way to introduce me to one of the greatest Stax minds in
the business, and then Robert Gordon gave me more than I could ever dream of through his
books, emails, and contacts. Finally, to the city of Memphis, for offering true Southern
hospitality and a beautiful place to do research, I offer my everlasting thanks for the music on
Beale Street and the food at Payne’s, Four Way, Central, Gus’s, and Pete and Sam’s. I also hope
that I have done a small part to honor the remarkable lives of the native and transplanted
Memphians throughout these pages. Your legacy is one of which your city should be proud.
vii
On a personal note, there are too many people to name individually who have provided
love, support, and wisdom throughout my work on this project. Jon Baskerville’s African
American history course changed my life, and his historical methods course continues to guide
my work today. The fact that I was also able to play a few gigs with him and call him my friend
makes him even more a part of my endeavors today, and I hope I have honored his memory in
these pages. Rob Bowman’s work on Stax taught me the greatness of this little company and
laid the foundation for all of us who followed, and I thank him for inspiring and assisting me
without even knowing it. Mike Cramer, Bob Dunn, and Delayne Stallman were cool enough to
let me join one of the most satisfying and exciting bands I have ever been a part of, and our
performances at the Rum Boogie, lessons at Sun and Stax, and antics on Beale will forever
remain some of my fondest memories. To my students at Hoover High School, I offer my
sincerest thanks for participating in lively discussions, calling out my bad jokes, sharing your wit
and wisdom, and teasing me about how long I took to get my MA. To my parents, Ron and
Kathie Danielson, and my family and friends, all that is good about me I owe to you, and all that
still needs work is no fault of yours. Thank you for helping me become the man I am today.
Finally, more than anything or anyone else in this world, I offer my thanks, my love, and
what is soon to be my increased free time to my wife Sara, my children here on earth, Carter,
Max, and Isaac, and my children in heaven and in my heart, Aiden and Samuel. Your patience,
understanding, support, inspiration, motivation, joy, wisdom, and humor have blessed and
sustained me more than mere words could ever adequately express. I love you and dedicate this
work and my life to you, regretting only that nothing I could ever write or perform could truly
demonstrate how much you really mean to me.
viii
ABSTRACT
Scholarship of the civil rights movement developed academically constructed categories,
creating binary understandings of the movement that did not capture the true nuance and
complexity of specific circumstances. Music offers a lens through which to view the movement
holistically, breaking down the essentialist binary interpretations through postmodern analysis of
lyrics and music in its historical context. This work applies that approach to the music of Stax
Records in the context of the civil rights movement in Memphis, Tennessee.
Much of the scholarship of the civil rights movement tended to establish four essentialist
understandings, a method binary of integrationism versus nationalism, a gender binary of
masculinity versus feminism, a theological binary of sacred versus secular activism, and a
federalism binary of national versus state power. Stax Records created a decidedly black brand
of Southern soul music at an integrated company during the height of the civil rights movement
in Memphis and across the United States, providing a powerful example of the limits of either/or
understandings of the movement. The artists and producers at Stax, alongside the civil rights
leaders and grassroots activists in Memphis, demonstrated the complex nature of the movement
in Memphis, which belied clearly defined categories of understanding.
This work begins with an overview of civil rights, Memphis, and soul music scholarship
to establish understanding of the binaries which will be challenged, followed by chapters on each
of the four essentialist binaries. The subsequent chapters discuss aspects of the Memphis civil
rights movement and Stax Records history that challenge each binary, followed by musical
analysis of selected recordings to demonstrate how Stax provided both a reflection of an impetus
toward social and political change.
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION: THE ROLE OF SOUL
Using Music to Challenge Essentialist Binaries and Better Understand the Civil Rights
Movement
Few moments in American history compare to the complexity of issues, fascinating
characters, and ambiguity of outcomes contained in the civil rights movement. Its origins in
slavery, racism, violence, and segregation bred a uniquely American experience which now
offers a fertile ground for a wide range of historical scholarship. Despite a broad assortment of
valuable research on this era, however, the historiography of the civil rights movement has also
developed categorical divisions in order for scholars to make sense of the various aspects of the
era, thus creating several binaries of interpretation of the movement that contributed to an
essentialist understanding of the struggles. Four key essentialist binaries have emerged in recent
years: integrationism versus nationalism, or the method binary; manhood versus feminism, or the
gender binary; religion versus secularism, or the theological binary; and national power versus
states’ rights, or the federalist binary. The reality for most black Americans rarely fits into such
academically constructed limits.
To organize an academic dialogue of the civil rights movement while recognizing the fact
that most black Americans blurred the lines created by such organization necessitates a new
framework for understanding the movement without the barriers of either-or categorization. One
possible framework lies in the popular music of the time. Soul music and its role in the civil
rights movement demonstrates the problematic nature of binary understandings as well as the
2
value of popular culture in understanding what the civil rights movement meant to artists,
activists, and ordinary citizens.
Popular music is frequently misunderstood in its historical context. Some, such as LeRoi
Jones, saw it as inconsequential because of its focus on profit and seemingly innocuous lyrics,
while others like Craig Werner sometimes overstate its role in black expression and protest
messages.1 In truth, music in general, and soul music in particular, serves as a dynamic topic of
study for the civil rights movement because it was so many things to so many people. Soul
music meant economic empowerment, black creative expression, an integrated creative
endeavor, articulation of civil rights goals, and entertainment. What is more, soul meant any
combination of these ideas to any number of people at any given point in time. Music served as
more than a mirror for the civil rights movement; as the frequent accompaniment to personal and
political interactions in the black community, it often became the impetus for action. Music
functioned as a primary expression of moderation and assertiveness, of nonviolent religious
activism and modern nationalist militarism, of gender inequality for women and masculine
reclamation for men. Because of its power to stir the body, mind, and spirit of black and white
Americans through the 1960s, and because of its refusal to fall within the either-or binaries of
method, gender, theology, or politics, soul music offers the historian the opportunity to break
down the constructed binaries of the civil rights movement and seek a deeper, truer
understanding of the movement and the people who created it.
Soul music, like the civil rights movement for which it provided the soundtrack, did not
exist as a national phenomenon, but as a series of local and regional developments. One could
LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music,” 1966, in Black Music (New
York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1971), 188-189, 195, 201-202, 208; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna
Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), xii-xiv,
xv, 58, 88, 130-131.
1
3
choose to conduct a study of soul as it related to civil rights in any number of key cities,
including Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, or Los Angeles, but the first
place to begin this work is Memphis, Tennessee. Located at the northern end of the Mississippi
Delta, this crossroads of American geography and culture fostered a wealth of musical
innovation. Memphis stood as a unique location for both civil rights and music history. As a
local civil rights venue, the city served as the quintessential example of the southern urban
phenomenon of urbanization and tradition; Memphians struggled with competing desires for
modernization and tradition, and witnessed both intentional and unintentional blending of high
and low class cultures as well as black and white societies.2 As one of the most important sites
in American music history, local Memphians as well as migrants from Mississippi, Florida,
Chicago, or Detroit shaped a legacy blending Delta blues, southern gospel, and rural country into
a now-legendary lineage of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and southern soul.3 While Memphis
served as home to a number of outstanding studios that created a variety of popular music, Stax
Records stood above the rest as the most visible, cohesive, and successful company throughout
the 1960s.4 Therefore, Stax’s (and Memphis’) important role in both civil rights and music
2
David R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980 (Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 3-5, 7; Marcus D. Pohlmann and Michael P. Kirby,
Racial Politics at the Crossroads: Memphis Elects Dr. W.W. Herenton (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee Press, 1996), 10; Wayne G. Dowdy, “The White Rose Mammy: Racial Culture and Politics in World War
II Memphis,” from The Journal of Negro History 85, no. 4 (Autumn 2000), 308; Laurie B. Green, Battling the
Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of
North Carolina Press, 2007), 2.
3
Robert Gordon, It Came from Memphis (New York: Pocket Books, 1995), 3, 6; Sir Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), 553, 563, 602; Larry Nager, Memphis Beat: The Lives and Times of America’s
Musical Crossroads (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), xv, 26-27, 226-227; Beverly G. Bond and Janann
Sherman, Memphis in Black and White (Charleston, South Carolina, Chicago, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and San
Francisco: Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 7.
4
Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 120-122; Arnold Shaw, The World of
Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop Music Scene (New York: Cowles Book Company, Inc., 1970), 181182; Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York:
Harper & Row, 1986), 108-111; Rob Bowman: Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records (New York: Schirmer
Books, 1997), x, 61; Roben Jones, Memphis Boys: The Story of American Studios (Jackson, Mississippi: University
Press of Mississippi, 2010), xv, 77, 101; Robert Gordon, Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion
(New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2013), xii.
4
history makes it a useful and fascinating location to begin the work of integrating music into the
civil rights conversation as a way of breaking down scholarly binaries, and a way of facilitating a
more holistic – and realistic – examination of this pivotal era in American history.
“Share What You Got”: An Overview of the Civil Rights Historiography
The civil rights movement, despite its relatively recent history, has provided fertile
ground for a broad and valuable range of scholarship in the decades since its inception. Studies
as early as the 1980s laid the foundation for understanding the political, cultural, and
geographical aspects of the movement, providing impetus for future focus on the movement as a
series of local and regional developments.5 The shift from viewing the civil rights movement as
a national phenomenon to understanding the local and regional nuances of the period proved an
important development in the historiography. Such studies include an ever-growing body of
work that tends to illuminate important differences in southern, northern, and western approaches
to the movement, including important cultural developments unique to specific geographic
locations.6 In recent years, civil rights historians launched new thematic areas of study that have
5
Landmark early works on the civil rights movement include: John W. Cell, The Highest Stage of White
Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982); David R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980 (Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), especially 147-177; Aldon D. Morris, The
Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York and London: The
Free Press, 1984); William L. Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American
Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992).
6
Important southern histories include: William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina,
and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); John Dittmer, Local
People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press,
1994); Glenn T. Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle
(Chapell Hill, North Carolina, and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Stephen G.N. Tuck,
Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 (Athens, Georgia, and London: The
University of Georgia Press, 2001); Bobby L. Lovett: The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History
(Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 2005); Laurie B. Green, Battling the Plantation
Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2007). Important northern histories include: Suzanne E. Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and
the Cultural Politics of Detroit (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999); Patrick
D. Jones, The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London:
5
greatly enriched the field of study, including such topics as gender, culture, specific leaders, and
religion.7
Two 1982 books by John W. Cell and David R. Goldfield laid the groundwork for
understanding the civil rights movement in the American South in the broader context of
southern culture and segregation. Cell argued that segregation, rather than being a product of
irrational traditionalism, in fact resulted from a sophisticated response to modernization and a
compromise with more extreme forms of white supremacy.8 Goldfield’s Cotton Fields and
Skyscrapers complemented The Highest Stage of White Supremacy in supporting an
understanding of segregation as a phenomenon emerging from rural cultures negotiating with
growing urban environments and the inevitable resultant racial interactions.9 When Cell briefly
discussed the three precursors to the post-Brown direct action movement, he offered a prophetic
analysis of the futility of any singular approach:
Harvard University Press, 2009). Important western histories include: Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and
the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, New Jersey, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003); Brian D.
Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in
Texas (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press), 2011.
7
Contextual studies of the movement include: David R. Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and
Southern Culture, 1940 to the Present (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press,
1990; Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000 (New York and London: Viking
Penguin, 2001); Christopher Paul Lehman, “Civil Rights in Twilight: The End of the Civil Rights Movement Era in
1973,” from Journal of Black Studies 36, no. 3 (January 2006), 415-428. Gender studies of the movement include:
Donna Langston, “Black Civil Rights, Feminism, and Power,” from Race, Gender, & Class 5, no. 2: Race, Gender,
& Class Studies in Australia, Canada and U.S. (1998); Gail S. Murray, ed., Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege:
White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2004);
Steve Estes, I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and
London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005); Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black
Women, Rape, and Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black
Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). Cultural and religious studies of the movement include: James H.
Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1991); David
L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and
London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Waldo E. Martin, Jr., No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural
Politics and Postwar America (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 2005). Another
important study on theme of armed resistance in the movement: Simon Wendt, The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed
Resistance and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2007).
8
Cell The Highest Stage of White Supremacy, x, 18-19.
9
Cell The Highest Stage of White Supremacy, 105-106; Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers, 7, 147-148.
6
None of the strategies that had been suggested so far had succeeded, [Du Bois]
included. His “talented tenth,” the educated elite, had been insufficiently
concerned with the plight of the masses. Booker T. Washington’s advocacy of
black capitalism had been equally unrealistic…Marcus Garvey’s movement had
demonstrated how to build a mass following…But the wholesale emigration of
some ten million poor people was totally impractical…10
Cell’s brief statement on the impracticality of one-dimensional approaches prefaced problems
faced by movement activists during the period as well as the issue of singular or binary
interpretations of the movement by historians.
Two other vital contributions to the emerging civil rights scholarship, Aldon D. Morris’s
The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement and William L. Van De Burg’s New Day in Babylon,
provided significant foundational work on the civil rights movement. In their insightful studies,
three important elements emerged that influenced subsequent scholarship: First, Morris
articulated the value of “local movement centers,” thereby opening the field to the necessary
work of examining communities, states, and regions for their unique contributions to the
movement.11 Second, Van De Burg initiated the conversation over two important elements
previously neglected in serious studies: the role of Black Power, and the value of culture in
understanding the movement.12 Third, and most importantly for this work, the authors
established two of the four binaries that continued to thread their way through future studies of
the movement. Morris’s examination of nonviolent direct action compared to Van De Burg’s
study on the Black Power movement inadvertently established a dominant theme of either-or
conversations in the civil rights literature that followed.13 Additionally, while feminism and
masculinity stood as opposing conversations throughout the movement, Van De Burg offered
10
Cell, The Highest Stage of White Supremacy, 274.
Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 40.
12
Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 9.
13
Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 5, 24, 70; Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 19-20, 31, 112113, 159-160.
11
7
one of the first analyses of the problem of gender politics in the Black Power movement within a
larger study of the era.14
Once Morris opened the door to local and regional study of the civil rights movement,
historians initiated a stream of meaningful studies of specific geographic areas and their
experiences and contributions to the period. Taken together, such studies provided several
overarching themes that proved useful to the body of civil rights literature and to the present
study of Stax Records and the civil rights movement in Memphis and the United States. First,
multiple works addressed the myth of “good race relations;” while particular locales attempted to
prove their relative civility to outsiders, closer examination revealed deep seated problems
between ethno-racial groups and less moderation among white leaders than originally claimed.
Second, several works demonstrated the importance of specific local phenomena to specific
locations; while all cities or states had their own unique features, some had specific institutions
or populations that proved overwhelmingly crucial in understanding the direction of those local
movements. Third, the body of local and regional histories developed the academically
constructed binaries that have proven simultaneously crucial to understanding the movement and
limiting in seeing the full picture.
Racism, segregation, and white resistance to change represented common experiences
throughout the South, but some cities, such as Greensboro, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and
Memphis, Tennessee, maintained reputations of better race relations due to black civility and
moderate white leadership. The very existence of important direct action movements, voter
registration campaigns, cultural expression, and other forms of black resistance, however, belied
14
Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 296-298.
8
the peaceful and satisfactory nature of biracial societies in these cities.15 Furthermore,
northerners regularly invoked the injustices of the South as a means of deflecting criticism of
their own race problems during the civil rights movement. Several key histories challenged this
assertion, demonstrating the unique challenges associated with the struggle for equality outside
the South, such as housing discrimination, de facto segregation, and fierce white resentment and
resistance when confronted with demands for improvement.16
Some locations found themselves so absorbed by a single element that local studies
necessarily emphasized them as crucial to the local activism of the time. Most closely connected
to this work on Stax, Suzanne E. Smith’s Dancing in the Street placed Motown at the center of
Detroit’s experience. While other scholars wrote about Motown or Detroit, Smith blended the
two, providing a compelling argument that this work seeks to continue: Specifically, according
to Smith, the politics of Detroit intricately interacted with the cultural and economic work of
Motown, and vice versa, and generally, the music of the civil rights era played a distinctive role
as both reflection of and motivator toward civil rights action.17 Additionally, the existence of
powerful personalities or populations in certain places affected the direction of the movement in
ways that scholars could not ignore.18 These mirrored southern soul music’s power in Memphis,
and therefore proved an important consideration in the previous scholarship leading to this study.
Thematic studies comprise the most recent trend in the civil rights historiography, with
several authors, demonstrating both inadvertent adherence to the established binaries and
promising challenges to essentialist dichotomies. Broad overviews, such as Goldfield’s Black,
15
Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 4-10, 138-139, 228-229; Tuck, Beyond Atlanta, 74-75, 153; Green, Battling the
Plantation Mentality, 2, 114, 221; Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 61-62, 108-109, 189-191.
16
Self, Beyond Atlanta, 17, 136-137; Jones, The Selma of the North, 4-8, 16, 19, 51.
17
Smith, Dancing in the Street, 7, 9-11.
18
Recent examples include Father James Groppi’s direct influence on black activism in Milwaukee and the
existence of competing Latino and black movements in Texas. Jones, The Selma of the North, 138-140, 212;
Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, 7-10.
9
White, and Southern and Adam Fairclough’s Better Day Coming told the civil rights story within
its long context, with Fairclough doing a better job avoiding the binary line of thinking by
moving beyond integration-nationalism options and illuminating the reliance of various groups
on each other.19 Theologian James Cone offered a refreshing challenge to the method binary in
his comparative exploration of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, brilliantly turning the
tables on the either-or philosophy using the two most visible symbols of the binary.20 Gender,
perhaps the most contentious binary, found continued debates among scholars’ competing
interpretations of manhood and feminism in the movement, with both sides offering compelling
evidence that further challenges the validity of an either-or dialectic to the civil rights
conversation.21 Generally the most valuable work thus far tended to eschew essentialist binaries
in favor of a more nuanced approach, which this study hopes to continue through an examination
of Stax.
Perhaps the most pervasive and unfortunate of the dichotomies unwittingly established in
the body of civil rights literature, the method binary placed integrationism and nationalism at
opposite ends of a spectrum. While often a useful categorical framework for better
understanding different leadership approaches, closer studies of the grassroots activists (and most
Stax musicians certainly showed signs of activism) belied such simple either-or discrepancies.
The typical civil rights activist in Memphis, whether at the NAACP meetings or in the recording
studio at 926 East McLemore Avenue, demonstrated passionate pragmatism in his or her quest
for equal rights and equal opportunities.22 Such nuance challenged Chafe’s conception of Black
19
Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern, 2, 189-190; Fairclough, Better Day Coming, xiii, 296-297, 313.
Cone, Malcolm & Martin & America, 3, 63, 165-166, 246-247, 303-304.
21
Langston, “Black Civil Rights, Feminism, and Power,” 158-159, 161; Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of
Privilege, 4, 13; Estes, I Am a Man!, 7-8, 40, 74-75, 155; McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 7, 39, 87, 198199.
22
David M. Tucker, Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civil Reformers 1948-1968 (Knoxville,
Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980), 76-77, 101, 135-137, 154; Roger Biles, “A Bittersweet
20
10
Power as simply working outside the “progressive mystique,” or Smith’s assertion that Black
Power existed as self-defense philosophies that did not emerge until after the mid-1960s violence
and social upheavals.23
The theological binary sprang in some respects from the method binary, as scholars often
associated Christianity and the black church with moderate integrationism while tying Black
Muslims and younger, less religious activists to militant nationalism.24 While Morris, Dittmer,
and Chappell disagreed over the centrality of religion in the black freedom movement, their
analyses of the nonviolent direct action and grassroots political activism of the movement placed
the protagonists firmly under the influence of the black church in the theological spectrum.25
Chafe and Jones hinted at the blurred lines between sacred and secular and the difficulty of an
either-or philosophy; Jones’ portrait of Father James Groppi showed a white Catholic priest
encouraging militant black power in the youth of his Milwaukee congregation, while Chafe’s
depiction of Greensboro activists challenged assertions of the centrality of religion for young
activists.26 As I will show, the sacred-secular dichotomy proved impossible to defend in light of
soul music, which demanded postmodern, anti-essentialist understanding of music, lyrics, and
culture that was neither sacred nor secular, and simultaneously both.27
Victory: Public School Desegregation in Memphis,” from The Journal of Negro Education 55, no. 4 (Autumn
1986), 474; Will Sarvis, “Leaders in the Court and Community: Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams, Jr., and the
Legal Fight for Civil Rights in Tennessee, 1940-1970,” from The Journal of African American History 88, no. 1
(Winter 2003), 43-44, 53-54; Green, 184-185, 214-215, 218, 233, 257; Michael K. Honey, Going Down Jericho
Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign (New York and London: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2007), 38-39, 80, 84, 177, 234-237, 487.
23
Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 244-245; Smith, Dancing in the Street, 140. In fact, Smith’s own understanding
of the Motown culture of high class spoke to the complex nature of integrationism and nationalism. Berry Gordy’s
expectation that his black artists be schooled in etiquette and dressed to impress actually served to increase profits
for an independent black-run economic enterprise. Smith, Dancing in the Street, 47-48.
24
Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 28, 31; Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 5, 97.
25
Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 5, 12; Dittmer, Local People, 75-77; Chappell, A Stone of
Hope, 86-87, 95-96.
26
Jones, The Selma of the North, 138-140; Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 25-26, 114.
27
Jennifer Ryan, “Can I Get a Witness?”: Soul and Salvation in Memphis Music (Ph.D. diss., University of
Pennsylvania, 2008), 31, 43, 58.
11
The gender binary encompassed some of the most contentious debates among civil rights
scholars, just as gender issues proved highly contentious in the civil rights movement itself.
Scholars clearly acknowledged the visible leadership roles overwhelmingly taken by men in the
movement and the importance of women at the grassroots and behind the scenes, but often this
was where agreement on gender issues ceased.28 While Self observed urban planning in Oakland
that relied on safe gender role assignments, Estes and Simon Wendt offered interpretations of
black men attempting to regain masculinity taken by white men and black women.29 Danielle
McGuire offered an especially powerful defense of black feminism as central to the movement,
challenging masculinist notions of leadership and activism.30 More recent studies of Memphis
also highlighted the role of northern and southern white women in the black freedom struggle of
that city, albeit in roles rightly downplayed in comparison to their black counterparts.31 Such
concerns over gender owed their existence in no small part to centuries-old concerns of “race
mixing,” which in itself sometimes challenged the concept of a masculine-feminine binary.32 Of
course, as with the other binaries, Stax artists, writers, and staff, in tandem with the Memphis
movement generally, proved the falsehood of separating analyses of the civil rights movement
into either-or gender considerations.33
28
Dittmer, Local People, 30-31; Tuck, Beyond Atlanta, 248-249
Self, American Babylon, 30-31; Wendt, The Spirit and the Shotgun, 2-3, 154; Estes, I Am a Man!, 7-8. These
scholars wisely recognized the role of the reports of E. Franklin Frazier and Daniel Patrick Moynihan: E. Franklin
Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, revised and abridged version (New York: The Dryden Press, 1948);
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Washington, D.C.: Office of Policy
Planning and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, 1965).
30
McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 7, 39, 51, 87; Langston, “Black Civil Rights, Feminism, and Power,” 159.
31
Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 208-209, 224; Little, You Must Be from the North, 5-9, 152-153.
32
Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 296-298; Dittmer, Local People, 263; McGuire, At the Dark End of the
Street, 21, 51, 121-122, 174-175.
33
While this topic will be addressed in detail in future chapters, important Stax employees include Carla Thomas,
Isaac Hayes, Deanie Parker, and Bettye Crutcher; important Memphis activists include Vasco and Maxine Smith and
Benjamin and Julia Hooks.
29
12
While the federalism binary represented the least contentious of the four binaries,
symbolically it played an important role in analyses of the civil rights movement, particularly
because while politicians and movement leaders squabbled over national, state, and local power
concerns, civil rights activists proved more concerned with ending institutional racism than
appropriate levels of government. The Brown decisions of 1954 and 1955 played a monumental
role in facilitating the nonviolent direct action movement of the mainstream civil rights
movement because all levels of government failed to act on the Supreme Court’s decisions.34
Conflicts continued throughout the 1960s, such as when the Kennedy administration refused to
do more than referee the Freedom Rides and the ongoing violent white responses to the black
freedom movement in places such as Mississippi.35 Because of emerging cooperative
federalism, fluctuations in power and influence, and the ingenuity of civil rights leaders at the
grassroots and political levels, even this binary poses a challenge through the civil rights lens and
must be seen as more complex than any essentialist dichotomy would allow.36 Once again, the
music of Stax records in the context of the Memphis civil rights movement belied the existence
of an either-or paradigm in the federalist debate. The songs expressed a longing for freedom and
equality that cared little about who helped so long as the black struggle brought results.37 Stax’s
own local roots and troubled relationships with national record companies often paralleled the
34
Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 75-76, Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 27-28; Gerald N.
Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?, second edition (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 2008), 46.
35
Dittmer, Local People, 93-94.
36
Daniel J. Elezar, American Federalism: A View from the States, second edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1972), 6-7, 37, 53, 150-154; Joseph F. Zimmerman, Contemporary American Federalism: The Growth of
National Power (Leicester and London: Leicester University Press, 1992), 6-7, 11; G. Wayne Dowdy, Crusade for
Freedom: Memphis and the Political Transformation of the American South (Jackson, Mississippi: The University
Press of Mississippi, 2010), 106, 137; Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, 31, 39-41, 85-87, 103-104.
37
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 19-20, 76-77, 80-81, 124-126, 157, 190-192, 202-205, 241-244; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, xii, 31-32, 67-69, 101, 113-116, 159-160, 220-221, 269-271, 306-307.
13
complicated relationship between Washington, D.C., and its local and state counterparts
throughout the civil rights era.38
“I’m Going Home”: The Historiography of Memphis Civil Rights
Memphis, Tennessee, represented one of the most important cities in civil rights and
music history, earning it a valuable body of existing research from which to begin a study of Stax
Records and its role in understanding the movement. Several broad overviews have introduced
some of the key players whose names are now synonymous with Memphis history, including J.E.
Walker and the Universal Life Insurance Company; lawyers and politicians like Russell
Sugarmon, Ben Hooks, and A.W. Willis, Jr.; Vasco and Maxine Smith and the local chapter of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Hollis Price and LeMoyneOwen College; Blair T. Hunt and Booker T. Washington High School; Mayors Edmund Orgill
and Henry Loeb; and the many lawyers, businesspeople, educators, and musicians who gave the
Memphis movement a noticeably middle-class influence, which may have contributed to its
appearance as moderate in approach.39 While Memphis appeared a moderate city with
comparatively good race relations, Memphis historians have persuasively shown a more
complicated picture of race relations and civil rights struggles. The roots of this river town, with
its geographical and racial crossroads, history of racial alienation, and legacy of political
machine bossism and urban plantation mentality, belied its image as a peaceful, racially
38
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 13, 60, 70, 267-271; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 151-152, 175, 207-208, 345, 355356.
39
Lester C. Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee 1791-1970 (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press,
published in cooperation with The Tennessee Historical Commission, 1981), 98-99, 104; Cynthia G. Fleming, “’We
Shall Overcome’: Tennessee and the Civil Rights Movement,” from Tennessee Historical Quarterly 54, no. 3 (Fall
1995), 230-245 (Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 1995), 236-237, 242-244; Bond and Sherman,
90-91, 138-139; Carole Stanford Bucy, “Tennessee in the Twentieth Century,” from Tennessee Historical Quarterly
69, no. 3 (Fall 2010), 262-273 (Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 2010), 268-269.
14
moderate southern city.40 Similar to Chafe’s Greensboro, North Carolina, scholars attacked the
notion of civility in Memphis race relations with consistency and power, noting deep-seated race
problems due to extreme examples of white supremacy in the press, radio and television, and
censorship at the movies, even noting the persistence of racism in advertisements and local
businesses.41
The largest body of work on Memphis consists of political history, which offers no
shortage of fascinating anecdotes and characters from the period. Black lawyers, and eventually
black politicians, played a central role in the Memphis movement, where the local NAACP
proved stronger than activist organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, making it unique in some ways from other southern milieus.42 Memphis shared
political similarities with other cities as well, most importantly the common narrative of black
activism spurred by early national promise, regularly resisted by local white leadership, and
eventually forced into bittersweet token gains coupled with continued de facto segregation and
economic inequality.43 Mayoral politics presented a particularly striking example of the ebb and
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 17, 68-69; Roger Biles, “Epitaph for Downtown: The Failure of City Planning in
Post-World War Two Memphis,” from Tennessee Historical Quarterly 44, no. 3 (Fall 1985), 267-284 (Nashville,
Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 1985), 270, 278-280; Biles, “A Bittersweet Victory,” 473-474, 476-479;
Pholmann and Kirby, Racial Politics at the Crossroads, 12-13, 20, 53-55; Sarvis, “Leaders in the Court and
Community,” 53-54; Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 61-62, 108-109, 194, 216-218; Green,
Battling the Plantation Mentality, 87, 141-145, 214-215.
41
Hugh Davis Graham, Crisis in Print: Desegregation and the Press in Tennessee (Nashville, Tennessee:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), 4-6, 254-256; G. Wayne Dowdy, “The White Rose Mammy,” 310-311, 313;
Whitney Strub, “Black and White and Banned All Over: Race, Censorship, and Obscenity in Postwar Memphis,”
from Journal of Social History 40, no. 3 (Spring 2007), 685-715 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 685, 689,
695, 697; Sandra M. Frink, “’Freedom Is Everyone’s Job’: Segregation, Identity, and the Freedom Train
Controversy in Memphis, Tennessee, 1947-1948,” from Tennessee Historical Quarterly 66, no. 4 (Winter 2007),
328-349 (Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 2007), 334-335, 338, 341; Honey, Going Down
Jericho Road, 38-39.
42
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 101, 121-122, 138-141; Pohlmann and Kirby, 63-65; Sarvis, “Leaders in the
Court and Community,” 43, 53-54; D’Army Bailey with Roger Easson, The Education of a Black Radical: A
Southern Civil Rights Activist’s Journey, 1959-1964 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press,
2009), 61, 229.
43
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 75-77, 121-122, 135-136, 143, 160-161, 165-166; Biles, “Epitaph for
Downtown,” 278-280; Pohlmann and Kirby, Racial Politics at the Crossroads, 20, 55-56; Dowdy, Crusade for
Freedom, 78-80, 106, 126, 137.
40
15
flow of black hopes in the 1950s and 1960s, with Edmund Orgill’s moderate racial policies and
controversial attempts at bridging the racial divide in Memphis met with the backlash of Henry
Loeb, perhaps most famous as the face of white resistance to the Memphis sanitation strike in
1968 that led to riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.44
Recent studies on the civil rights movement in Memphis examined specific thematic
issues and contributed greatly to the growing body of scholarship generally and to this work in
particular. Education, a generally underestimated field of historical study despite a couple of
excellent articles on Memphis schools, offered an especially valuable lens through which to
consider the civil rights movement and the musical history of Memphis.45 Much work remains
to be done on the role of education in Memphis’ civil rights story; while many authors gave
adequate attention to the black schools, educators, and key alumni, Booker T. Washington High
School in particular warrants considerably more exploration, especially in relation to this study
of Stax’s role in the civil rights movement.46
Gail S. Murray and Kimberly K. Little made vitally important contributions to the
important conversation on gender in the civil rights movement. Both works, in focusing on
white women’s role in the Memphis movement, demonstrated measured and powerful
examination of the intersection of race and gender that facilitated important movement away
44
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 76-77, 82-86, 92-94, 99, 160-161; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 287;
Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 34-35, 119.
45
Biles, “A Bittersweet Victory,” 473-474, 477-481; Marcus D. Pohlmann, Opportunity Lost: Race and Poverty in
the Memphis City Schools (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 2008), 1-4, 16-17, 33, 159160.
46
Two works that may provide a very useful model for a future study of Booker T. Washington include a biography
on Septima Clark and a study of the Chicano Power campaign in Los Angeles schools: Katherine Mellen Charron,
Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina
Press, 2009); Mario T. Garcia and Sal Castro: Blowout!: Sal Castro & the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011).
16
from the essentialist male-female and black-white dichotomies of the struggle.47 As shall be
demonstrated in future chapters, white and black women’s contributions to the Memphis civil
rights movement mirrored that of black and white men and women at Stax, whose products
provided incredible examples of the power of breaking down racial and gender barriers in
creative and economic endeavors.48
Perhaps one of the most valuable models for future study of the Memphis civil rights
movement was Michael K. Honey’s 2007 book on the sanitation strike. His well-researched, indepth examination of this key moment in local and national history provided a work of stunning
breadth and value. In taking a single event and providing context and multiple perspectives,
especially from the economic angle, Honey’s book presented a framework for local and thematic
history that could be applied to any number of events or themes during this period.49 This
valuable work failed to go unnoticed in Robert Gordon’s recent and equally valuable history of
Stax, on which this work hopes to continue to build.50
“Soul Dressing”: An Overview of Soul Music Scholarship in American and Memphis History
A work such as this owes a great deal to the impressive body of work amassed on soul
music, and on black music generally. Several authors from the fields of music and musicology,
history, and journalism contributed significant research and analysis that laid the groundwork for
this work, both in breaking down walls in scholarly analysis through music, and in the role of
Stax Records in the civil rights movement specifically. This range of scholarly work included
47
Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 205, 211-213, 224; Little, You Must Be from the North, 5-9, 17, 32,
76, 100, 141, 152-153.
48
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 19-20, 22, 47-48, 241-244; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 10-11, 41, 67-69, 79, 100-101,
214, 330, 338-339, 358-359, 377.
49
Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 3, 20-21, 38-39, 55, 80, 95, 100.
50
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 178-184, 188-189.
17
several key categories: (1) the “primary sources”: classic works on soul music specifically and
black music generally that were written during the period 1960-1975; (2) the “first secondary
sources”: landmark early journalistic works that built a context for understanding soul music; (3)
studies that opened the door for understanding music as social and political protest; (4) recent
works on specific topics related to the study of soul as a vehicle in the movement; and (5)
specifically musicological studies that contributed to a cross-curricular dialogue about black
music.
Any conversation involving black music in the 1960s and 1970s must begin with LeRoi
Jones (Amiri Baraka) and Charles Keil. Jones’s work demonstrated a clear preference for blues
and avant-garde jazz as the truest expression of the black experience, but his understanding of
African Americans as “blues people” exerted enormous influence over black artists and activists
at the time and in the decades of scholarship that followed.51 Despite some flaws in his analysis,
such as dismissing the more popular strands of black music in the 1960s and failing to
acknowledge the role of white culture in influencing black music, Blues People laid the
foundation for decades of valuable dialogue about the development of African American music
and its role in American culture.52 Charles Keil’s Urban Blues followed Blues People, and while
his book focused primarily on the transition of blues from the country to the city, he provided
several important insights to the growth of soul music and the role of black music in the black
community. Keil viewed black urban culture, and its product, the blues, as a “battle of the
sexes,” a view that contributed important understanding to the complex notions of gender and
51
LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963),
xi-xii, 105, 169-172, 224-225; LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “Jazz and the White Critic” (1963), from Black Music,
11-20, 11-12; LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “New Black Music: A Concert in Benefit of The Black Arts Repertory
Theatre/School Live” (1965), from Black Music, 172-176, 175-176; LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “The Changing
Same (R&B and New Black Music)” (1966), from Black Music, 180-211, 182-183, 195, 201-202, 208.
52
Jones, Blues People, 19-20, 28-29, 78-79, 169; Jones, “Sonny Rollins” (1964), from Black Music, 52-55, 53.
18
sexuality in the civil rights movement and in soul music.53 Additionally, Keil began the
conversation responsible for decades of research and literature that influenced this work, namely,
that entertainment remained central to understanding black culture, and that the performers,
composers, and producers responsible for black popular music also served as activists
illuminating the black freedom struggle and calling the black community to action.54
In the years following the foundational work of Blues People and Urban Blues, several
authors provided both journalistic and sociological examinations of black popular music,
including the first significant works on soul. Phyl Garland offered a valuable study of the music,
including a crucial chapter on Stax Records where she actually sat down with Al Jackson and
Albert King and recorded their insights on music and race.55 Charlie Gillett wrote a history of
rock and roll as the primary sound of urban life, relegating the vibrant soul music scene of
Memphis to a few short comments and falsely claimed Chicago as the primary rival to Detroit in
the 1960s.56 Among the most well-known and frequently cited works of the period, Arnold
Shaw’s The World of Soul proved a valuable overview of the range of soul styles and artists in
1970, but in retrospect seemed limited to a surface overview of the music. His understanding of
soul as a hybrid of blues and gospel styles with white and black collaboration, however, stood
the test of time and rightly influenced all legitimate work on soul in the decades to follow.57
Near the end of the civil rights era (and perhaps not coincidentally, the end of Stax Records),
Michael Haralambos offered a useful study of the transition from blues to soul in the period. His
understanding of the blues as expression of negative experience and soul as expression of ideal
53
Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 8-9, 98-99.
Keil, Urban Blues, 15-16, 72-73, 96-97, 165-166, 185-186.
55
Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 2-3, 44-45, 120-122, 163-167.
56
Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), ix-x, 219220, 231-232, 240-241.
57
Arnold Shaw, The World of Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop Music Scene (New York: Cowles
Book Company, Inc., 1970), 4-6, 93-94, 105, 181-182, 294.
54
19
and hope proved somewhat narrow and essentialist in the context of ongoing scholarly dialogue,
but his general notion of black popular music’s evolution and white society’s delayed
appreciation of it offered a useful understanding of the arch of soul music history.58
Several important analyses of black music from the late 1960s and early 1970s offered
valuable insights into the thinking of the period. David Ritz’s 1970 article, “Happy Song,”
discussed the lack of social message in black music compared to the radicalism of the age.59
Ritz’s important analysis offered one of the first critiques of Jones and Keil, which influenced
later understanding of the problematic nature of focusing on older musical styles and failing to
acknowledge the interaction of black and white agents in the creation and consumption of soul
music.60 James Cone’s The Spirituals and the Blues understood black religion and black music
as expressions of activism and revolution proved powerfully influential in understanding later
black styles such as soul.61 April Reilly’s 1973 article on the role of technology in black popular
music proved useful to understanding the importance of the studio for creative endeavors in the
1960s and 1970s, which certainly proved true for Stax Records and their innovations on
McLemore Avenue.62
The 1980s witnessed three essential volumes for the study of soul music. Two came
from music journalists and proved equally useful to scholars and popular audiences (much like
the music they discussed), and the third provided a more academic exploration of the downfall of
58
Michael Haralambos, Right On: From Blues to Soul in Black America (New York: Drake Publishers Inc., 1975),
9, 56-57, 78-79, 82, 112-117, 121-125, 150-152, 173-174.
59
David Ritz, “Happy Song: Soul Music in the Ghetto,” in Salmagundi 12 (Spring 1970), 43-53 (Saratoga Springs,
New York: Skidmore College, 1970), 43-44, 49, 52-53.
60
Ritz, “Happy Song,” 44-48.
61
James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation (New York: The Seabury Press, 1972), 29-30, 35,
91-92, 101, 111, 137.
62
April Reilly, “The Impact of Technology on Rhythm ‘n’ Blues,” in The Black Perspective in Music 1, no. 2
(Autumn 1973), 136-146 (Port Charlotte, Florida: Foundation for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts,
1973), 136, 138-139, 140, 145-146.
20
black popular music. Gerri Hirshey offered the first important book, Nowhere to Run, which
focused heavily on the primal, physical aspects of black popular music and paid special attention
to some of her favorite artists (many of whom worked for Motown).63 Perhaps the most
important early book on southern soul, and certainly the foundation for all that followed, Peter
Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music set the standard for understanding the intersection of race, gender,
politics, and culture in the soul music of the 1960s and 1970s.64 Guralnick explored not only
Stax, but the importance of Memphis in general, and understood soul as a uniquely southern
phenomenon, with northern companies like Motown providing a very different version of rhythm
and blues in the era.65 Finally, Nelson George’s The Death of Rhythm & Blues, published in
1988, examined the decline of classic rhythm and blues; George criticized white control, civil
rights integrationist goals, and the growth of conglomerates in the music industry as the primary
reasons for this development.66
More recent works continued to build on the dialogue in meaningful ways, including
modifying previous scholarship, understanding the roots of black popular music, and examining
race and activism in soul music. Taken together, this scholarship offers enormous promise for
the ongoing study of black popular music and its role in social and political life. Such studies
included considerations of black popular music as sacred expression, the role of urban black
singing in blurring racial lines and focusing instead on geographic location and record sales, and
challenging George’s assertion that rhythm and blues ever actually “died.”67 Several valuable
63
Gerri Hirshey, Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music (New York: Times Books, 1984), 5, 50-51, 116, 130,
205-206, 331-332.
64
Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 5-7, 18, 26-27, 44-45, 66-67, 108-111, 263-265, 293-294, 395-396, 398, 403-404.
65
Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 1-2, 6-7, 98, 108-111, 131, 293-294, 304-306.
66
Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm & Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 9-10, 56-57, 77-82, 106, 147,
167, 199.
67
Teresa L. Reed, The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music (Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press
of Kentucky, 2003), 12, 28, 33, 60, 93-94, 136-138; Stuart L. Goosman, Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of
Rhythm & Blues (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 2, 15, 24-25, 77, 111-120; Richard J.
21
musicological studies informed the scholarship of black popular music as well. These important
works included the problem of black entrepreneurship in popular music, challenges to traditional
notions of genre that adversely affected African American musicians, the African roots of blues
and the problematic nature of western harmonic analysis of such music, and the use of rhythm to
make social or political statements.68 Following on the heels of the landmark early works and
the musicological studies, recent scholars opened the doors for exploration of the direct
relationship between black popular music and sociopolitical protest. Mary Ellison, Brian Ward,
Craig Werner, Michael Awkward, and Rickey Vincent all contributed meaningful and
fascinating books that enriched the field and helped lay the groundwork for this study.69
Finally, the most important works on history to inform this study included the scholarship
on Memphis music history. Widely acknowledged for its pivotal role in popular music and
Ripani, The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of
Mississippi, 2006), 12-13, 104, 179, 182.
68
David Sanjek, “One Size Does Not Fit All: The Precarious Position of the African American Entrepreneur in PostWorld War II American Popular Music,” in American Music 15, no. 4 (Winter 1997), 535-562 (Champaign, Illinois:
University of Illinois Press, 1997), 538, 543; Norman Kelly, ed., Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of
Black Music (New York: Akashic Books, 2002), 10-11, 31, 74-75; David Brackett, “Questions of Genre in Black
Popular Music,” in Black Music Research Journal 25, no. 1/2 (Spring-Fall 2005), 73-92 (Chicago and Champaign,
Illinois: Center for Black Music Research – Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press, 2005), 76,
79, 89; Gerhard Kubik, Africa and the Blues (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 4, 26,
123; Hans Weisethaunet, “Is There Such a Thing as the ‘Blue Note’?,” in Popular Music 20, no. 1 (January 2001),
99-116 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 99, 100, 104-105, 108, 114; Robert Fink, “Goal-Directed
Soul?: Analyzing Rhythmic Teleology in African American Popular Music,” in Journal of the American
Musicological Society 64, no. 1 (Spring 2011), 179-238 (Berkeley, California, and Brunswick, Maine: University of
California Press on behalf of American Musicological Society, 2011), 184-185, 196-197, 198-199, 203-205.
69
Mary Ellison, Lyrical Protest: Black Music’s Struggle against Discrimination (New York, Westport, Connecticut,
and London: Praeger, 1989), 1, 29-30, 59-61, 115-116, 119, 151; Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm
and Blues and Race Relations (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), 4-6, 9,
14-15, 72-73, 79, 101, 183, 186-187, 325, 349-350, 390-392; Brian Ward, Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in
the South (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2004), 4-5, 11, 320, 330, 362; Craig Werner, Higher
Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul (New York:
Crown Publishers, 2004), 8-9, 28-29, 46, 66-67, 92, 139, 191, 213-214; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come:
Music, Race, & the Soul of America (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), xii-xiv, 10,
18-19, 58, 166-167, 170, 182-183, 211, 358; Michael Awkward, Soul Covers: Rhythm and Blues Remakes and the
Struggle for Artistic Identity (Aretha Franklin, Al Green Phoebe Snow) (Durham, North Carolina, and London:
Duke University Press, 2007), 12, 46, 100; Rickey Vincent, Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers’
Band and How Black Power Transformed Soul Music (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2013), xiv-xv, 4, 51, 152154, 211-212.
22
southern culture, there fortunately exists no shortage of quality work on this topic, with a
surprisingly broad range of topics already considered. Certainly the most important works, both
of which continue to stand as the ultimate in Stax history, came from Rob Bowman and Robert
Gordon. Bowman dedicated years to meticulously researching and reporting on the history and
musicology of Stax, and his work paved the way for any meaningful study of the company and
its legacy that followed. Bowman profiled an unlikely success story in a city of complex racial
and cultural composition that rose to international prominence through a new blend of gospel,
blues, and country before falling to the changing times and economic difficulties.70 Building on
Bowman’s monumental work, Robert Gordon recently provided further examination of the Stax
story, this time incorporating more of the local political and social context. His book, Respect
Yourself, demonstrated that more work remained (and still remains) on this fascinating and
important company and its complicated place in Memphis and American history.71
Additional works on Memphis included a variety of perspectives on its importance in
music history, its place as a geographical and cultural crossroads, and the importance of the area
not just for Stax but for a number of successful companies in the era. Much of Memphis’ music
history focused on Beale Street, where black Memphians went to work, shop, eat, and be
entertained. For much of the city’s history, this important cultural landmark provided a center
for the development of Memphis music, the nation’s first radio station with all-black
programming, and a place where white and black Memphis musicians and producers took the
various influences of the Delta and created something entirely unique.72 As home to the Church
Rob Bowman, “The Stax Sound: A Musicological Analysis,” in Popular Music 14, no. 3 (October 1995), 285-320
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 285-286, 304, 314, 317; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., x, 1, 13, 4950, 60, 179, 290-291, 359-360, 386.
71
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 16, 22-23, 29, 98, 103, 109, 113-116, 145-146, 152-153, 178-184, 199, 220, 264-265,
330, 350-351, 358-359.
72
Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall, Beale Black & Blue: Life and Music on Black America’s Main Street
(Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 33-34, 251; Louis Cantor, Wheelin’
70
23
of God in Christ and a southern city filled with churches, Memphis played a key role in the
southern phenomenon of gospel-inspired soul music. This style received further modification
through the often-forgotten influence of white southern country music, which mixed with the
blues to create a special style different from anywhere else in the world.73 Roy Brewer provided
an important article about the role of strings in the Memphis studios, who remained forgotten for
a long time when compared to their counterparts in Detroit or Philadelphia; Gordon built on this
important facet as well, with both authors noting the unique features of Memphis studios which
challenged orchestral musicians to expand stylistically and improvise.74 Additionally, Memphis
and nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama, served as home to several other important studios for black
and white southern music, including Hi, Sun, American, and Fame.75
“My Inspiration”: Stax Records and the Role of Soul in the Memphis Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement, Memphis history, and black popular music all represent
complicated interwoven threads. The story that evolved from the intersection of these three
concepts is what this study seeks to tell. Additionally, I shall demonstrate the problematic nature
of essentialism and the ways in which music helps to break down the either-or binaries of
integration versus nationalism, masculinity versus feminism, religion versus secularism, and
federal versus state arguments common in the ongoing dialogue about civil rights history. The
on Beale: How WDIA-Memphis Became the Nation’s First All Black Radio Station and Created the Sound that
Changed America (New York: Pharos Books, 1992), 12-13, 59-60, 82, 115, 226-229; Nager, Memphis Beat, xv, 2627, 122-123, 226-227; Hall, Cities in Civilization, 553, 593-594, 602.
73
Wayne Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1 (Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson Publishing, 2005),
26, 78, 114; Jennifer Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness?,’” 16, 43, 58, 98, 101.
74
Roy Brewer, “String Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee,” in Popular Music 19, no. 2
(April 2000), 201-215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 202, 204-205, 207; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 43-44.
75
Jones, Memphis Boys, xiii, 15-16, 77, 101; Carla Jean Whitley, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio: How the Swampers
Changed American Music (Charleston, South Carolina, and London: The History Press, 2014), 18-19, 31, 43, 74.
24
music of Stax Records and its unique place in Memphis and American history serves as an ideal
platform from which to launch this study for several reasons. First, Stax produced music that
represented an African American holistic vision that blurred lines between entertainment and
message, sacred and secular, or personal and communal.76 Second, Stax incorporated a diverse
family of musicians, producers, and staff that included black and white people, Memphians and
outsiders, men and women, and multiple generations with various approaches to religion and
spirituality.77 Third, the rise and fall of Stax Records largely mirrored the rise and fall of the
grassroots-driven direct action protest movement that began with the Greensboro sit-ins and
continued through the turbulent mid-1970s.78 Finally, Stax served as a legitimate case study of
the civil rights movement because both existed as local and national phenomena, and both faced
challenges in addressing both audiences.79
While this work is largely a work of history rather than musicology or theory, it
necessarily relies on a theoretical framework to draw connections between the civil rights
movement, Memphis history, and the music of Stax Records. Music is not just art, but is also
cultural expression and a reflection of and motivator for society. Rather than provide a purely
chronological study of Stax or Memphis, this work is organized topically. Each chapter seeks to
break down a specific binary associated with civil rights history by demonstrating the more
complicated nature of Stax and Memphis, thereby opening the door for a more holistic, if not
entirely postmodern, approach to the field. Chapter one examines the apparent dichotomy of
76
Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 4-5; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 142-143; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 358-359.
77
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., x, 14, 19-20, 47-48, 51-52, 80-81; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 3, 98;
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 10-11, 16, 22-23, 26, 31-32, 41, 80-81.
78
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 9-10, 19-20, 61, 70, 123, 143-145, 179, 202-205, 362-363; Chafe, Civilities and Civil
Rights, 138-139; Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 135-136; Lehman, “Civil Rights in Twilight,”
415-416, 422, 425-426, 426-427.
79
Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 7; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 241-244, 267-271, 290-291, 359-360; Gordon,
Respect Yourself, 29, 43-44, 98, 123-124, 178-184, 358-359.
25
nonviolent integrationism and militant nationalism. Through musical examples at Stax and local
examples of the Memphis freedom movement, I shall argue that individuals and groups were far
more pragmatic and driven than any single ideological framework allowed. Chapter two
examines the conflict between the attempts to reclaim black masculinity and the intersectionality
for black women in civil rights and feminism. Stax and Memphis provided a wealth of examples
in the soul music produced and the civil rights movement in the city where men and women
worked together, albeit sometimes in a complicated nature, resulting in products that were
neither masculinist nor feminist and yet sometimes both simultaneously. Chapter three
challenges the conception of separate religious and secular approaches to the civil rights
movement. Here the role of Christianity and key activists in Memphis, as well as the importance
of the public school system (especially Booker T. Washington High School in the Soulsville
neighborhood) helped to develop an understanding of civil rights activism and soul music as
blurring lines between the sacred and the secular. Finally, the fourth chapter addresses the
conflicts over federalism, and the notion of conflicts between the states and the national
government over civil rights advances. While Stax produced little overtly political music, the
cultural codes of the music and lyrics, combined with the external activism of Stax artists and
local civil rights workers, provided the foundation for the argument that the federal system
created a complicated narrative for the movement in which movement leaders used any and all
levels of government to achieve their goals.
Stax Records produced some of the finest music of the 1960s and 1970s, and stood out as
the leader in southern soul despite the existence of multiple companies and countless artists
vying for the soul market. The people involved in the creation of this body of work, and the
community from which it came, offered valuable evidence for further study of the civil rights
26
movement through a local and artistic lens. Taken alongside local history, the Stax-Memphis
story offers a fascinating case study for the local and multi-faceted nature of the civil rights
movement.
27
CHAPTER 2
BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER
Stax Records and the Memphis Civil Rights Movement as Integrated Nationalism
Booker T. Jones grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and attended Booker T. Washington
High School in what became known as the Soulsville neighborhood on the south side of town.
As a middle class African American, he represented much of that community at mid-century. A
natural musician, Jones took full advantage of the quality music program at his school, learning
multiple instruments while nurturing his deeply ingrained value for education. Beginning
primarily on piano and saxophone because he had been warned to avoid Pentecostal churches
and was pushed away from clubs, Jones later discovered the Hammond organ, for which he
would be best known in his music career.1
Steve Cropper, two years older than Jones, attended Messick High School and absorbed a
wide variety of musical influences, including black and white gospel, country, and rhythm and
blues. Although he first worked with a white band obsessed with black music, his contribution
to music in later years primarily focused on providing country-influenced guitar sounds that gave
his soul music a notably southern feel. Through his friend and musical colleague, Packy Axton,
Cropper met a motivated aspiring record producer named Jim Stewart, who with his sister Estelle
Axton, created the now-legendary label known as Stax Records.2
1
Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 137-139; Robert Gordon, Respect
Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2013), 16, 22-23, 29, 34, 76-77.
2
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 141; Rob Bowman, “The Stax Sound: A Musicological Analysis,” in Popular Music
14, no. 3 (October 1995), 285-320 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 285-286, 301-303; Rob
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 22; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 10-11, 16.
28
After Steve Cropper helped establish the Stax Records studios on East McLemore in
south Memphis, Booker T. Jones (still finishing at Booker T. Washington High School) became
a fixture at the studio, first as a saxophone player but eventually playing piano and organ. Jones
and Cropper, one black and one white, young and unknown in the early 1960s, must have been
considered an unlikely pair to lay the foundation for the southern soul sound. Yet, within a few
years, these two would forge a lifelong friendship that changed the course of music history and
race relations.3
Stax’s development in Memphis, Tennessee, was no mere coincidence. Memphis spent
much of the twentieth century touting “good race relations,” a mythical civility comparable
Greensboro, North Carolina, or Atlanta, Georgia, belied in the daily experiences of segregation,
police brutality, and vast economic inequality between blacks and whites.4 Like in other parts of
the country, however, one area that often formed a bridge in the post-World War II racial divide
was music. Young white Americans fell in love with the black popular music that became
known first as race music, then as rhythm and blues, and eventually as soul. Those adventurous
enough in cities like Memphis took to Beale Street, the center of black life in that city, to
experience this exciting music in person.5 While Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton were not the
3
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 22, 30-31, 61; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 62-63, 67-69.
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, Fortieth Anniversary Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1958, 1969, 1976, 1998), 186-187, 237-239; William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights:
Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1980), 4-10, 77-79; Roger Biles, “A Bittersweet Victory: Public School Desegregation in Memphis,” in The Journal
of Negro Education 55, no. 4 (Autumn 1986), 470-483 (Washington, D.C.: Journal of Negro Education, 1986), 471472; Wayne G. Dowdy, “The White Rose Mammy: Racial Culture and Politics in World War II Memphis,” in The
Journal of Negro History 85, no. 4 (Autumn 2000), 308-314 (Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of
African American Life and History, Inc., 2000), 308-309; Stephen G.N. Tuck, Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for
Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 (Athens, Georgia, and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2001), 7475, 153; Laurie B. Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill,
North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 2, 87, 109-110, 184-185.
5
Norman Mailer, The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster (San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1957), 3, 11-12; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968), 68, 71-75, 81;
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 10-11, 16.
4
29
first company owners to integrate, what they did in Memphis in the early 1960s evolved into the
ultimate symbol of racial integration, which created records frequently associated with black
nationalism.6
This chapter seeks to examine the ways Stax and Memphis challenged the academicallycreated binary of integrationism and nationalism by analyzing how the company and the city
defied essentialist categories in their respective quests for commercial success and black civil
rights. The biracial history of the company itself, especially in the context of a biracial local
civil rights movement, demonstrated the lack of any particular method or approach to making
music or fighting for equal rights. Additionally, when exploring various strands integrationist
and nationalist methods, such as seemingly conflicting notions like civil rights and economic
empowerment or integration and self-determination, both the Memphis movement and Stax
Records eluded any either-or categories of interpretation. The chapter ends with a musical
analysis of several key Stax artists to illustrate the product of these musician-activists. Placing
musicological analysis in social and historical context, in most cases without explicit agreement
from the creators, obviously offers itself to increased scrutiny to the subjective nature of the
work, but postmodern theory applied carefully demonstrates the validity and utility of this
endeavor for this particular project.7
6
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 120-122; Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 231-232; Arnold Shaw, The World of Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop
Music Scene (New York: Cowles Book Company, Inc., 1970), 181-182.
7
Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to
Freedom, 30th Anniversary Edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977, 2007), xvii-xx, xxiiixxv, 7-8, 239-240; Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment (Boston: Unwin Hyman, Inc., 1990), 15-16; bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness,” in Yearning (South
End Press, 1990), 364-365, 367, 368; Michele Wallace, Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory (London and New
York: Verso, 1990), 1-3; William L. Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American
Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 205, 207-211; Paul Gilroy, The
Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993);
Susan McClary and Robert Walser, “Theorizing the Body in African-American Music,” from Black Music Research
Journal 14, no. 1, Selected Papers from the 1993 National Conference on Black Music Research (Spring 1994), 7584 (Chicago and Champaign, Illinois: Center for Black Music Research – Columbia College Chicago, and
30
“I Had a Dream”: How Stax and Memphis Defied the Integration-Nationalism Binary
Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper led Booker T. and the MGs, the Stax house band
through the company’s early years and one of the best instrumental soul bands of the era.
Although Lewis Steinberg originally played bass, the best known bassist for the band was
Donald “Duck” Dunn, a white man, and the slightly older and more experienced Al Jackson, Jr.,
a black man, drove the band from the drums.8 The band developed a legendary reputation for
their personal style, their definitive playing behind Stax’s stable of artists through the 1960s, and
the fact that they were half black and half white in a decidedly segregated city.9 Yet for all the
hopeful integrationism inherent in such a scenario, Stax produced a catalogue of music seen by
some today as highly nationalistic, if not for any overt messages (which it lacked), than because
the soul it produced developed a reputation as unapologetically black in an era of black
consciousness. In particular, popular music fans and scholars of the field alike compared Stax to
Motown, the most successful African American label of the civil rights era, which in contrast
seemed whitewashed for commercial success and safely produced for perfection.10 The true
story proved much more complex than simple either-or comparisons of the two black music
giants of the 1960s and 1970s; while the companies produced two distinctly separate styles,
neither proved entirely integrationist nor nationalist. Motown remained entirely black-run,
beginning with the authoritarian control of Berry Gordy, Jr., and continuing through the singers,
backup musicians, and producers, yet its music appealed to young white audiences on a scale
University of Illinois Press, 1994), 78-79, 80-81, 82; Robert Gordon, It Came from Memphis (New York: Pocket
Books, 1995), 6, 150; Suzanne E. Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999), 140, 143-144.
8
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 307-309, 314-316; Gordon, It Came from Memphis, 169; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 25, 62-63, 91-92.
9
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 67-69.
10
Shaw, The World of Soul, 166, 169-170, 181-182; Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the
Southern Dream of Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 7-8; Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm & Blues
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 86.
31
never before observed, and Gordy and others maintained close relationships with mainstream
integrationist civil rights leaders. Stax, meanwhile, began under the more egalitarian leadership
of the white country aficionado Jim Stewart, and while the solo artists remained black, the rest of
the company was mixed until the later Al Bell years, but the grittier southern sound, influenced
by gospel, the blues, and country, appealed largely to an African American audience.11 Perhaps
the most important reason for the blurred lines between music styles and their tenuous
connections to civil rights methods can be explained by Stax’s location on the south side of
Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1960s and 1970s.
Memphis maintained an image of “good race relations” in the decades leading to the civil
rights movement. In 1960 a biracial committee worked together to commemorate the role of
W.C. Handy in music history, providing a statue and a park in the Beale Street neighborhood and
a scholarship in his name at the request of longtime black Republican leader and friend of
Handy, George W. Lee. The committee included Frank Ahlgren of the Commercial Appeal;
Mayor Edmund Orgill; white owner of the all-black radio station WDIA, Bert Ferguson, and one
of his best-known black DJs, A.C. Williams; civil rights activists Hollis Price and Jesse Turner;
and Booker T. Washington principal and local pastor Blair T. Hunt.12 In correspondences
throughout the era, Mayor Edmund Orgill and his constituents frequently made reference to the
positive atmosphere in Memphis, specifically using the phrase “good race relations” to describe
the racial climate of the city. In 1956, when Orgill, a controversial moderate who officially
supported segregation, proposed appointing an African American to the John Gaston Hospital
11
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 148-149, 163; Shaw, The World of Soul, 166, 181-182; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.,
9-10, 47-50, 61; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 71, 119.
12
H. Dudley Castile, letter to Sam Hollis, 10 February 1960 (University of Memphis, Special Collections,
Mississippi Valley Collection: Edmund Orgill Papers, MSS 87, Box 16, Folder VI); George W. Lee, “The Legend of
W. C. Handy – ‘Father of the Blues,’” pamphlet printed by the W.C. Handy Memorial Fund Committee (Orgill
Papers, Box 16, Folder VI).
32
board of directors, a flurry of correspondence from all sides weighed in on the issue, all
defending their positions as part of maintaining the good race relations of Memphis.13 However,
the seeming civility of Memphians, much like in other southern cities, proved a myth upheld by
local leaders that went against the reality of segregation, police brutality, and opposition to even
the slightest gains in black equality. While African American activists began lobbying for
improvements in the late 1950s, white citizens and racist organizations throughout the 1950s and
1960s continued efforts to uphold the oppressive tradition known as the “plantation mentality.”14
As the African American population and sympathetic white activists resisted the
plantation mentality more directly through the 1960s, Stax Records started to gain attention. The
company’s unlikely success received worthy attention beginning in the 1980s and continuing
through several impeccably researched and fascinating volumes from Peter Guralnick, Rob
13
V.G. Hollingsworth, letter to Mayor Edmund Orgill, 26 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); J.F.
Bigger, letter to Edmund Orgill, 28 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Edmund Orgill, letter to
Mrs. Hubert F. Fisher, Sr., 3 March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); E.B. Brown, letter to Edmund
Orgill, 9 March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A).
14
Archival evidence of Memphis black activism includes: Binghampton Civic League (O.Z. Evers, president; T.R.
Fugh, Vice President, Eliehue Stanback, Chairman of the Board), letter to Edmund Orgill, 9 November 1957 (Orgill
Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); L. Alex Wilson (editor, Tri-State Defender), letter to Edmund Orgill, 22 November
1957 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Shelby County Democratic Club, “Instructions for Poll Workers on
Election Day” and “Instructions for Canvassers,” 2 August 1962 (University of Memphis, Special Collections:
Russell B. Sugarmon Jr. Papers, MSS 108, Box 1, Folder 3); Clark Porteous, “Memphis Provides More and Better
Jobs for Negroes,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 20 May 1963, p. 17 (University of Memphis, Special Collections,
Mississippi Valley Collection: Lucius E. Burch Jr. Papers, MSS 126, Box 46: Memphis Committee on Community
Relations Vo. I); Maxine A. Smith (Memphis Chapter, NAACP), Letter to War on Poverty Committee, 7 December
1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); Jesse H. Turner (Memphis Chapter, NAACP), letter to Edmund Orgill,
26 August 1976 (Orgill Papers, Box 40, Folder 18). Archival evidence for white reaction to black activism includes:
Resolution opposing Brown and requesting closing public facilities rather than integrate, 16 November 1955 (Orgill
Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); “How the Negro Got Here (A little bit of fun – but a whole lot of TRUTH),”
pamphlet from 1958 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder XIV); Frank L. Britton, editor, “Joan Fontaine and her NEGRO
Screen Lover,” American Nationalist (Orgill Papers, Box 16, unmarked folder); “Are you aware that a planned
negro invasion has happened to an ALL-WHITE Memphis Community?,” leaflet printed by Glenview Community
(Orgill Papers, Box 16, unmarked folder); “It Has Happened Here in Memphis: Behind the Plot to Sovietize the
South,” pamphlet from Glenview Peaceful Pickets, 1958 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, unmarked folder); R.B. Sugarmon,
Jr., Attorney, and A.W. Willis, Jr., Attorney, letters to Wade H. Sides, Jr. (President, Front Street Theatre, Memphis)
and President, Actors’ Equity Association, 24 November 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 15). Scholarly
work on black-white relations and the plantation mentality includes: Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 4-10; David
R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and
London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 4-5, 7, 166-168; Dowdy, “The White Rose Mammy,” 308-309;
Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 2, 87, 214-215.
33
Bowman, and Robert Gordon, and needs only brief summary here. Jim Stewart began his music
career as a country fiddler, eventually attempting to open a recording studio. After getting things
started with the help of his sister, Estelle Axton, and the physical and musical contributions of a
group of young white boys (first known as the Royal Spades, then as the Mar-Keys, and
including the now-legendary Steve Cropper), Stewart’s Satellite Record Company earned modest
success with a black group known as the Vel-Tones. He was soon approached by local black
celebrity Rufus Thomas, famous throughout Memphis as a DJ on WDIA and a performer and
emcee for local talent shows, who in an act of impressive African American agency for the early
1960s brought his daughter Carla to Stewart to record. The underdog studio, located in the black
middle class neighborhood on East McLemore, received major attention from the Mar-Keys’s
“Last Night,” an astonishing feat for a predominately white band playing decidedly blacksounding music, and earned further attention with Carla Thomas’s “Gee Whiz.” Eventually, the
pieces of the MGs fit together as a house band and successful instrumental group in their own
right, and songwriters Isaac Hayes and David Porter joined from the north Manassas and south
Booker T. Washington neighborhoods, respectively, and the studio became one of the biggestselling companies of the middle and late 1960s into the early 1970s. The company experienced
significant changes after 1968, which included the leadership of African American Al Bell, the
inclusion of young south Memphis players in the Bar-Kays as the new house band, and the
meteoric rise of Isaac Hayes as a solo artist. The company also fell victim to financial problems
and a changing market in the mid-1970s, officially ending the era of the southern soul giant.15
15
Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 98, 103, 108-111, 131, 147, 149, 169-170, 309-310, 359, 362-366, 368-372;
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., x, 9-10, 19-20, 60-61, 70, 80-81, 165, 179, 180-183, 250, 362-363; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 11-12, 16, 29, 31-32, 67-69, 84-85, 100-101, 113-116, 151-152, 202-204, 237-238, 330, 345, 350-351,
377.
34
Deanie Parker, one of the most important figures on the production team at Stax
beginning in 1963, described the company as an oasis, where race played no part and “where the
emphasis was not on the color of your skin, but on the content of your character.” She cited
Estelle Axton, Jim Stewart, and Steve Cropper, all white, as among her favorite people with
whom to work on production, distribution, marketing, and songwriting. This suggested a strong
integrationist ethic, where black and white coexisted to create the best possible product.16 Yet
the music produced at Stax, the production and distribution methods, and Parker’s own work in
the marketing department hinted at some nationalist tendencies, particularly in the areas of
encouraging the soul ethic, growing black business in the black community, and raising black
consciousness through popular music at the height of the civil rights movement.17 While Parker
remembered Stax as an “oasis” of racial harmony, citing that even disagreements only occurred
because it was a “family,” real quarrels existed at the company, sometimes resulting in people
leaving the company.18 Within the framework of the method binary, such words and actions
seemed contradictory, but Parker’s work in fact demonstrated the consistency of purpose
common among Stax Records, Memphis, Tennessee, and the United States African Americans
who strove for success in the civil rights era.
Memphians, both black and white, applied a pragmatic approach that left no door closed
in their quest for civil rights, whether that was militant or deferential, law-abiding or challenging
the status quo. The Shelby County Democratic club, for example, remained within the realm of
16
Deanie Parker, phone interview by author (facilitated by Levon Williams), Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 18 June 2013.
17
Joseph Weiler, “’Evening of Soul’ Looks To Dawning Of Equality,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 9 May 1972
(University of Memphis, Special Collections: Memphis Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); Levon Williams,
interview by author, Memphis Tennessee, 16 July 2013.
18
Parker, interview by author; Williams, interview by author; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 64, 127, 143-145, 165,
190-192, 204, 359-360; Wayne Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1 (Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson
Publishing, 2005), 111, 134-135, 163-165; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 98, 129, 151-152, 199, 207-208, 214, 250253, 306-307, 317-318.
35
electoral politics, although their decision to run black candidates in the 1960s despite the historic
success of George W. Lee as a black Republican leader demonstrated a more progressive attitude
and foretold of the major realignment that had begun in the 1930s.19 Black schools in Memphis
followed the path of other segregated institutions across the south, instilling pride, a desire for
justice, and a strong work ethic in their students.20 While the district tended to overwhelmingly
focus on developing trades in the black schools, Booker T. Washington in particular stood out as
a building heavily involved in intellectual pursuits and civil rights activism, and many students
remained in the neighborhood to continue their academic and personal growth at LeMoyne (later
LeMoyne-Owen) College. Some of the most notable alumni of either or both institutions
included Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry, Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton, Federal
Communications Commissioner and NAACP President Ben Hooks, historian C. Eric Lincoln,
and local NAACP chairman Jesse Turner.21
These local neighborhood kids grew up in turbulent times, and forged identities for
themselves as business and community leaders, civil rights activists, and music stars at Stax
“The Shelby County Democratic Club Presents a Forum on ‘Where the Negro Stands in the August 2 nd Election’
on WDIA Radio Station,” 31 July 1962 and 1 August 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3); “Z. Alexander
Looby for Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee,” August 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3); Reverend
Alexander Gladney, General Chairman, Shelby County Democratic Club, form letter to Memphis pastors, 19 July
1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3).
20
D’Army Bailey, with Roger Easson, The Education of a Black Radical: A Southern Civil Rights Activist’s
Journey, 1959-1964 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), 10-11, 19-20, 229;
Katherine Mellen Charron, Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 11-12, 40-42, 53; Kim Cary Warren, The Question for Citizenship:
African American and Native American Education in Kansas, 1880-1935 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 7, 124-125; Mario T. Garcia and Sal Castro, Blowout!: Sal Castro & the
Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press,
2011), 16; John L. Rury, Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling (New York
and London: Routledge, 2013), 184.
21
Two pamphlets printed by the Memphis and Shelby County Schools, “Trade and Industrial Education: A Golden
Harvest of Learning Opportunities,” and “Directory of Vocational Programs in Memphis City Schools,”
demonstrated that the trade programs existed overwhelmingly in black schools, especially Booker T. Washington
High School (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); “Three Decades: A Tribute to Dr. Hollis F. Price, President
Emeritus of LeMoyne-Owen College,” 10 September 1980 (LeMoyne Owen College, Dr. Hollis F. Price Library:
Hollis F. Price Folder).
19
36
Records. Along the way, no form of activism proved out of bounds, further demonstrating the
lack of validity to an integrationist-nationalist binary. In the 1950s, they lobbied local
government in coordination with moderate mayor Edmund Orgill and sympathetic white
journalist Edward Meeman of the Press-Scimitar to place an African American on a hospital
board and to begin following the Brown decision by integrating schools and public facilities.22
Following on the heels of the Greensboro sit-ins in 1960, Memphians led their own sit-in
campaign, most notably targeting the public libraries. While this alienated some of the white
establishment, these activists made it clear that the new decade called for increased militancy. 23
Perhaps most impressive was the creation of the Memphis Committee on Community Relations,
a biracial organization formed in 1958 that became especially active through the 1960s.
Originally formed to foster gradual, nonviolent desegregation, the MCCR eventually took on
issues of poverty in the schools and equal access to employment. Thus Memphis, a southern
city, served as home to an integrated organization seeking goals later espoused by Black Power
advocates across the country.24
22
Ed Meeman, letter to Edmund Orgill, 15 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); Edmund Orgill,
letter to Frank Ahlgren (editor of the Commercial Appeal), 25 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A);
E.L. Washburn (president of the 26th Ward Civic Club), letter to Edmund Orgill, 25 June 1957 (Orgill Papers, Box
16, Folder IX.B); Edward J. Meeman, “To My Negro Friends,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 29 October 1962, p. 6
(University of Memphis, Special Collections: Edward Meeman Papers, MVP 2207, MS 85, Box 2, Folder 5).
23
“The Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee 1960,” scrapbook of article clippings from March 1960
(Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis & Shelby County Room: Maxine A. Smith NAACP Collection, Box
IV, Folder 1); Edmund Orgill, letter to Jesse Turner opposing boycotts and sit-ins, 31 August 1976 (Orgill Papers,
Box 40, Folder 15).
24
Lucius E. Burch, Jr., letter to Dr. W.B. Selah encouraging strength in civil rights struggle, 8 January 1963 (Burch
Papers, Box 46, Vol. I); Lester A. Rosen, acting secretary, Minutes of the Memphis Committee on Community
Relations, 1 November 1966 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); Dr. Hollis Price, presiding, MCCR Executive
Committee Meeting Minutes, 10 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); Bert Ferguson, Executive VicePresident and General Manager of WDIA, “A WDIA Editorial: Three Good Goals for Community Relations
Committee,” broadcast 14 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); Harold J. Whalum, recorder, Minutes of
MCCR Meeting, 16 January 1968 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.A); Maxine Smith, temporary chair of Memphis
Alliance of Community Organizations, letter to MACO Steering Committee, May 1969 (Smith NAACP Collection,
Box V, Folder 14); Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 112-113; Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the
Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, New Jersey, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003), 218, 231.
37
“Hold On, I’m Comin’”: Civil Rights, Economic Empowerment, Integration, Self-Determination
Civil rights leaders and musicians in Memphis in the 1960s consistently acted in ways
that eluded clear categorization. While scholars have compared ideas of civil rights and
economic empowerment, or integration or self-determination, African Americans in Memphis in
clearly desired each of these, and refused to reduce their struggle to any singular concept.25 The
stories of Stax Records and the Memphis civil rights struggle rejected such either-or dichotomies
in favor of a pragmatic approach toward the goals of commercial success and black equality.
Two key Stax-Memphis comparisons exemplified this pragmatic, all-of-the-above approach:
First, the leadership of the Universal Life Insurance Company and the NAACP in Memphis’
African American community and the management at Stax Records, first under Jim Stewart and
later under Al Bell, demonstrated that both Stax and Memphis maintained firmness in purpose
and flexibility in methods in order to achieve their goals. Second, the 1968 sanitation strike and
the 1972 West Coast festival known as Wattstax exemplified the ability of Memphis activists and
Stax Records to blend seemingly disparate goals of integrationism and nationalism.
The Universal Life Insurance Company, led by Dr. J.E. Walker, served the black
community of Memphis and represented a highly successful black enterprise in the segregated
city. Success at Universal led to Walker to open the black-run Tri-State Bank at roughly the
same time the Memphis black population grew and broke away from the local political machine,
25
Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1967), 100, 455456, 558, 564; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968); C. Van Woodward,
The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Third Revised Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974); John W. Cell,
The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 274; David R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern
City and Region, 1607-1980 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 177;
James H. Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books,
1991), 3, 165-166; Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000 (New York and London:
Viking Penguin, 2001), 313.
38
demanded black police officers, and increased black capitalism in the city.26 While Universal
served as an example of the black nationalist ethic of economic independence and Black Power,
its leadership demonstrated highly integrationist tendencies from the mid-1950s through the
1960s. For example, when Mayor Edmund Orgill attempted in 1955 to place an African
American on the John Gaston Hospital board, he chose Dr. Walker. Despite excellent
qualifications to help oversee a hospital with eighty-five percent black clientele, Orgill and
Walker faced a firestorm and the nomination was eventually withdrawn.27 Employees of
Universal Life Insurance, however, persisted in the fight for civil rights, particularly through
membership in the Memphis chapter of the NAACP, which remained active in supporting
integrated buses, integrated public facilities and schools, and eventually participating in the
MCCR for economic empowerment of the African American community.28
Scholars provided several reasons explaining the NAACP’s activism in Memphis.
According to David Tucker, while black leaders through most of the 1950s maintained a
26
Lester C. Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee 1791-1970 (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press,
published in cooperation with The Tennessee Historical Commission, 1981), 98-99.
27
Allan Asher, letter to Edmund Orgill, 28 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); Norman Isenberg,
letter to Edmund Orgill, 29 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); Mrs. C.N. Oswalt, letter to Edmund
Orgill, 6 March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); E.B. Brown, letter to Edmund Orgill, 9 March 1956
(Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); David M. Tucker, Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civil
Reformers 1948-1968 (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980), 82-86; G. Wayne Dowdy,
Crusade for Freedom: Memphis and the Political Transformation of the American South (Jackson, Mississippi: The
University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 22-23.
28
Edmund Orgill, letter to Frank Ahlgren (editor, Commercial Appeal), 25 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16,
Folder IX.A); L. Alex Wilson (editor, Tri-State Defender), letter to Edmund Orgill inviting to Tri-State Defender
annual awards program at Universal Life Cafeteria, 22 November 1957 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); “The
Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee 1960,” scrapbook (Smith NAACP Collection, Box IV, Folder 1);
Lester A. Rosen, acting secretary, “Minutes of the Memphis Committee on Community Relations” addressing list of
local businesses and gains in black employment, 1 November 1966 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); “Judge
Hooks Calls for Law, Order and Justice for All,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 1968 (Memphis Press-Scimitar
morgue, File 1418); Russell B. Sugarmon, Jr., “The Black Lawyer in Private Practice,” in Harvard Law School
Bulletin22, no. 3 (February 1971), 11-13 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 13); “Dr. Hollis Price to Get Brotherhood
Award,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 17 October 1974 (Hollis F. Price Folder); Tucker, 101, 121-122, 136-141; Bobby
L. Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee, 2005), 117, 144, 189-191; Michael K. Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin
Luther King’s Last Campaign (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 38-39.
39
tradition of local coalition politics and gradual legal reforms (methods frequently attributed to
the NAACP and criticized by new direct action groups like the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference), the new generation of leadership at the dawn of the new decade demanded a more
progressive approach. Russell Sugarmon, Ben Hooks, and A.W. Willis became the leaders of
the 1960s and beyond, and they worked within the well-established framework of the NAACP in
Memphis with leaders such as Vasco and Maxine Smith. Additionally, these new, energetic
leaders represented some of Memphis’ best-educated African Americans; they attended schools
such as Harvard and DePaul, and many of them started at the Soulsville neighborhood
institutions of black pride and black education, Booker T. Washington High School and
LeMoyne (or LeMoyne-Owen) College. Their ability to function not only within the NAACP,
but also in the MCCR and through local and national organizations associated with civil rights
and the War on Poverty made Memphis unique among its SCLC- and SNCC-dominated peers.29
While the African American leadership of Memphis experienced a changing of the guard
from the late 1950s into the early 1960s, the young white entrepreneur Jim Stewart sought his
place in the music industry. The legacy he created at Stax Records seemed to defy logic, but in
the context of both a southern cultural crossroads for black and white innovations in music, as
well as that of a segregated city with a unique transition from machine politics to moderate
coalition becoming slowly more assertive, the birth of Stax becomes more understandable in
Memphis than anywhere else.30 Stewart’s leadership at Stax built a soul music empire, and his
29
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 101, 136-137; Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee, 98-99, 104; Lovett, The Civil Rights
Movement in Tennessee, 117, 144, 194, 197, 216-217; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 141, 184-185, 190191, 233; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 38-39, 95, 336-337; Bailey, The Education of a Black Radical, 19-20,
61, 229; Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom, 78-80.
30
Sources on Memphis’ musical heritage include: Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago and London: The University
of Chicago Press, 1966), 65-66; Garland, The Sound of Soul, 120-122; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 6-7; Gordon, It
Came from Memphis, 3, 6; Sir Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), 593-594, 602;
Larry Nager, Memphis Beat: The Lives and Times of America’s Musical Crossroads (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1998), xv, 72, 82-83; Roben Jones, Memphis Boys: The Story of American Studios (Jackson, Mississippi: University
40
leadership, followed by that of his black friend Al Bell in the late 1960s, provided a fascinating
comparison to the local black civil rights leadership in Memphis throughout this era.
The leading Stax historians, Rob Bowman and Robert Gordon, largely attributed Jim
Stewart’s first successes in 1960 and 1961 to luck and black agency. Stewart fortuitously
recorded a black vocal group known as the Veltones, whose “Fool in Love” brought him to
WDIA, the local Memphis station that had recently broken new ground with all-black
programming. It was there that he encountered Rufus Thomas, who in an act of courage and
agency, came to Stewart’s newly-located Satellite Studios on McLemore Avenue with his
daughter Carla, starting Stewart’s fledgling company on the path toward an incredible lineup of
black solo artists performing with his mixed house band.31 Stewart’s location on McLemore
proved fortuitous as well; his studio became the focal point of a thriving black middle class
neighborhood. The studio sat across the street from the Big D grocery store where future
songwriter David Porter worked, and the record store Stewart’s sister Estelle Axton ran next
door developed into the most popular spot for young people from a neighborhood that included
Booker T. Washington High School, home to children of black doctors, lawyers, and teachers, as
well as a very highly respected music staff who provided vital early training for future Stax
stars.32
Press of Mississippi, 2010), xiii; Carla Jean Whitley, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio: How the Swampers Changed
American Music (Charleston, South Carolina, and London: The History Press, 2014), 43. Sources on Memphis’
black activist heritage include: Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 17, 75-77, 82-86, 101, 121-122; Dowdy, “The White
Rose Mammy,” 309-310; G. Wayne Dowdy, Mayor Crump Don’t Like It: Machine Politics in Memphis (Jackson,
Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 113; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 114, 137,
184-185, 221.
31
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 9-10; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 11-12, 31-32.
32
Graduates from Booker T. Washington included: saxophonist Gene “Bowlegs” Miller (1953), drummer Al
Jackson (1954), songwriter Homer Banks, songwriter David Porter, Earth, Wind, & Fire member Maurice White
(1961), Bar-Kays member Larry Smith (1963), Bar-Kays member Charles Allen, Mad Lads member Barbara Clark
(1966); Nat D. Williams, WDIA personality and editorial writer, taught social studies at Booker T. Washington
(Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis & Shelby County Room: The Warrior, yearbooks from Booker T.
Washington High School, 1950-1969). Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 14, 22; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 10-11, 2223, 29.
41
As a producer and executive, Jim Stewart proved adept at knowing when to stick with
what worked best and when to reach out to new voices to innovate. He largely avoided stereo
recording, acknowledging the largely young, black audience who bought singles and listened to
the radio, both of which worked best with mono.33 Stax scholar Rob Bowman noted several key
features of Stewart’s work as a producer that helped create the Stax sound: In addition to his
preference for mono recording, he tended to place vocalists lower in the overall mix than most
companies at the time, apparently a source of tension with parent company Atlantic Records. He
frequently vetoed songwriting decisions that included minor chords, saying they were out of
place in the type of rhythm and blues they were trying to produce. And he typically ended vocal
songs by fading out rather than ending abruptly, which Bowman claimed led to catharsis as
parameters were stretched in this format.34 Stewart, a white southern producer, understood that
sales to young black audiences represented his best chance for success, and throughout his time
in the studio, especially behind the board in the early and mid-1960s, he sought to develop a
sound that spoke to black America using a black stable of singers with a mixed house band.
Jim Stewart certainly maintained no activist tendencies, but as a southern white man he
broke with the standard trope of white racism in southern society. His willingness to hire and
promote the likes of Rufus and Carla Thomas in his early days, and the entire roster of African
American stars throughout the company’s existence, demonstrated a little-understood but
extremely important prototype of southern musicians and producers. Most southern musicians,
in the years prior to the civil rights era and continuing throughout the tumultuous period, lived
their musical lives judging their peers according to the content of their playing rather than the
color of their skin – without even explicitly acknowledging that this was the case. For example,
33
34
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 317.
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 293-296, 297-301, 317; Bowman, “Soulsville, U.S.A.,” 179, 250.
42
white trumpeter Wayne Jackson, who spent much of his career at Stax and beyond with black
saxophonist Andrew Love as part of the Memphis Horns, argued that “race was not a
consideration,” and that the only criteria for being part of the “music fraternity” required that one
could play well.35 Historians continue to argue about whether such attitudes constituted
activism, but the fact remains that Jim Stewart facilitated a community of black and white people
in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee, where people worked together in what they considered a “family
atmosphere” and a “party,” and created some of the most exciting and successful music in the
nation.36
One of Jim Stewart’s boldest career moves involved hiring Al Bell, who he eventually
promoted to take over Stax in the early 1970s. Bell took Stax in an entirely new direction
without abandoning what had made the company a hit, and Stewart seemed to understand
intuitively that Bell, as an African American with radio success, northern connections, and a
strong civil rights background, presented an enormous opportunity for the company to grow in
the late 1960s into the 1970s.37 In much the same way that young black leadership in Memphis’
civil rights movement carried the torch through the NAACP from paternalism to direct action,
Jim Stewart’s gradual release of control to Al Bell demonstrated immense respect and
understanding of what had to be done for both the company and its larger role in American
society during turbulent racial times. Here again, Memphis provided a unique location from
which to observe the overlapping layers of music, activism, and social and political
developments; while Stewart and Bell negotiated the new directions of Stax music and
35
Wayne Jackson (with wife Amy Jackson), phone interview by author, Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 14 February 2015.
36
Parker interview, Jackson interview.
37
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286; Gordon, It Came from Memphis, 62-63, 75-76, 150; Bowman, Soulsville,
U.S.A., 61, 80-81, 250, 267-271; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 113-116, 119, 188-189.
43
promotion, Memphis witnessed African Americans running for office through the mid-1960s,
even gaining support from whites such as Bert Ferguson, who himself made history in his
decision to turn WDIA radio into an all-black-programming station, thereby boosting the careers
of Stax artists.38 Additionally, Robert Gordon pointed out that Stewart’s conservative nature and
Bell’s progressive vision combined in the studio to facilitate a dynamic production relationship
that served to create exciting new soul music. This type of relationship, often crossing racial
lines, carried into various composing and production teams, including that of Steve Cropper,
Eddie Floyd, and Wayne Jackson working late nights on new songs at the Lorraine Motel.39
Like any family, especially a biracial family in 1960s Memphis, Stax experienced
complications and conflicts. Despite the fond memories of family and lack of outward
recognition of color in making music together, the later Stax years exhibited strained
relationships. For many, it was less a black-and-white issue than a local-and-national issue: Stax
found most of its early success using Memphians or people from nearby, and Al Bell brought in
outsiders like Don Davis with Motown experience and the Staples Singers from Chicago;
additionally, his vision of expanding the Stax product included using other studios in the area
and moving beyond the singular sound Stewart had maintained in the early years.40 The Stax
artists offered a variety of interpretations of the conflicts and challenges within the company.
Russell B. Sugarmon, Jr., letter to “Frank” inviting to Shelby County Democratic Club reception (held at
Universal Life Insurance Company), 24 October 1966 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 3, Folder 2); Bob Bourne
(Administration of Justice, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), letter to Russell B. Sugarmon, Jr., Esq., 7 May 1963
(Sugarmon Papers, Box 3, Folder 10); Bert Ferguson, “Three Good Goals for Community Relations Committee,”
WDIA editorial broadcast 14 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); Ferguson, “Riots Rarely Happen in
Neighborhoods Where People Care,” WDIA editorial broadcast 16 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B);
Maxine Smith (Executive Secretary, Memphis NAACP), letter to War on Poverty Committee discussing race
discrimination in Memphis programs to receive federal funds, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder
III.F).
39
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 94; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1,
170; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 107, 139-140, 220.
40
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 157, 165, 211; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 129, 151-152, 202-204, 207-208.
38
44
While Deanie Parker acknowledged that disagreements were part of being a family and “we
didn’t allow that to interfere with what we were here to do,” Wayne Jackson recalled “a party,”
where “Otis was the star of it, and believe me, it was fun.”41 Yet the conflicts existed, such as an
argument on tour between Steve Cropper and Al Bell that to this day no parties involved wish to
discuss but which ended in Cropper losing some control and Bell being promoted within the
company.42 Such disagreements certainly were not unique to Stax; within the Memphis
community, despite efforts by black activists and sympathetic whites to improve the social,
political, and economic situation, conflicts existed and sometimes resulted in alienation.
Edmund Orgill, criticized in the 1950s by whites angry at his moderate attempts at racial
progress, exchanged bitter correspondence with his old friend Jesse Turner in 1976 over his
disapproval of NAACP protest methods.43 Years later, however, Orgill urged an old white friend
to donate more on behalf of civil rights activist Hollis Price, just as black and white people alike
speak overwhelmingly about the positive “oasis” of Stax Records in a complicated time for
Memphis and the United States.44
In 1968, Memphis experienced one of its most traumatic moments when Martin Luther
King, Jr., was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. He came to the city as part of
the ongoing sanitation workers’ strike, which started as a labor issue and quickly escalated as a
civil rights issue due to the fact that the poorly-treated sanitation workers in Memphis were
overwhelmingly African American.45 Like previous elements of the black struggle, such as
41
Parker, interview by author; Jackson, interview with author; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 190.
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 151-152.
43
Edmund Orgill, letter to “Jesse,” 31 August 1976 (Orgill Papers, Box 40, Folder 15).
44
Abe Plough, letter to Edmund Orgill about his donation to LeMoyne-Owen College for the Dr. Hollis F. Price
Scholarship Fund, 5 January 1983 (Orgill Papers, Box 40, Folder 21); Edmund Orgill, letter to Abe Plough urging
him to give more, handwritten around the margins of Plough’s letter to Orgill (Orgill Papers, Box 40, Folder 21);
Parker, interview by author; Jackson, interview by author.
45
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 154; Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 216-218; Honey, Going
Down Jericho Road, 20-21, 55, 74, 80, 124.
42
45
desegregation and jobs, the sanitation workers’ strike demonstrated the complex nature of
integrationism and nationalism, and peaceful protest and militant action. Likewise, Al Bell took
Stax Records in entirely new directions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially with the
1972 festival known as Wattstax. The massive event, the charitable donations it generated, and
the 1973 documentary film it inspired similarly demonstrated the blurred lines and pragmatism
that belied any attempts at binary categorization of the movement.46
Michael Honey’s outstanding narrative of those fateful days included stories of all parts
of the spectrum, proving once again that academically constructed binaries failed to account for
the pragmatic, all-of-the-above approach of those in the midst of the struggle. For example, The
Invaders represented perhaps the most militant, explicitly Black Power-oriented organization in
Memphis, yet this younger, less organized group received far more attention from the reactive
white press than recognition from the traditional black civil rights leadership of James Lawson,
T.O. Jones, and Martin Luther King, Jr. However, their any-means-necessary approach to
revolutionary change, despite the disapproval of organized older leadership, signaled the
desperation of a movement frustrating so many who continued to experience police brutality,
economic inequality, and segregation.47 According to Honey, the entire movement blended
religious, economic, and political goals; brought in the central national figure in the civil rights
movement at a crossroads in his own life as he struggled to move from integration to poverty and
justice; and alienated various classes and generations of African Americans in Memphis, leading
46
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 267-271; Wattstax: 30th-Anniversary Special Edition, prod. Larry Shaw and Mel
Stuart, dir. Mel Stuart, 103 min., Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., 1973, 2004; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna
Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 170;
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 297-307.
47
Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 257; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 231, 234-237, 487.
46
to continued white domination on the part of Mayor Henry Loeb and a painful decline in hope
through the decade of the 1970s.48
King’s death at the Lorraine also connected the interwoven stories of Stax and Memphis
civil rights, as the motel frequently opened its doors to artists who needed a place to escape the
heat, a good meal and a bed for visiting singers, and a welcome environment for an integrated
company to talk strategy and write songs in a largely segregated city.49 Just as King expanded
his endeavors in the late 1960s, Al Bell sought after his death to push economic empowerment
and black pride through his work with Stax Records.50 Among the most visible activities in the
entire history of Stax was the 1972 Wattstax festival. The festival represented every possible
aspect of the integration-nationalism spectrum. The event served as a response to a community
recently damaged by race riots to increase black pride, and Jesse Jackson acted as emcee,
continuing a years-long relationship with Al Bell that included recording his own spoken word
work and activism. The performers included the message-driven Staples Singers and black pride
symbol Isaac Hayes. Schlitz sponsored the event to atone for a recent black labor dispute
mediated by Jackson, and proceeds from the event went to a variety of charitable organizations,
including a hospital in Watts. Finally, Stax Records increased its West Coast and national
audience, thereby increasing its economic success.51 Despite the nationalist appearance of Jesse
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 135-136, 160-161, 165-166; Roger Biles, “A Bittersweet Victory: Public School
Desegregation in Memphis,” in The Journal of Negro Education 55, no. 4 (Autumn 1986), 470-483 (Washington,
D.C.: Journal of Negro Education, 1986), 476-477; Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 226-227;
Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, xiv-xv, 34-35, 80, 84, 119, 137, 177, 222, 299, 382; Marcus D. Pohlmann,
Opportunity Lost: Race and Poverty in the Memphis City Schools (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee Press, 2008), 33, 159-160; Kimberly K. Little, You Must Be from the North: Southern White Women in
the Memphis Civil Rights Movement (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 5, 64, 76, 128.
49
Boman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 94, 143-145; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 170; Werner, A Change Is
Gonna Come, 61-64; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 139-140, 178-184.
50
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 80-81, 202-205; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 177; Gordon, Respect Yourself,
188-189, 199, 220-221, 232-233, 245.
51
Wattstax: 30th-Anniversary Special Edition; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 286, 297-298, 298-299, 302, 306-307, 308309.
48
47
Jackson’s raised fist and dashiki, Kim Weston’s stirring rendition of “Lift Every Voice and
Sing,” and Isaac Hayes’s dramatic performance of the “Theme from ‘Shaft,’” Wattstax achieved
recognition typically reserved for the SCLC or the NAACP. Senator Alan Cranston from
California introduced a measure before the United States Congress to officially honor the efforts
made by the company on behalf of peaceful race relations and economic improvement in Watts
and across the nation.52 In a manner befitting the new activist vision of Al Bell and Stax, the
company continued to engage in further work within the Memphis community until its demise in
1975-76: On both official company and individual artist levels, Stax worked to build better
housing for poor and elderly African Americans, negotiate curfews and quell the black
community during racial riots, and perform and civic events and raise funds for civil rights and
poverty causes throughout the civil rights era.53
The sanitation strike of 1968 and the Wattstax festival of 1972 raised numerous questions
about the validity of dividing black activism and black entrepreneurship in the Black Power
years into categories of integrationism and nationalism. Direct action and militant protest,
nonviolence and aggressive retaliation, civil rights and economic empowerment, and explicit
activism and commercially-driven entertainment all coexisted and relied on each other for
progress in the black struggle for freedom and financial success. Just as the biracial Stax
U.S. Senate, S 17899: Stax Records Organization’s Gift to the Watts Community (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 92d Congress, Second Session, Vol. 118, 13 October 1972,
No. 165); Stax News Release, “Wattstax ’72 Praised in U.S. Senate,” 4 January 1973 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
2106).
53
Pat Guibao, “Soul Sound Opens Heart for Needy,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 18 March 1968 (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 2106); “Hot Buttered Soul Man, Isaac Hayes, to Receive Key to Cleveland,” Memphis Press-Scimitar,
9 October 1969 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Starlite Revue Nets $32,000,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 7
July 1970 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867); “Citizenship In Action,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 22 October 1971
(Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); James R. Reid, Photo of Ben Hooks and Isaac Hayes, Memphis PressScimitar, 1 June 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 1418); James Kingsley, “Hayes Casting In Area For Next
Housing Site,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 7 September 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); Photo of Mrs.
Deanie Parker and Mrs. Ben Hooks, Memphis Press-Scimitar, 1 February 1974 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, 1 February
1974); “Spinners Top Goodwill Revue,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 21 November 1976 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
59867); Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 124-126, 241-244, 290-291; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 264-265; 269-271.
52
48
membership and the black Memphis civil rights leadership demonstrated dynamic and
complicated methods, the sanitation strike and Wattstax represented the problem of attempting to
fit daily black endeavors into constructed essentialist binaries.
“Soul Finger”: Analysis of Stax Music in Context of the Civil Rights Movement
The most important evidence for Stax’s role in the civil rights movement and the
problematic nature of essentialist binaries such as integrationism and nationalism was, of course,
the music. The singers, players, composers, and producers at Stax Records created decidedly
black southern soul music in an integrated environment during a tumultuous racial period in
American history. They provided the soundtrack for a generation, and their music spoke to the
changing times and their place in history. The musical analysis in this chapter examines five key
artists in seeking to illuminate Stax’s dialogue with the method binary of integrationism and
nationalism: Booker T. and the MG’s, Rufus Thomas, Sam and Dave, The Bar-Kays, and Isaac
Hayes.
Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper started in different worlds, but their convergence at
Stax Records laid the foundation of the Stax sound and the soundtrack of the southern civil rights
movement.54 Besides producing many of the Stax artists and playing on nearly all of the key
recordings from Stax’s first period of 1960-1968, Booker T. and the MG’s recorded a series of
successful albums on their own that provided meaningful contributions to the Stax legacy.55
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 290, 301-303, 310-311; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 14, 61, 123; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 16, 22-23, 34, 62-63, 67-69, 250-253.
55
For purposes of this study, the band will be considered as the core recording unit under the name Booker T. and
the MG’s: Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Al Jackson, Jr. Dunn did not officially join
the band until 1965 but played an important role before he was the official house bassist, and Jones was often
replaced on piano and organ by Isaac Hayes and Cropper during his time as a student at Indiana University, but his
artistic voice was still central to the Stax sound, especially with the instrumental group. Gordon, Respect Yourself,
67-69, 76-77, 91-92.
54
49
Their discography of originals and cover songs consisted of anything but a unified approach;
they drew from rhythm and blues, traditional blues, jazz, and rock and roll to create a unique
sound that defied categorization. Three albums from their early, middle, and waning years at
Stax provide a sample of Booker T and the MG’s and their role in breaking down barriers
musically and socially: Green Onions from 1962, Hip Hug-Her from 1967, and Melting Pot from
1971.56
The majority of Booker T. and the MG’s recordings included a combination of soulful
originals, jazz standards, and rhythm and blues and pop covers of a wide range of artists such as
Ray Charles, The Beatles, and various Motown artists.57 Melting Pot, the last album the band
produced at Stax, showed a different direction by including all originals, but even this endeavor
honored the band’s jazz and rhythm and blues roots with techniques like Henry Mancini-inspired
vocalese sections in “L.A. Jazz Song.”58 Cover songs have long existed in popular music, both
as a sign of respect to the original artist and as a way of establishing a unique identity in
comparison to previous acts, and Booker T. and the MG’s fit well into both traditions.59 “More,”
for instance, continued a line of performances from Frank Sinatra, who sang it as a big band
swing; Andy Williams, who was accompanied by a symphony orchestra; and a rare version by
The Supremes, who offered a much more tempered pop version than the MG’s.60 On Hip Hug-
Booker T. and the MG’s, Green Onions, © 1962 by Stax, 701; Booker T. and the MG’s, Hip Hug-Her, © 1967 by
Stax, S 717; Booker T. and the MG’s, Melting Pot, © 1971 by Stax, STS 2035.
57
Some of the band’s most famous originals include: Green Onions, “Green Onions,” “Mo’ Onions;” Hip Hug-Her,
“Hip Hug-Her,” “Slim Jenkins’ Place;” Melting Pot, “Melting Pot,” “Chicken Pox,” “Hi Ride.” Some of the band’s
soul covers include: Green Onions, “I Got a Woman” (Ray Charles); Hip Hug-Her, “Get Ready” (Smokey
Robinson, The Temptations), “Sunny” (Bobby Hebb). Some of the band’s pop and jazz covers include: Green
Onions, “Twist and Shout” (The Beatles), “Stranger on the Shore” (Acker Bilk); Hip Hug-Her, “More” (Kai
Winding, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams).
58
Henry Mancini, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Music from the Motion Picture Score), © 1961 by RCA Victor, LSP-2362;
Melting Pot, “L.A. Jazz Song.”
59
Michael Awkward, Soul Covers: Rhythm and Blues Remakes and the Struggle for Artistic Identity (Aretha
Franklin, Al Green, Phoebe Snow) (Durham, North Carolina, and London: Duke University Press, 2007), 12.
60
Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, It Might As Well Be Spring, © 1964 by Reprise Records, FS-1012, “More;” Andy
Williams, “Call Me Irresponsible” and Other Hit Songs from the Movies, © 1964 by Columbia, CL 2171, “More;”
56
50
Her, the MG’s played at a significantly faster tempo, and Steve Cropper’s accompaniment over
the A sections represented a modified clave, providing a somewhat Latin feel against Al
Jackson’s traditionally soulful beat with quarter-note rimshots reminiscent of his playing on Otis
Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness.” The result was a hybrid feel that both honored the jazz
tradition and offered the Stax house band’s own take on the standard.61 Comparatively, the band
stayed relatively true to African American songs like “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles and “Get
Ready,” composed by Smokey Robinson for The Temptations. On these already soulful songs,
the MG’s applied slightly altered tempos and more improvisatory approaches to the melody, but
otherwise tended to remain closer to the originals.62 Such adaptability demonstrated a band
wiling to stretch itself and ignore boundaries in order to express itself and achieve success.
The band also employed techniques unique to them among Stax recordings. They
performed most of the only songs in minor keys during the years when Jim Stewart was still in
the studio, as he remained adamant that minor chords went against what he considered to be a
southern “black” sound.63 “Green Onions,” contrary to almost everything else Stax produced in
the early 1960s, maintained a decidedly minor sound, with a flatted third in the bass line and an
A-flat minor chord serving as the passing chord between the gospel-influenced one-to-four
motion of the F and B-flat chords.64 Whereas other songs, such as Sam and Dave’s “Hold On,
I’m Coming” or Otis Redding’s “Love Man” got around the Stewart-mandated major focus
Diana Ross and The Supremes, “Live” at London’s Talk of the Town, © 1968 by Tamla Motown, TML 11070,
“More.”
61
Green Onions, “More;” Otis Redding, The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul – Complete & Unbelievable, © 1966
by Volt, S 415, “Try a Little Tenderness;” Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 307-309; Richard J. Ripani, The New Blue
Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 6768; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 25.
62
Green Onions, “I Got a Woman;” Ray Charles, Ray Charles, © 1957 by Atlantic, 8006, “I Got a Woman;” Hip
Hug-Her, “Get Ready;” The Temptations, Getting’ Ready, © 1966 by Gordy, GM918, “Get Ready.”
63
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 296, 297-301, 317; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 179, 250; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 119, 220.
64
Green Onions, “Green Onions.”
51
through the use of “blue notes” like the flatted seventh (a practice so common to African and
black popular music that musicologists rightly question its analysis within a western theory
framework), the MG’s explicitly applied minor tonalities when it fit their sensibilities.65
Additionally, while most Stax artists from the Stewart era maintained largely diatonic,
triad- and dominant-based chord structures, Booker T. and the MG’s were allowed the freedom
to employ more complex harmonic vocabulary in chord structures and voicings with extensions.
For example, jazz standard “Stranger on the Shore” used a flatted ninth on the dominant going
into a major-seventh tonic. “More” went even further beyond established soul boundaries,
vamping between the major tonic D-flat and a minor fifth A-flat; the A-flat minor voicing also
outlined a B-major sixth chord, thereby maneuvering comfortably between a sophisticated jazz
audience and popular southern listeners more accustomed to hearing pentatonic-based sounds.
Jones also demonstrated his advanced theory understanding by voicing the chords with ninths in
the middle, providing an interval of a second in each chord to add color.66
Booker T. and the MG’s offered a fascinating array of outstanding instrumental soul
music that defied categorization. Their very existence as a biracial band in 1960s Memphis
challenged social and musical norms of the day, but their music provided a case study in the
relationship between artistic expression and social activism in the civil rights era.67 It is essential
to remember that, at the very same time and in the very same city where these musical
innovations occurred, black activists and white allies fought tirelessly and applied a wide range
65
Gerhard Kubik, Africa and the Blues (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 123; Hans
Weisethaunet, “Is There Such Thing as the ‘Blue Note’?,” from Popular Music 20, no. 1 (January 2001), 99-116
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 99, 104-105, 108; Ripani, The New Blue Music, 26, 37-38;
William C. Banfield, Cultural Codes: Makings of a Black Music Philosophy: An Interpretive History from Spirituals
to Hip Hop (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 2010), 9, 101.
66
Green Onions, “Stranger on the Shore;” Hip Hug-Her, “More;” Garland, 137-139; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,”
301-303.
67
Gordon, It Came from Memphis, 59, 62-63; Gordon, Respect Yourself, xii, 62-63, 67-69.
52
of methods in the struggle for integration, economic improvement, and equality.68 In much the
same way that civil rights leaders in Memphis and at the national level embraced a variety of
methods in the black freedom struggle, Booker T. and the MG’s employed a broad spectrum of
musical influences to create a wholly unique sound.
Sam Moore and Dave Prater began singing gospel music, and formed a duo in Miami,
Florida, before eventually being signed by Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler in 1964 and loaned
out to subsidiary Stax Records in Memphis. Upon hearing word that they would be sent to
Memphis, the duo admitted to some hesitation; the city maintained a national reputation as
southern and racist, and the two expected to be recording in New York with other Atlantic
stars.69 Despite their initial wariness, Stax Records proved the perfect location for Sam and
Dave’s meteoric rise to success. Their recordings with the MG’s, their partnership with
songwriters and producers Isaac Hayes and David Porter, and their gospel-inspired stage
presence on the road made Sam and Dave among the greatest stars in popular music during the
1960s.70 Their hit songs “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” “Soul Man,” “When Something Is Wrong with
68
Edmund Orgill, letter to Frank Ahlgren encouraging to publicize peaceful bus integration, 25 February 1956
(Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Bishop Cornelius Range, Sr. D.D. LL.D. (Church of God in Christ), letter to
Edmund Orgill inviting to Fiftieth Jubilee Anniversary of Bishop Charles Mason, 25 October 1957 (Orgill Papers,
Box 16, Folder IX.A); Rev. Alexander Gladney (General Chairman, Shelby County Democratic Club), form letter to
Memphis black churches about upcoming election for candidates Russell Sugarmon, Jesse Turner, Alexander
Gladney, George Holloway, and Fred Davis, 19 July 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3); Hollis F. Price,
“Education: Key to the Future,” in The ULICO (official publication of Universal Life Insurance Company) XI
(Summer, 1962), p. 1 & 17 (Hollis F. Price Folder); Minutes from the MCCR Executive Committee Meeting
discussing how to approach businesses about hiring more black employees, 10 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24,
Folder I.B); Bert Ferguson, “Riots Rarely Happen in Neighborhoods Where People Care” (WDIA editorial
supporting A.W. Willis during his mayoral campaign), 16 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B);
Memorandum to Memphis Alliance of Community Organizations on five point program for improving black
economic situation in Memphis, January 1968 (Smith NAACP Collection, Box V, Folder 14).
69
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 98.
70
Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 160; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 91, 114, 128; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams:
Take I, 110; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 103, 133-135, 159-160.
53
My Baby,” and “I Thank You” offered valuable insight into the ways their music crossed
integrationist and nationalist lines.71
“Hold On, I’m Comin’” and “Soul Man” presented overt dialogue about soul culture and
fraternity. Written by the legendary songwriting duo of Isaac Hayes and David Porter, they
represented the growing soul culture in the coming Black Power era of 1966-1967 in both lyrics
and music.72 Lyrically, “Hold On, I’m Comin’” also stood as a powerful love song, with lines
like “lean on me when times are bad,” and “reach out to me for satisfaction,” but in the mid1960s they contained an unmistakable tone of black togetherness, especially when performed
with the gritty, gospel-infused call-and-response style of Sam and Dave. (The original album
cover featured the singers riding turtles, perhaps a nod to the frequent complaints of too-slow
action in black civil rights.)73 Isaac Hayes acknowledged that “Soul Man” was directly inspired
by the racial violence of 1967. Lines like “got what I got the hard way” illuminated his thinking
about unrest in places like Watts and Detroit, where he saw on the news that black-owned
businesses were often spared by writing “soul” on them like the Passover story of the Bible.74
Musically, both songs followed the Hayes-Porter-Sam-Dave formula: they remained primarily
triad-based harmonically, relying on horn lines to provide the blue notes. They avoided minor
chords, but provided harmonic variety by moving from the tonic to the flat seventh (as in A-flat
major to G-flat major on the interlude of “Hold On, I’m Comin’”) or using flat third and flat fifth
on the bridge (as in E-flat major and B-flat major in the key of G on the bridge of “Soul Man”).
They also included the country-influenced guitar of Steve Cropper, the aggressive timekeeping
Sam and Dave, Hold On, I’m Comin’, © 1966 by Stax, SD 708, “Hold On, I’m Comin’;” Sam and Dave, Double
Dynamite, © 1966 by Stax, S 712, “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby;” Sam and Dave, Soul Men, © 1967
by Stax, S 725, “Soul Man;” Sam and Dave, I Thank You, © 1968 by Atlantic, SD 8205, “I Thank You.”
72
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 133-135.
73
Sam and Dave, Hold On, I’m Comin’; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 304.
74
Soul Men, “Soul Man;” Gordon, Respect Yourself, 159-160.
71
54
of Al Jackson, Jr. on drums and the signature unison and octave horn lines of Wayne Jackson
(who actually felt “Soul Man” was pandering and corny) and Andrew Love.75
“When Something Is Wrong with My Baby” came from an unhappy period in David
Porter’s personal life, and represented his aspirations for the kind of love that united two
people.76 Placed in the context of the civil rights movement, it takes on a sentiment of
togetherness and familial care that transcends its pop love song façade.77 While the musical
setting of a 12/8 gospel feel with standard I-VI-IV-V harmonies (and a rare F minor chord on the
bridge, offset by a surprising Bb-flat major to give it a ii-V feel) establishes a definite black feel,
lyrics like “we stand as one and that makes it better” and “if she’s got problems I got to help
solve them” could not escape the overwhelming communal drive toward black freedom in 1966,
nor would it fit prescribed categories like integrationism or nationalism.78 The same can be said
about “I Thank You” from 1968. The driving beat over a single E-flat chord provided a sense of
purpose, and the way the duo continued to say “thank you” for performing unnecessary acts of
kindness demonstrated gratitude and an opportunity to help those in need.79
If Booker T. and the MG’s and the Memphis Horns defined the first Jim Stewartdominated phase of Stax Records through 1968, Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays made Stax what it
Hold On, I’m Comin’, “Hold On, I’m Comin’;” Soul Men, “Soul Man;” Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 297-301,
307-309, 310-311, 314-316; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 172-173.
76
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 114.
77
Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness?,’” 43; Banfield, Cultural Codes, 9, 55-56, 156; Vincent, Party Music, xiv-xv, 1-2.
78
Double Dynamite, “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby;” E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the
United States, Revised and Abridged Version (New York: The Dryden Press, 1948), 355; Lucius E. Burch, Jr., letter
to Executive Committee of Memphis Committee on Community Relations encouraging more assertive support for
desegregation efforts, 5 June 1963 (Burch Papers, Box 46, Vol. I); Russell B. Barbour, Black and White Together:
Plain Talk for White Christians (Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1967), 6; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on
Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968), 22, 59-60; James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power
(New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), 53-54, 151; “Memphis Hooks Admonishes Students to Be ‘Somebody!’,”
Memphis Press-Scimitar, 12 November 1976 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 1418); National Conference of
Christians and Jews, news release announcing Commissioner and Mrs. Ben L. Hooks receiving Brotherhood Award,
2 December 1976 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 1418).
79
I Thank You, “I Thank You.”
75
55
was the in the Al Bell years.80 Isaac Hayes was a regular fixture at the company well before Al
Bell’s ascendance after 1968, but he remained in the role of songwriter and producer under
Stewart. When he began developing his own style as a performer, he did so in tandem with the
young group of Booker T. Washington students and recent graduates known as the Bar-Kays,
who received training from the Stax house players and developed into regular studio and touring
musicians themselves as the Stax catalogue grew.81 The Bar-Kays’ repertoire from earlier and
later years included two songs worth considering in the integrationism-nationalism dialogue,
“Soul Finger” and “Son of Shaft.” The latter was inspired by Hayes’s smash success, “Theme
from Shaft,” which along with “Soulsville” from the same album demonstrated his role as artist
and activist in the civil rights movement.82
In 1967, the young Bar-Kays went into the studio at McLemore Avenue to record “Soul
Finger,” a funky, upbeat song indicative of their camaraderie and youth. The title and only
lyrics, sung by local youth coerced into entering the studio to make party noise by David Porter’s
promise of bottles of Coca-Cola, proved all that was necessary to make the song’s point: pointing
a finger, raising a fist, or making or dancing to black music in 1967 meant black consciousness
and hipness.83 Unlike previous examples, “Soul Finger” ignored prior Stax conventions and
80
The other defining feature of the later Stax years was its increased variety, including recording in different
studios, but at the McLemore studios Hayes and the Bar-Kays played an enormous role. Guralnick, Sweet Soul
Music, 359, 362-366, 368-372; George, The Death of Rhythm and Blues, 138-139; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,”
285-286; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., x, 143-145, 179, 180-183; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 151-152, 188-189, 202204, 237-238, 250-253, 332, 337.
81
Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis & Shelby County Room: The Warrior, yearbooks from Booker T.
Washington High School, 1950-1969; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 84-85, 145-146, 250-253, 259-261, 332.
82
The Bar-Kays, Soul Finger, © 1967 by Volt, S-417, “Soul Finger;” The Bar-Kays, Sang and Dance/Son of Shaft,
© 1971 by Volt, VOA-4073, “Son of Shaft;” Isaac Hayes, Shaft, © 1971 by Stax, 2628 002, “Theme from Shaft”
and “Soulsville.”
83
Keil, Urban Blues, 165-166; Lee Rainwater, ed., Black Experience: Soul, Second Edition (New Brunswick, New
Jersey: Transaction Books, 1973), 5-6; Ulf Hannerz, “The Significance of Soul,” in Black Experience Soul, Second
Edition, ed. Lee Rainwater (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1973), 17, 26; Van De Burg, New
Day in Babylon, 28, 31, 195-196, 205; Cynthia A. Young, Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a
U.S. Third World Left, 5; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 145-146.
56
placed the dominant seventh at the focal point of the melody, signaling a bolder,
unapologetically black direction in the future of the company.84 The Bar-Kays, however, were
not black nationalists; they cited the slightly older Mar-Keys and Booker T. and the MG’s, both
mixed groups (and in the Mar-Keys’ case, sometimes entirely white) as key influences on their
music.85
When Isaac Hayes joined forces with the Bar-Kays in 1971 to develop the soundtrack for
the motion picture Shaft, he made music history. Sitting in the studio directing the players to
match his vision for the preliminary footage of lead character John Shaft moving through New
York City, Hayes found inspiration in the wah-wah guitar, matched by sixteenth notes on the hihat, and built a now-legendary soundtrack on that foundation.86 The final product created the
sound of the 1970s: an orchestra spontaneously arranged by Hayes himself highlighted a funky,
brooding vamp over the guitar’s octave Gs, eventually settling into the repeating chord changes
of F major seven and E minor seven, and a brief lyric emphasizing a vision of urban black
manhood that combined street toughness, sex appeal, and pride.87 Hayes’s music was unique
among Stax recordings, just as he was unique among Stax artists. While many of them lived in
the middle class neighborhood in southern Memphis, Hayes came from extreme poverty and
went to the north-side black school, Manassas, which turned out an equally impressive array of
musical talent but much more in the realm of jazz than southern soul.88 The Bar-Kays followed
Soul Finger, “Soul Finger.”
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 30-31; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 10-11, 16, 53, 69, 84-85, 250-253.
86
Shaft, “Theme from Shaft;” Gordon, Respect Yourself, 259-261.
87
Shaft, “Theme from Shaft;” Keil, 8-9; David Ritz, “Happy Song: Soul Music in the Ghetto,” in Salmagundi 12
(Spring 1970), 43-53 (Saratoga Springs, New York: Skidmore College, 1970), 51-52; April Reilly, “The Impact of
Technology on Rhythm ‘n’ Blues,” in The Black Perspective in Music 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1973), 136-146 (Port
Charlotte, Florida: Foundation for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts, 1973), 140, 142, 143-144; Hirshey,
Nowhere to Run, 355; George, The Death of Rhythm and Blues, 124.
88
Addie D. Jones, Portrait of a Ghetto School (New York: Vantage Press, 1973), 140-142, 148-149; “Celebrating
100 years of the Tiger: saluting Manassas High School, 1899-1999” (Special Collections, University of Memphis:
Mississippi Valley Collection, MVC LD 7501 M3745 M252X 1999 MLK), 11, 21; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 5184
85
57
on Hayes’s success with “Son of Shaft,” demonstrating again the balance between honoring
tradition and finding a personal voice by applying the wah-wah guitar G, but turning the song
significantly grittier and more youthful by focusing on a G minor feel, including the jazzinfluenced Dorian mode and the blues-oriented flatted fifth.89
In addition to his enormous career at Stax, both as a writer and producer in the 1960s and
as an performer in the 1970s, Isaac Hayes performed more charity work and local and national
community activism than most of the Stax team. He sought to provide low-cost housing for the
poor and elderly, helped quell violence and negotiate curfews with city leadership during black
uprisings, performed at Wattstax to raise money for local and national organizations related to
the Watts uprisings, and was honored by numerous organizations including city governments,
civil rights groups, and the Academy Awards (for Shaft).90 Hayes’s philanthropic and activist
work, like his music, defied artificial categories; while he clearly desired black economic
development and wrote music for a film about a tough black police officer, he also engaged in
cooperative work with white city officials to avoid race riots, and even joined in the campaign
for black Democratic congressional candidate Harold Ford in 1974.91
This pragmatic combination of moderation and assertiveness, integration and black
economic empowerment, that became a hallmark of Memphis music and Memphis civil rights
52; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 87; Wayne Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 2 (Memphis,
Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson Publishing, 2006), 6, 158; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 237-238.
89
Sang and Dance/Son of Shaft, “Son of Shaft.”
90
“’Hot Buttered Soul’ Man, Isaac Hayes, to Receive Key to Cleveland,” Stax press release, 9 October 1969 (PressScimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Citizenship In Action,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 22 October 1971 (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 55889); Memphis Elks Club Department of Education (George Lee, Grand Commissioner), press
release announcing award for Isaac Hayes at National Citizenship Banquet in St. Louis, Missouri, 26 August 1972;
“Hayes Plans $100 Million Housing Project,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 6 September 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue,
File 55889); “Isaac Hayes Named Honorary Chairman of Health Careers Fiesta,” Mid-South Health Careers Fiesta
press release, 16 October 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Crime Fighters May Get Support Of Isaac
Hayes,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 20 June 1973 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889).
91
Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 300-302.
58
activism, was on full display in the lesser-known song from Shaft, “Soulsville.”92 The song
could not have been more different from “Theme from Shaft” – it was in 3/4 time, with a slow,
swinging gospel feel, and largely alternated between the I and IV over tonic B-flat and a bridge
section alternating G minor seven and C minor seven. Hayes most likely maintained a subtle
approach to the music so that it could accompany the true focus of the song, a challenging
narrative of the black struggle through poverty, discrimination, and drugs. “Black man, born
free, at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be,” opened the song, which gave way to jobs that
were “hard to find,” a crime rate that is “rising too.” With rent past due, some did better than
others through prostitution, while others suffered through continued escapes by trying to “get so
high.” True to the complicated interplay of factors that belied any academically constructed
binary, however, Hayes concluded each verse with the name of this place of despair. Despite the
terrible conditions, he gave it a name associated with the pride and solidarity of a people
accustomed to creating beauty out of their unfair conditions: “I call it Soulsville.”
Conclusion
The evidence clearly demonstrated that artificial labels such as “integrationist” and
“nationalist” failed to apply to Memphis or to Stax. Even when broken down into more clearly
delineated and academically palatable concepts, musicians and activists continued to defy such
limits. In particular, civil rights leaders and scholars alike sought to express goals and methods
in terms of civil rights versus economic empowerment, or integration versus self-determination,
but Memphians in the streets and in the studio consistently avoided such narrow categories.
92
Shaft, “Soulsville.”
59
Jim Stewart and Al Bell, the black and white leaders of the city’s unlikely success story,
demonstrated varying levels of activism that ran the gamut of civil rights methods. Stewart in
particular mirrored Mayor Edmund Orgill in his white moderate approach and willingness to
work with African Americans without any seeming pretense of activism at all. In truth, both
men were likely Southern white leaders trying to achieve success who simply did not hold the
same racist attitudes as many of their counterparts throughout the community. Al Bell,
combining his music and marketing prowess with a clear desire to improve black life, likewise
defied any essentialist categories in his activism, choosing at various times to align his work with
integration and black autonomy, civil rights and economic empowerment. The resultant products
of Stax’s production and Memphis’s activism, most notably the Wattstax and the sanitation
strike, similarly belied any notion of a unified approach to civil rights as defined by academically
constructed categories of integrationism or nationalism.
The complex nature of civil rights activism and artistic expression in 1960s Memphis
rang out in the music of the era. When black-and-white Booker T. and the MG’s topped
instrumental charts with playlists as varied as “Hip Hug-Her” and “More,” they spoke to the
variety of perspectives on culture and society in the era. When soul men Sam and Dave sang and
danced like black preachers before throngs of adoring fans, they integrated listeners while
boosting their status as black men of value and economic worth in an era that desperately needed
such men. And when Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays ushered in the funky 1970s, like the civil
rights leaders in the city where they lived, they employed equal parts of anger and love,
empowerment and cooperation, and integrationism and nationalism in their musical expression
of the complex and turbulent times in which they lived.
60
CHAPTER 3
WOMAN TO MAN
How Stax Records and the Memphis Civil Rights Movement Used Traditional Gender Roles to
Achieve Gender Cooperation
Deanie Parker moved from Mississippi to southern Ohio before finally settling in
Memphis, Tennessee, where she won a local contest in 1963 in which the prize was an audition
at Stax Records. While she quickly realized she would not be a lead singer at the company,
Parker’s personality, work ethic, and talent made her an asset to Jim Stewart, Estelle Axton, and
the entire Stax family. As a company still in its early years, Stax presented “needs massive
enough” that a willingness and ability to work with people allowed Deanie Parker to become
“quite a generalist in the organization.” In her subsequent years at Stax, many came to believe
that Parker served as THE generalist in the organization. She worked in marketing and public
relations, contributed songwriting and background vocals, and served as the unifying force in the
office and the studio through both eras of the company’s existence.1
Stax witnessed the rise of several powerful female stars, including Carla Thomas, The
Emotions, Mable John, Mavis Staples, Kim Weston, and Shirley Brown, despite famously
passing on the definitive female star of the era, Aretha Franklin.2 What set Stax apart from its
peers on issues of sexuality and gender was the way its soul men approached these frequently
contentious relationships. Artists such as Otis Redding and Johnnie Taylor negotiated the male-
1
Deanie Parker, phone interview by author (facilitated by Levon Williams), Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 18 June 2013; Rob Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records (New York: Schirmer Books,
1997), 47-48; Robert Gordon, Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (New York: Bloomsbury
USA, 2013), 79, 207-208, 214, 264-265.
2
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 19-20, 95, 211; Craig Werner, Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin,
Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 130-134; Gordon,
Respect Yourself, 220-221, 284-286, 298-299, 338-339.
61
female dynamic in subtler, warmer ways than many of their contemporaries in the era of
masculine reclamation and sexual conquest through music. While they in no way compromised
or led audiences to question their manhood, their performances and lyrics offered a unique
alternative in which women and mixed-gender groups like Carla Thomas, Mable John, and The
Soul Children entered a dialogue different from the mainstream culture that caused so many
black feminists to raise their voices in protest against the intersectional oppression of race and
gender.3 This gender dialogue mirrored the gender relationships of the civil rights movement in
Memphis and nationally, with women taking an activist role without explicitly challenging
traditional roles and men displaying a more open engagement with women.4
The male-female relationships in the Memphis civil rights movement and the malefemale relationships at Stax Records, supported with musical analyses of Carla Thomas and Otis
Redding, Johnnie Taylor, and Mable John, demonstrated the need for a more nuanced
perspective on gender relationships in civil rights scholarship. This chapter attempts to apply
David Ritz, “Happy Song: Soul Music in the Ghetto,” from Salmagundi 12 (Spring 1970), 43-53 (Saratoga
Springs, New York: Skidmore College, 1970), 51-52; Michael Haralambos, Right On: From Blues to Soul in Black
America (New York: Drake Publishers Inc., 1975), 112-117; Gerri Hirshey, Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul
Music (New York: Times Books, 1984), 130, 162-164; Mary Ellison, Lyrical Protest: Black Music’s Struggle
Against Discrimination (New York, Westport, Connecticut, and London: Praeger, 1989), 115-116, 119, 123-124,
126-127; Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), 79, 157-159, 361-362, 371, 375, 379,
383-385; Wayne Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1 (Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson Publishing,
2005), 83, 94-95, 174, 176; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, & the Soul of America (Ann
Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 116; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 96, 237-238.
4
Toni Cade, ed., The Black Woman: An Anthology (New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New American Library,
1970), 7, 10-11; Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (London and New York: Verso,
1990; first published New York: The Dial Press, 1978), xx; Denise Riley, “Am I That Name?”: Feminism and the
Category of “Women” in History (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 1, 3-5, 16;
Michele Wallace, Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory (London and New York: Verso, 1990), 1-8; Gail S.
Murray, ed., Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era
(Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2004), 205, 208-209; Winifred Breines, The Trouble Between Us:
An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 4, 6; Laurie B. Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom
Struggle (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 169-172, 252-253; Kimberly
K. Little, You Must Be from the North: Southern White Women in the Memphis Civil Rights Movement (Jackson,
Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 5-6, 9, 17, 118-119.
3
62
such a nuanced approach to gender in the civil rights movement by examining the male-female
dynamic in the Memphis movement and at Stax Records. Such an exploration first requires
discussion of some of the interactions between men and women in the Memphis movement, as
well as the delicate relationship between black and white women during this time. This is
followed by Stax case studies of founders, brother and sister Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, and
the fascinating story of publicist Deanie Parker, followed by an exploration of the ways Stax
both maintained and challenged black and white gender stereotypes through the 1960s and early
1970s. The music of several male and female artists at Stax will demonstrate the creative
expression of these social and political ideas.
“Respect”: The Male-Female Relationship in the Memphis Civil Rights Movement
As was the case nationally, both men and women played key roles in the Memphis civil
rights movement. Fortunately, scholars eventually began acknowledging the crucial – and often
central – role that women played in local movements across the South.5 Civil rights activism in
Memphis was carried out by both black and white as well as male and female, and typically
represented the middle class. White civic leaders like Mayor Edmund Orgill, media members Ed
Meeman from the Press-Scimitar and Bert Ferguson from WDIA, lawyer Lucius Burch, and
women such as Myra Dreifus and educator Frances Coe, worked with black activists like
NAACP leaders Maxine and Vascoe Smith and Jesse Turner, ambitious lawyers such as Ben
Hooks and Russell Sugarmon, and business leaders like J.E. Walker and George Lee, to fight for
Joanne Grant, “Mississippi Politics: A Day in the Life of Ella J. Baker,” in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed.
Toni Cade, 56-62; Michele Wallace, Invisibility Blues, 1-3; Belinda Robnett, How Long? How Long?: AfricanAmerican Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4-6, 10;
Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 4; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 169-172, 252-253; Little,
You Must Be from the North, 5-6, 37, 118-119; Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women,
Rape and Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
(New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2010), xix-xx.
5
63
civil rights and economic opportunity in a manner that never openly challenged gender norms
but allowed open dialogue on an equal footing for men and women.6 These actions
demonstrated a willingness to work together as men and women within a Southern culture of
paternalism in both race and gender, and paved the road for future discussions of both racial and
gender equality.
Maxine Smith represented the most visible symbol of black female leadership in
Memphis. While her husband, Vasco, held the more formal executive position in Memphis’
NAACP in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she took an active role as Executive Secretary,
writing letters and engaging in community activism as far-ranging as addressing racism in the
public school system and implementing a jobs plan to achieve fair employment, pay, and
entrepreneurship opportunities for Memphis African Americans.7 Smith’s work demonstrated
League of Women Voters of Tennessee, “A Study of Reapportionment in Tennessee,” 1959 (University of
Memphis, Special Collections, Mississippi Valley Collection: Edmund Orgill Papers, MSS 87, Box 16, Folder I);
Edmund Orgill, letter to Frank Ahlgren (editor, Commercial Appeal), encouraging to publicize cities with successful
bus desegregation, 25 February 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); L. Alex Wilson (editor, Tri-State
Defender), letter to Edmund Orgill inviting to black newspaper’s annual awards program, 22 November 1957 (Orgill
Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Minutes of the Memphis Committee on Community Relations, 1 November 1966, 10
August 1967, 16 January 1968 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.A, I.B); Bert Ferguson, “Riots Rarely Happen in
Neighborhoods Where People Care,” WDIA Editorial broadcast 16 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder
I.B); Mrs. Maxine A. Smith (Executive Secretary, Memphis NAACP), letter to War on Poverty Committee on
racism in Memphis, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box III.F); Edward J. Meeman, “Next Race Relations Task in
Memphis: More and Better Jobs for Negroes,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 26 February 1963, p. 6 (University of
Memphis, Special Collections: Edward Meeman Papers, MVP 2207, MS 85, Box 2, Folder 5); Lucius E. Burch, Jr.,
letter to Edward Meeman sharing copy of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 12 July 1963
(University of Memphis, Special Collections, Mississippi Valley Collection: Lucius E. Burch Jr. Papers, MSS 126,
Box 46: Memphis Community on Community Relations Vol. I – Memphis Street Railway Company); Russell B.
Sugarmon, Jr., letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson asking for help with abuse of power by Mayor William Ingram
in Memphis, 1965 (University of Memphis, Special Collections: Russell B. Sugarmon Jr. Papers, MSS 108, Box 2,
Folder 5); Hollis F. Price, “Education: Key to the Future,” in The ULICO (official publication of Universal Life
Insurance Company), Volume XI (Summer 1962), number 2, p. 1 & 17 (LeMoyne Owen College, Dr. Hollis F.
Price Library: Hollis F. Price Folder); Alice Fulbright, “Honoree’s Wife Achieves, Too,” Commercial Appeal, 24
April 1975, p. 32 (Price Folder); Maxine Smith (Temporary Chariman, Memphis Alliance of Community
Organizations), memo to steering committee discussing groups to consider for organization, May 1969 (Benjamin
Hooks Central Library, Memphis Tennessee, Memphis & Shelby County Room: Maxine A. Smith NAACP
Collection, Box V, Folder 14); “Judge Hooks Calls for Law, Order and Justice for All,” Memphis Press-Scimitar,
May 1968 (University of Memphis, Special Collections: Memphis Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 1418).
7
Mrs. Maxine A. Smith, letter to War on Poverty Committee on racial discrimination on the Memphis Board of
Education, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); Memphis Alliance of Community Organizations,
Memo to Chairmen of Human Relations Council, Employers’ Merit Employment Association, Manpower
6
64
firmness in resolve without overtly defying traditional male-female relationships in much the
same way that Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer forged new roles for women in the maledominated Mississippi movement. In both cases, these women chose civil rights over feminism
as the primary problem to be resolved, but in their work demonstrated precisely the kind of
feminist activism that the women’s movement sought to embrace as a consequence of African
American gains in this era. Far from the daily cooking and desk work so many black women felt
forced to perform, Smith and her counterparts exemplified the bold agency of which they were
capable, and in Memphis no real evidence existed of any problems among the male
establishment in sharing this work with such a competent and willing person.8
In addition to the explicit activism of black and white men and women in Memphis,
women contributed to the local culture of Memphis in significant ways. Much like the music of
Stax was in itself a form of activism, women who served as teachers, radio personalities at
WDIA, and charity workers provided meaningful work towards civil rights and feminist goals,
and again they did so in a way that worked within, rather than against, the existing patriarchal
system.9 Belinda Robnett asserted that women in the civil rights movement most often acted as
“bridge leaders,” working in local communities to bring people into the movement. As such,
Robnett argued, black female activists frequently ceded power to formal male leadership
Commission, National Alliance of Businessmen, and Volunteer Placement Program, January 1968 (Smith NAACP
Collection, Box V, Folder 14).
8
“The Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee 1960,” scrapbook of newspaper articles chronicling the
Memphis sit-ins and desegregation movement (Smith NAACP Collection, Box IV, Folder 1); Grant, “Mississippi
Politics,” 57; Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the
New Left (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 41, 77-78; John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights
in Mississippi (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 30-31 Robnett, How Long? How
Long?, 10, 19, 51-52; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 252-253, 269-270; Stephen G.N. Tuck, Beyond
Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 (Athens, Georgia, and London: The University of
Georgia Press, 2001), 248-249; McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, xix, 87, 227.
9
Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 145, 169-172, 198; D’Army Bailey with Roger Easson, The Education of
a Black Radical: A Southern Civil Rights Activist’s Journey, 1959-1964 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State
University Press, 2009), 10-11, 19; Little, You Must Be from the North, 9, 32, 37, 141.
65
willingly, acknowledging their importance in the less dangerous local work of making
connections and building the movement behind the scenes.10 While this claim is not without
some credence, it fails to fully grasp the significant leadership role women often took in the
movement, particularly in Memphis. Histories of education or the media, for example,
demonstrated far more agency on the part of women than simply supporting the formal
leadership of men, with teachers, volunteers, and media personalities playing a critical role in
forging true action on behalf of civil rights goals and shaping the community in more tangible
ways than any male figurehead could do with a speech.11 Nevertheless, Memphis actually
witnessed direct formal female leadership, with women regularly writing letters, advising the
mayor on reapportionment, desegregating local restaurants, and serving in key positions on the
Memphis Council on Community Relations, the school board, and the NAACP.12 The black and
white women of Memphis, while certainly in the minority on leadership positions, exhibited
10
Robnett, How Long? How Long?, 19, 51-52, 69.
Hugh Davis Graham, Crisis in Print: Desegregation and the Press in Tennessee (Nashville, Tennessee:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), 41, 254-255; David M. Tucker, Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and
Civil Reformers 1948-1968 (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980), 121-122; Margaret
McKee and Fred Chisenhall, Beale Black & Blue: Life and Music on Black America’s Main Street (Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 18-19; Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of
Privilege, 208-209; Katherine Mellen Charron, Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark (Chapel Hill, North
Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 3, 4, 11-12, 70, 73, 319-320, 351; Green, Battling the
Plantation Mentality, 126, 145, 169-172, 200, 257-258; Bailey, The Education of a Black Radical, 10-11, 19, 19-20,
60-61; Little, You Must Be from the North, 17, 32, 43, 100; Mario T. Garcia and Sal Castro, Blowout!: Sal Castro &
the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press,
2011), 16, 98-102; John L. Rury, Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling
(New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 1, 184.
12
League of Women Voters of Tennessee, “A Study of Reapportionment in Tennessee” (Orgill Papers, Box 16,
Folder I); Edmund Orgill, letter to Mrs. Hubert F. Fisher, Sr., acknowledging letter supporting black appointment to
hospital board and complaint of rudeness of bus drivers to blacks, 3 March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder
IX.A); “Sitdown Moves to Memphis Libraries,” from civil rights scrapbook, 19 March 1960 (Smith NAACP
Collection, Box IV, Folder 1); “41 Negroes Booked After Demonstrations At Two City Libraries,” from civil rights
scrapbook, 19 March 1960 (Smith NAACP Collection, Box IV, Folder 1); Russell B. Sugarmon, Jr., letter to Dr.
Ross Pritchard discussing candidacy for Congress, invited to contact Mrs. Elizabeth Russell (Secretary, Program
Committee), 22 May 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3); Minutes of the MCCR Executive Committee
meeting, 10 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); Mrs. Maxine A. Smith, letter to War on Poverty
Committee, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 121-122, 136137; Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 211-213; Wayne G. Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom: Memphis and
the Political Transformation of the American South (Jackson, Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi,
2010), 78-80.
11
66
overt activism in a variety of ways while neither challenging the existing patriarchal system nor
facing direct opposition from the male leadership in their cooperative efforts for justice.
One fascinating dynamic throughout the South, chronicled extensively by Sara Evans and
Gail Murray generally and Kimberly Little in Memphis, was the relationship between black and
white women in the civil rights movement. While black activists throughout the South increased
grassroots efforts at desegregation, voter registration, and economic opportunity, young white
college women from the north and middle class white women in the South, inspired by the call
for justice, took up the cause of civil rights.13 In Memphis, black and white women engaged
each other through a regular luncheon group that included a who’s-who of local white and black
female activists. This group served the dual purpose of opening a biracial dialogue over social
and political issues of the day and slowly and methodically desegregating some of the city’s
restaurants in a quiet, peaceful manner.14 According to Little, while some black women viewed
the Saturday luncheon group as condescending and paternalistic, the group nonetheless afforded
both black and white women desiring greater cooperation the opportunity to interact with each
other and demonstrate the potential of peaceful integration in Memphis.15
Memphis received worldwide attention for the 1968 sanitation strike, in part because of
the phrase “I am a man.” These four words have ignited a flurry of scholarly interpretation,
ranging from masculinist notions of reclamation to feminist reinterpretations of “man” as
13
Evans, Personal Politics, 23, 232; Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 4, 8, 205, 224; Little, You Must
Be from the North, 5-6, 9, 17, 64, 76, 118-119, 152-153.
14
Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 208-209; Little, You Must Be from the North, 17. Little’s
outstanding book highlighted the involvement of a wide range of Memphis female activists, including: Ann Willis
(wife of A.W. Willis), Mary Kay Tolleson, Maxine Smith, Frances Coe (who served on the MCCR and the school
board), Myra Dreifus (who moved from Detroit with her husband because they considered Memphis friendly to
Jewish citizens, and whose jewelry business cooperated in hiring more African Americans at the urging of the
MCCR), Anne Shafer, Selma Lewis, Sister Adrian Marie Hofstetter, Gwen Kyles (wife of Billy Kyles).
15
Little, 118-119. Among the more significant restaurants they helped desegregate without incident were the Wolf
River Society and the Flame Room.
67
applying equally to women seeking identity as African American citizens.16 The conflict of
black men resisting emasculation and black women challenging intersectional oppression is the
heart of the gender debate in the civil rights movement, is a worthy topic of scholarly discussion.
Steve Estes understood well the complexity of masculinism, and his warning of the binary
notions it established, particularly in contrast to the egalitarian notion of feminism, bears
repeating:
In contrast to feminism, which attempts to overturn social inequalities that result
from gender discrimination, “masculinism” embraces the notion that men are
more powerful than women, that they should have control over their own lives and
authority over others. Masculinist rhetoric uses the traditional power wielded by
men to woo supporters and attack opponents…When political leaders harness the
power of masculinism to forward their agendas, they often simplify complex
issues into binary oppositions, placing themselves and their allies in the dominant
position…17
Estes rightly argued that both white and black men shared masculinist ideas of manhood, with
white men seeking to protect white womanhood and black men fighting to reclaim or maintain
their place at the head of the household. While he credits World War II service and the Cold
War as driving forces in men’s quest for domination, certainly the ideas of E. Franklin Frazier
and Daniel Patrick Moynihan about the so-called “crisis” of black female-headed households and
overbearing women had an enormous influence as well.18 Black feminists echoed these concerns
16
Steve Estes addressed the issue of masculinism rooted in black men reclaiming a manhood lost to both white men
and black women. Steve Estes, I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 7-8, 74-75, 108, 139. Laurie Green claimed
that men and women in Memphis used the phrase to denote women’s equality as activists challenging racism and
paternalism (Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 252-253). Such conversations invariably find roots in
historical studies such as: E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, Revised and Abridged
Version (New York: The Dryden Press, 1948), 112-113, 245, 261-261; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro
Family: The Case for National Action (Washington, D.C.: Office of Policy Planning and Research, U.S. Department
of Labor, 1965), 62, 63, 74; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968), 16-17,
206; Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1962, 1969), 1-3, 63, 73-74, 78.
17
Estes, I Am a Man!, 7-8.
18
Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, 245, 261-262; Moynihan, The Negro Family, 51, 55, 63, 74, 80;
Estes, I Am a Man!, 7, 8, 13, 35, 53, 62-63, 108
68
during and in the years following the civil rights movement, noting issues such as relegation to
menial tasks at the grassroots level and later problems of expectations of subservience within the
Black Power movement.19
Interestingly enough, despite the ongoing debates over “I am a man” and its use in the
sanitation strikes, the civil rights movement in Memphis before and after this tumultuous period
seemed to lack much of the gender conflict apparent in other areas. Certainly, the movement
was largely male-dominated, but several of the key activists of the period, including Maxine
Smith, Frances Coe, Ann Willis, Laurie Sugarmon, and Myra Dreifus, played crucial roles on
committees, in social interactions, and in the daily economic, educational, and political life of the
city, and they did so without any significant challenges from the male establishment. Memphis’
black and white women participated in sit-ins, worked on the MCCR and the NAACP, served in
the classrooms and on the school board, and desegregated restaurants without resistance or
patronizing behavior from the men with whom they worked.20
One reason for this must have been the joint husband and wife partnerships that
frequently existed within the movement. Black and white women often found themselves
alongside their husbands in the struggle for civil rights and economic justice in Memphis, and
Cade, The Black Woman, 7; Abbey Lincoln, “Who Will Revere the Black Woman?,” in The Black Woman: An
Anthology, ed. Toni Cade, 85-89 (reprinted from Negro Digest, September 1966), 81-82; Francis Beale, “Double
Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed. Toni Cade, 90-100, 93-94; Kay
Lindsey, “The Black Woman as Woman,” in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed. Toni Cade, 143-148, 88-89;
Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, 5-6, 77-79, 116, 118; Van De Burg, New Day in
Babylon, 296-298; Dittmer, Local People, 263; Simon Wendt, The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed Resistance and
the Struggle for Civil Rights (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2007), 154, 177-178; McGuire, At the
Dark End of the Street, 21, 51.
20
Constitution and bylaws for Memphis Committee on Community Relations, including list of members with
Frances Coe among them (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.A); Maxine A. Smith, letter to War on Poverty
Committee, 7 December 1967 (Orgill papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); National Conference of Christians and Jews,
news release announcing 1977 Brotherhood Award jointly given to Ben and Julia Hooks, 2 December 1976 (PressScimitar Morgue, Fild 1418); Green, 198, 233; Michael K. Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike,
Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 38-39; Little, You
Must Be from the North, 16, 17, 32, 37, 43; Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom, 78-80.
19
69
while they formally remained within the traditionally accepted boundaries of Southern
patriarchal culture, the work these women were able to accomplish proved that female agency
existed in a variety of methods that did not always require subservient menial work or outright
defiance of accepted social norms in order to be both racially and sexually liberating. For
example, when the Sugarmons and the Willises attempted to attend a local performance of Gypsy
and were turned away, attorneys Russell Sugarmon and A.W. Willis drafted the formal letters
and initiated the process of rectifying the situation with local and national guilds, but the
presence of wives Laurie and Ann at the show and in their correspondences was no incidental
matter. Both women shared experiences in working to desegregate Memphis State University
and attending the biracial luncheons and other local activities that sought to improve race
relations formally and informally in Memphis.21 While such examples may not present the ideal
picture of feminism throwing off the shackles of male domination, many feminists agreed that
racial progress necessitated any approach that improved black lives in the 1960s, and if choice
and agency truly lie at the heart of feminism, these women deserve credit for the bold work they
performed in Memphis on behalf of the civil rights struggle.22
As in the national civil rights movement, the rise of Black Power in Memphis came into
conflict with established college-based and older desegregation activism, giving rise to gendered
interpretations of the movement and its goals for the future. Young black men who had grown
weary of modest progress and nonviolence in the face of violent white resistance challenged
Russell B. Sugarmon and A.W. Willis, letter to President of Actors’ Equity Association, 24 November 1962
(Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 15); Russell B. Sugarmon and A.W. Willis, letter to Wade H. Sides, Jr. (President,
Front Street Theatre, Memphis), c.c. Members of the Board of Governors, 24 November 1962 (ibid); Wm. F. Kirsch,
Jr., letter to R.B. Sugarmon, Jr., 28 November 1962 (ibid); Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 233; Honey,
Going Down Jericho Road, 138-139; Little, You Must Be from the North, 16, 17.
22
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
(Boston: Unwin Hyman, Inc., 1990), 19-22, 140-141; bell hooks, Bone Black: memories of girlhood (New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1966), xi-xv; Robnett, How Long? How Long?, 5-6; McGuire, At the Dark End of the
Street, 227.
21
70
established leadership to take a new, more assertive approach to the freedom struggle, and this
included reclaiming the manhood supposedly taken from oppressive white men and domineering
black women.23 In Memphis, where explicit Black Power never took hold the way it did in other
cities, the most visible example of this was the Invaders, young black men who reached their
peak during the sanitation strikes of 1968. However, unlike the Black Panthers or other similarly
militant male-dominated groups, the Invaders never gained a strong foothold or dictated the
long-term goals of the Memphis civil rights movement, and their approach proved less
masculinist in nature. In fact, the authors of the civil rights histories of Tennessee, Memphis,
and the sanitation strike all agreed that the Invaders consisted largely of high school and college
students that included women in their small numbers, and gained attention only briefly when
blamed for inciting violence during King’s march.24 While the founders, Charles Cabbage and
Coby Smith, fit the profile for educated, angry African American males focused on maledominated local economic reform, the group eventually become primarily a symbol of popularity
among black youth, and their lack of true organization combined with successful biracial and
gender-cooperative organization in the 1960s, kept them from ever reaching the kind of status
that may have afforded the same kind of sexist hierarchy and masculinist ambitions of groups
like the Black Panthers.25
23
Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1967), 455-456,
558; Cleaver, 59-60, 210; John Z. DeLorean, “The Problem,” in Black Economic Development, ed. William F
Haddad and G. Douglas Pugh (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969), 7-20, 10-11; Roy Innis,
“Separatist Economics: A New Social Contract,” in Black Economic Development, 50-59, 53, 54; C. Vann
Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Third Revised Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974),
190-191, 193-194; Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 31, 296-298; Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks
and Equality 1890-2000 (New York and London: Viking Penguin, 2001), 313; Estes, I Am a Man!, 142, 155, 165;
Patrick D. Jones, The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
London: Harvard University Press, 2009, 212, 224.
24
Bobby L. Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History (Knoxville, Tennessee: The
University of Tennessee Press, 2005), 218; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 257.
25
Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon, 296-298; Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for
Postwar Oakland (Princeton, New Jersey, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003), 231; Estes, I Am a Man!,
71
“Cause I Love You”: The Male-Female Relationship at Stax Records
The gender dynamic at Stax mirrored that in the Memphis civil rights movement, with
black-white and male-female cooperation precluding any significant conflict between
masculinity and feminism frequently discussed in civil rights scholarship. Stax, like Memphis,
did not challenge the existing gendered order in any overt ways, but the cooperative work
environment at the studio and the open gender dialogue that resulted in the music they produced
exhibited a more comfortable, egalitarian, and progressive conversation on gender and sexuality
than much of the music of the era. In particular, the examples of Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton
as brother-and-sister founders of the company and the crucial role of Deanie Parker as jack-ofall-trades at Stax demonstrated the ways that Stax Records used male and female images in soul
music to both maintain and break gender and sexual stereotypes in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Jim Stewart started Satellite Records, later renamed Stax, with money from his sister,
Estelle Axton. During the time that Estelle remained with the company, primarily running the
record shop next to the studio, she presented a starkly different authority figure than her brother.
While Stewart remained the serious, stubborn engineer and producer in the control room and at
the board meetings, Estelle frequently played the role of mother figure, nurturing young talent,
encouraging artists to listen to the latest hits, making care packages for company members in
Vietnam, and maintaining a sense a family in the company through a tumultuous period.26
Rather than being a civil rights activist or a feminist, Axton instead used her gentle demeanor
and open acceptance of others regardless of race to foster an environment of racial and gender
cooperation at Stax that mirrored the civil rights movement outside the studio. While most
155, 165; Breines, The Trouble Between Us, 23, 57-59, 68-69, 77, 156-157; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 231,
234-237, 331; Little, You Must Be from the North, 76; Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom, 78-80.
26
Parker, interview by author; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 9-10; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 10-11, 41, 84-85, 100101, 110-112, 214.
72
Southern white women remained sheltered from interactions with the African American
community, she found herself in a record store on the south side of town daily, welcoming young
black men and women from the surrounding neighborhood to listen to the latest Stax product,
inviting talented performers to test their skills in the studio, or finding ways to push her young
son, Packy, in his own rhythm and blues career.27
Despite her lack of activism, Estelle Axton shared some characteristics with white
Memphis women who participated in the local civil rights movement in the 1960s. First, none of
these women displayed any explicit desire to challenge the gender norms of the age, choosing
instead to remain primarily within acceptable roles such as charity work, education, homemakers
supporting more active husbands, or in already mixed race and gender organizations like the
MCCR. In fact, Axton may have exhibited more ambition than many of these women through
her key role in helping running a company.28 Second, Axton and her cohorts represented a
bridge generation of white Southern women, whose parents’ largely segregated history
contrasted sharply from their children’s upbringing of cultural exchange, school integration, and
varying levels of acceptance, toleration, and continued resistance to change.29 In Axton’s own
life, her husband Everett and son Packy embodied these complex social changes. While the Stax
family agreed that Everett Axton, who was prone to drinking and clearly tried to avoid
27
Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York: Harper &
Row, 1986), 108-111; Rob Bowman, “The Stax Sound: A Musicological Analysis,” in Popular Music 14, no. 3
(October 1995), p. 285-320 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 285-286; Robert Gordon, It Came
from Memphis (New York: Pocket Books, 1995), 47; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 22, 70; Gordon, Respect Yourself,
10-11, 22-23, 29, 84-85, 100-101, 110-112.
28
Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 205; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 169-172, 200, 269270; Bailey, The Education of a Black Radical, 10-11, 19; Little, You Must Be from the North, 5-6, 7-8, 9, 17, 24-25,
32, 76, 100, 152-153.
29
Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, 367-368; Norman Mailer, The White Negro: Superficial
Reflections on the Hipster (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1957), 3, 16-17; Russell B. Barbour, Black and White
Together: Plain Talk for White Christians (Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1967), 6, 47, 155;
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 68, 71-75, 81; Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 69, 82-83, 116, 165-166.
73
interaction with African Americans, displayed a cold demeanor and chose to separate himself
from the daily happenings, everyone involved in the organization shared a deep love and respect
for Estelle, who they said held the company together and set the tone for the preference of talent
over race as criteria for participation in the company.30 Their son, Packy Axton, represented the
extreme of white youth enamored with black culture. His pursuits of musical and social
interactions with the black population in Memphis became legendary, and despite the fact that
his insatiable desire to party made him difficult for the more disciplined Stax artists to work
with, Estelle never ceased to support her son, who in fact was one of the key players in originally
making Stax a biracial company focused on black music.31
In comparison to his sister, Jim Stewart presented the stubborn but respected patriarch of
the first period in Stax history.32 His development from country fiddler to black music producer
alone solidified his place in history, but in the context of shared financial responsibilities with his
sister at Stax in a city that demonstrated relatively comfortable male-female cooperation in the
civil rights movement warrants further examination from a gender perspective. To be sure, soul
music never lacked powerful female stars, but Stewart’s willingness to bring in women in
leadership positions at Stax that, while likely due in part to his business acumen and desire for
commercial success, nonetheless also hinted at a kind of moderately progressive attitude toward
women as well as African Americans. In particular, while Stewart maintained personal control
over engineering and financial decisions, he granted his sister a wide berth at the Satellite record
30
Parker, interview by author; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 41.
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 9-10, 22, 30-31, 70; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams, Take 1, 46-47; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 10-11, 16, 110-112.
32
Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 127, 163; Charlie Gillett, The Sound
of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 231-232, 233; Arnold Shaw, The World
of Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop Music Scene (New York: Cowles Book Company, Inc., 1970),
181-182; Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York:
Harper & Row, 1986), 98, 108-111, 169-170; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 317; Bowman, Soulsville,
U.S.A., 1, 9-10, 49-50; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 31-32, 220, 330.
31
74
store, often considered the gateway to the studio for aspiring artists, and while recognized early
that Deanie Parker would not become a star for the company, one of his most brilliant decisions
was to hire her to work with the company in marketing, songwriting, and production.33
Stax Records owed a great deal to Deanie Parker, who like the women of the Memphis
civil rights movement, contributed an enormous amount to the company and wielded a
significant amount of power without actually serving in an official leadership position. Her
personality, which blended quality interpersonal skills, an unmatched work ethic, and a knack for
production and marketing, made her an ideal fit for a small local company seeking national
success. After starting in the record shop, she eventually moved to publicity, where she
specialized in presenting largely inexperienced performers to the media, while continuing to
write songs, complete daily tasks, and work as a liaison with the community. In short, Parker
exemplified the kind of woman at Stax that Maxine Smith or Frances Coe strove for in the
Memphis movement. Never denying her femininity or challenging the status quo in gender
relationships, Parker nonetheless earned respect and admiration from black and white people in
Memphis and across the country and helped shape the destiny of a biracial company with a black
musical and social message in during the civil rights era.34
While other young women, black and white, entered the civil rights movement in the
1960s as naïve but energetic activists seeking to change the world in a better way, Deanie Parker
brought her intelligence and motivation to a company that needed such young talent. She
considered Estelle Axton, as she said, “because before I even knew what the word ‘mentor’
33
Parker, interview by author; Wayne Jackson (with wife Amy), phone interview by author, Des Moines, Iowa, and
Memphis, Tennessee, 14 February 2015; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 47-48; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 29, 41, 79,
84-85, 100-101.
34
Parker, interview by author; Jackson, interview by author; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 47-48; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 79.
75
meant, she did that for me, and I’m not even sure she knew what a mentor was… I learned a lot
of fundamental things from Estelle about how to be customer-friendly, and how to be persuasive,
and how to take sometimes little or nothing and make something out of it – of course, I’m black,
so I know a lot about that.”35 While she admitted to being aware of local and national civil rights
issues, she credited her move to Memphis with awakening in her the need to talk about important
issues, despite the fact that she never considered herself an activist. However, as has been noted
many times, the very act of creativity can in itself be an act of change in racial or gender
inequality, a fact she acknowledged:
…we felt we had a commitment to try and make the world in which all of
us lived, and in a smaller sense, Memphis, Tennessee, a better place, because I
think subconsciously, we enjoyed where we were working and the way that we
were getting along, so much so that if we had had the capacity to transfer that
utopian arrangement to the world outside, you know we would have done it
without giving it a second thought. We did take seriously our social
contributions, our contributions to politics. We helped some of the first young
men and women, African American, in this community who aspired to be leading
politicians, to get into office. And we also fed the hungry, we clothed the naked,
and we sheltered the homeless…Those on the outside feared the influence we had
on politics and society. That is why many on the outside found it difficult to
embrace us when we needed someone to prop us up when we were going
through our economic problems…36
Surely a Southern city in the midst of changes to tradition experienced challenges in the realms
of gender as well as race. Parker, as an ambitious young black woman, must have made quite an
impression in a local community leadership and a national music industry accustomed to doing
business with older white men. Despite her modest claims, Parker indeed breathed new life into
old institutions and helped pave the way for other women like her.37
35
Parker, interview by author.
Parker, interview by author.
37
Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm & Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 86, 106, 117-119; Collins,
Black Feminist Thought, 8, 12, 13-15, 140-141; hooks, Postmodern Blackness, 367; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 1,
19-20, 60.
36
76
A brief examination of Parker’s actual work at Stax demonstrates her immense value to
the company and the complexity of being black and a woman in a successful enterprise in the
civil rights-era South. A series of press releases in the early 1970s included biographies on some
of the biggest Stax stars of the day, including David Porter, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, and
Rufus Thomas. The Porter and Hayes articles, chronicling the songwriting and singing sides of
both men, spent a fair amount of time playing up their sexuality. In particular, the Porter
autobiography focused on his astrological sign, Scorpio, which represents both sexual power and
a strong drive for success. Such descriptions obliterated any attempt to connect Parker’s work to
feminism, but the fact that an ambitious young black woman was behind the piece demands a
more nuanced understanding of the male-female dynamic than simple essentialist categories like
masculinist or feminist allow.38 Less emphatically masculine or sexual than Porter’s, her work
on Hayes’s biography discussed his “imposing” demeanor and “gentle” personality, with “beauty
and sadness and wisdom in his music.” Like Parker, Hayes also offered a complicated but
important representation of the failure of either-or approaches to masculinity and femininity in
the music of the civil rights era. While Robert Gordon interpreted Hayes’s persona as more
carnal, Parker seemed to provide a balance through his civil rights activism and warmth.39 The
biographies of the Staple Singers and Rufus Thomas did less than their body of recorded work in
truly representing the complex gender identity at work in their music, but both articles rightly
mention the importance of the daughters brought to Stax by their fathers: the Queen of Memphis
Deanie Parker (Director of Press & Information), “David Porter: A Scorpio with His Eye on the Stars,” Stax Press
Release (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889).
39
Deanie Parker, “Biography of Isaac Hayes,” Stax Press Release, 30 March 1971 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
55889); Gordon, Respect Yourself, 237-238.
38
77
Soul, beautiful and delicate Carla Thomas, and one of the most powerful gospel-inspired female
voices in the history of black popular music, Mavis Staples.40
Outside of her official Stax publications, Parker remained involved in local events around
Memphis, which brought her into contact with important government officials and civil rights
activists. In 1971, when racial violence broke out and Mayor Henry Loeb instituted a curfew
that the black community knew had the potential to harm them disproportionately and lead to
further rioting, Isaac Hayes led a contingent of Stax employees to join local activists in lobbying
for a compromise. After meeting with city council chairman Jerred Blanchard, the black
Memphis representatives succeeded in encouraging Loeb to lift the curfew, after which time they
went through the streets of Memphis together encouraging peaceful adherence to the law.
Deanie Parker was among those who accomplished this important work.41 That same year, Stax
decided to award W.C. Handy’s friend and advocate, longtime political activist George Lee, for
his contributions to preserving Memphis black music history. Certainly no one overlooked the
fact that Lee also had a distinguished career as a spokesman for black rights and black political
involvement in Memphis, a reputation Stax was quickly developing for itself under the guidance
of Deanie Parker.42
Deanie Parker’s admiration of Estelle Axton demonstrated the point this chapter seeks to
make about gender and race in 1960s Memphis, namely, that no academically constructed
“Rufus Thomas – 40 Years of Memphis Soul,” Stax Biography, 3 July 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867);
“Biography: The Staple Singers,” no official letterhead/publication information (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
60101).
41
“Citizenship In Action,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 22 October 1971 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889);
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 264-265.
42
Deanie Parker (Publicity Director, Stax Records, Inc.), letter to Lieutenant George W. Lee, 14 May 1971
(Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis & Shelby County Room: George W. Lee
Collection, Box III, Folder 67). Coincidentally, Steve Cropper also invited Lee to a cocktail reception hosted by his
new company, Trans Maximus, which he formed after leaving Stax: Jerry L. Williams, letter to Lt. George W. Lee,
18 May 1971 (Lee Collection, Box III, Folder 67).
40
78
categories truly captured the essence of black-white and male-female interactions during this
complicated time. Much like Maxine Smith or Frances Coe in the Memphis civil rights
movement, Parker and Axton never claimed to be feminists, nor did they act as such, choosing
instead to work within the established gender norms of a traditional Southern city. However,
their work inadvertently challenged the status quo by blurring accepted gender roles and forging
a new understanding of the work women could do in music and in civil rights. What resulted
was a nuanced approach to commercial and social progress that made Stax and Memphis
important case studies in the intersectionality of race and gender in the civil rights era.
“Let Me Be Good to You”: Analysis of Stax Music in Keeping and Breaking Gender Stereotypes
Carla Thomas came to Stax Records with her father, Rufus, a local celebrity on the radio
and at local talent shows. The two achieved early success with the company through a duet,
“Cause I Love You,” which helped spread their fame beyond Memphis onto the national scene.43
Carla Thomas, a product of Booker T. Washington High School, established herself as the
reigning queen of early Memphis soul with several comfortable pop hits, “Gee Whiz (Look at
His Eyes)” and “B-A-B-Y,” which exemplified the common 1960s approach to black female
stars as soft, pretty, and sweet young love.44
“Gee Whiz” contained the 12/8 feel and the mostly I-IV-V harmonies standard to rhythm
and blues ballads of the late 1950s and early 1960s, along with lyrics of longing and adoration
that emphasized the innocence and longing of the young singer. Jim Stewart and his production
team at Stax certainly knew what would become a hit, as the style was indicative of the kind of
Carla and Rufus, Deep Down Inside/Cause I Love You, © 1960 by Satellite Records, S-102, “Cause I Love You;”
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 9; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 31-32.
44
Carla Thomas, Gee Whiz, © 1961 by Atlantic, 8057, “Gee Whiz;” Carla Thomas, Comfort Me, © 1966 by Stax,
STAX 709, “B-A-B-Y.”
43
79
material that made earlier vocal groups successful regionally and nationally. 45 If Stax eventually
balanced a drive for commercial success with sociopolitical statements about race or gender,
certainly at the company’s inception the focus was on the former. However, Stewart’s
willingness to work with the Thomas family (Carla’s brother Marvell also played piano on many
Stax sessions over the years), alongside Atlantic executive Jerry Wexler, demonstrated a
progressive enough attitude to take advantage of biracial cooperation in his quest to build a
record company. For example, neither Stewart nor Wexler were entirely prepared for the
dangers of such cooperation in the early 1960s South, where a meeting at the Peabody Hotel with
Wexler necessitated sneaking through the back entrance and resulted in the vice squad arriving at
Wexler’s room on rumors of “race mixing.”46
By 1966, Thomas possessed more of the soulful Stax sound, but her repertoire remained
comparatively light. “B-A-B-Y” maintained a solid gospel influence, with a plagal cadence
punctuating the I and IV chords over the main section of the song. Well into Stax’s growth as
well as the era of the mainstream civil rights movement, the lyrics to “B-A-B-Y” continued to
emphasize youthful romance and feminine deference, as evidenced in “when you squeeze me
real tight, you make wrong things right.” The song contained none of the assertive messages
common to other hits from the songwriting team of David Porter and Isaac Hayes, leaving one to
question whether Thomas’s music had anything new to contribute to the male-female dialogue in
black popular music.47
For example, the song shared many of the characteristics of The Penguins’s 1954 hit “Earth Angel:” The
Penguins, Hey Senorita/Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine), © 1954 Dootone Records, 348. See also: Stuart L.
Goosman, Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm & Blues (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2005), 2, 10, 73-74, 111-120; Richard J. Ripani, The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 19501999 (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 70.
46
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 19-20; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 126-129; McGuire, At the Dark End
of the Street, 7-8; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 41, 179, 338.
47
Comfort Me, “B-A-B-Y;” Parker, “David Porter” (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889). For example, compared
to Sam and Dave hits like “Hold On, I’m Comin’” and “Soul Man,” Carla Thomas’s repertoire contained none of the
45
80
Yet, Carla Thomas demonstrated an important component to the discussion of
intersectional oppression and postmodern analysis of popular music: If African Americans and
women were to become truly equal, their music need not have been entirely different or
message-oriented. In that sense, simply making hit songs in a conventional manner may have
been in itself a social or political statement about accepting Thomas on her own terms.48
Furthermore, despite previous attempts to make clear differentiation between Stax in Memphis
and Motown in Detroit, Carla Thomas clearly represented the more polished, sweet, and multiracially acceptable side of Stax, a quality that everyone from Berry Gordy to Martin Luther
King, Jr., acknowledged as vital to the success of the movement in white-controlled society.49
Finally, the music of Carla Thomas employed two techniques that set her apart from the typically
strong-willed Jim Stewart’s formula: strings and background vocals. The standard fare for
Stax’s soul success existed in horn backgrounds and a gritty southern sound from the rhythm
section, a formula that rarely allowed for some of the standard techniques that became signatures
in Detroit or Philadelphia. (To be sure, much of this existed due to financial reasons, as the
southern company often did not have the money for such extravagances.) For Carla Thomas,
though, Memphis strings and background singers formed the backbone of some of her greatest
hits, a luxury that may have actually indicated preferential treatment for the young black woman.
civil rights messaging, leaving one to wonder if Hayes and Porter intended for the men to lead the conversation on
civil rights: Sam and Dave, Hold On, I’m Comin’, © 1966 by Stax, SD 708, “Hold On, I’m Comin’;” Sam and
Dave, Soul Men, © 1967 by Stax, S 725, “Soul Man.”
48
Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to
Freedom, 30th Anniversary Edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977, 2007), 7-8, 239-240;
Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 14-15, 19-22, 28-29, 105-106, 140-141; hooks , Postmodern Blackness, 367, 368;
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1993); Joe Street, The Culture War in the Civil Rights Movement (Gainesville, Florida: University
Press of Florida, 2007), 6-9, 172-173.
49
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 48, 49-50; Glenn T. Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements
in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and London: The University of North Carolina Press,
1997), 31, 216; Suzanne E. Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999), 47-48, 135, 140, 143-144.
81
The appearance of old fashioned lyrics and traditional techniques in Thomas songs, then, like the
appearance of deference to established gender order in the Memphis civil rights movement,
should not automatically be interpreted as adherence to the status quo in racial and gender
norms.50
Perhaps more than anyone else at Stax Records, Otis Redding defined the company’s
sound and image through the mid-1960s. Redding was beloved by everyone at the company, and
his music (much of which he wrote or co-wrote) offered a highly valuable glimpse into the
slightly warmer, more loving masculinity of Stax’s male performers compared to the likes of
James Brown or Marvin Gaye.51 Self-described in his own composition, “Love Man,” as “six
feet one, ‘bout two hundred and ten,” the man from Macon, Georgia, became the biggest star at
Stax in the years before his tragic plane crash in 1967.52 Redding’s bold, fun-loving personality,
combined with a wide range of songs about love, power, respect, and tenderness in male-female
relationships, demonstrated the nuanced approach to gender within Stax male performances that
mirrored the more inclusive but still traditionally rooted gender relationships in the Memphis
civil rights movement.
Two famous Redding songs, “Love Man” and “Respect,” appeared on the surface to be
standard masculinist fare, but taking into consideration the musical and historical context,
showed a much warmer approach to romantic relationships than previous blues or rhythm and
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 290-291, 310-311, 314-316; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 179; Roy Brewer, “String
Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee,” in Popular Music 19, no. 2 (April 2000), 201-215
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 202, 205, 209; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 43-44, 96, 202-204.
51
Ritz, “Happy Song,” 51-52; Haralambos, Right On, 112, 115; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 131, 147, 149;
Ellison, Lyrical Protest, 123-124; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 123; Jackson,
In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 111; Ripani, The New Blue Music, 85; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come:
Music, Race & the Soul of America (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 137-138.
52
Otis Redding, Love Man, © 1969 by Atco Records, SD 33-289, “Love Man;” Jackson, interview by author;
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 123; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 123-124, 158.
50
82
blues songs had tended to contain.53 “Love Man,” an up-tempo groove with a blues-inspired
harmony based primarily on the I, IV, and V chords, Redding’s lyric mostly bragged of his
physical prowess and ability to please women. According to Charles Keil, this sense of sexual
power carried on the blues tradition of a kind of battle of the sexes, where black women often
claimed that men were no good, and black men sought to restore their previously emasculated
power by stating their dominance over women. While in song this power remained largely
sexual, in the social and historical context it touched on social gender relationships in the home
and community.54 This limited analysis is problematic, though, because despite the clear lineage
from the blues to soul, historical changes in the black experience brought greater social stability
that led to a more inclusive, if still male-dominated understanding of not just sexual conquest but
of warm love and a desire for companionship, and at times, even partnership.55 Musically, while
“Love Man” paid homage to the blues in both the chord changes and the horn and guitar
backgrounds, which emphasized the flatted seventh, it also contained a brief instrumental bridge
section with a common Redding technique of moving from the tonic down a major third to the
major flat sixth chord, with an octave line of B – A – G – D, then B – A – G – F# to carry back
to the tonic. Such a line, while not non-existent in the blues, signaled a fresh approach to
harmony in soul music at the same time his open invitation for love (“Which one of you girls
want me to hold you?”) offered a new attitude toward sexual and romantic relationships.56
Otis Redding’s most famous song became so in the hands of Aretha Franklin, whose
legendary rendition of “Respect” became such a powerful anthem for African Americans and
Love Man, “Love Man;” Otis Redding, Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, © 1965 by ATCO Records, S-412.
Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 8-9, 98-99; Ward, Just
My Soul Responding, 72-73, 79.
55
Ritz, “Happy Song,” 51-52; Haralambos, Right On, 112-117.
56
Love Man, “Love Man;” Ritz and Haralambos, ibid; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 371.
53
54
83
women in the late 1960s and early 1970s that Redding’s original version often remains
underappreciated. The song apparently took on new meaning in the hands of a black woman,
who arguably took a traditional theme of the man demanding respect and transformed it into a
new late-1960s message that women in general – and black women in particular – would no
longer be passive victims of masculinist thought and action.57 However, Redding’s original
version provided a tempered outlook on race and gender, rather than a stark contrast to
Franklin’s remake. Once again, his lyrics failed to challenge the overriding male dominance of
the era, but offered a sense of cooperation and appreciation that marked a change from earlier
power-based themes common to the blues. For example, he described his potential mate as
“sweeter than honey,” and promised to give her “all of my money;” in return, he asked, rather
than demanded, “a little respect when I come home.” While any honest analysis of the lyrics
rightly interpret “respect” to mean sex, the fact that Redding asked for it, paid a compliment, and
offered to care financially for his partner demonstrated a gradual but noticeable change in
romantic relationships. Furthermore, while Franklin changed the opening verse to “what you
want, you know I got it,” Redding’s original stated, “honey, you got it,” perhaps drawing a direct
line to the current African American trend – and eventual feminist sentiment – of selfdetermination and agency – even the “Love Man” acknowledged that woman’s happiness and
power ultimately resided within herself, even if in 1960s Memphis the norms still required male
leadership. Redding, like other men inside and outside the McLemore studio, were not feminists,
Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, © 1967 by Atlantic, SD 8139, “Respect;” Collins,
Black Feminist Thought, 107; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 361-362; Werner, Higher Ground, 134; Werner, A
Change Is Gonna Come, 116; Michael Awkward, Soul Covers: Rhythm and Blues Remakes and the Struggle for
Artistic Identity (Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Phoebe Snow) (Durham, North Carolina, and London: Duke University
Press, 2007), 75-76.
57
84
but neither were they aligned with the chauvinist nature of Stokely Carmichael or the Black
Panthers, further demonstrating the futility of essentialist categories in the realm of gender.58
Musically, “Respect” maintained a highly positive feeling, avoiding even the blue notes
found in other Stax hits and remaining strictly diatonic except for the short instrumental bridge
alternating between the flat seventh and the flat sixth (even those chords were still major). The
slightly faster tempo and the major pentatonic horn lines provided a sense of joy that tends to
support this interpretation of the song as a positive interaction, especially Wayne Jackson’s clear,
almost classical octave jump prior to the vocal entrance. Jackson’s own personal recollections of
Redding included using his good looks and fame to simultaneously embarrass and enthrall young
female workers at Kentucky Fried Chicken, as well as hosting an enormous party at his ranch
that welcomed men and women, black and white equally to celebrate music and friendship.
These anecdotes belied any sense of masculinist demands, and instead pointed to a fun-loving
entertainer with an enormous personality who sought to make music and enjoy life.59 David
Ritz, in a 1970 article, gave further credence to this, noting that while on the surface black men
sang about conquest and devotion in equal parts, at all times artists like Redding intended to
convey a sense of “warm and inviting” love for women. Not entirely free of the male-dominated
norms of the day, Redding’s “Respect” paved a new path for deeper cooperation between black
men and women in music and in the civil rights struggle.60
If Otis Redding’s up-tempo songs provided more of Ritz’s conquest themes, his ballads
offered a glimpse of his warm devotion and inclusion of women. When Redding collaborated
with Booker T. and the MG’s on the American standard “Try a Little Tenderness,” the result was
Otis Blue, “Respect;” Ellison, Lyrical Protest, 126-127; hooks, Postmodern Blackness, 367; Breines, The Trouble
Between Us, 23, 25, 27-28, 77; Wendt, The Spirit and the Shotgun, 177-178.
59
Jackson, interview by author; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 94-95, 134-135.
60
Ritz, “Happy Song,” 51-52.
58
85
a soulful and entirely new interpretation of a classic that breathed activist life into a formerly
paternalistic song.61 Their arrangement opened with a trumpet-saxophone chorale that blended
gospel harmonies with an almost Baroque sound, followed by the opening verse sung rubato
with guitar accompaniment from Steve Cropper. What happened next seemed to encapsulate the
entire soul genre in one song: Al Jackson provided a quarter-note click on the rim of the snare
drum, and the band went into an almost Latin feel common to early black popular music such as
The Drifters, but as the song developed, eventually climaxing with the fadeout on the tag ending,
it exhibited the gospel frenzy and blues sentiment that Ray Charles and Sam Cooke had started
and that Stax carried to new musical heights.62 In the capable hands of Redding, the MG’s, and
the Memphis Horns, “Try a Little Tenderness” transformed a song about caring for a sad woman
into a message of understanding, empathy, and uplift. He chose to abandon the clearly
patronizing words of the introductory verse:
In the hustle of the day, we’re all inclined to miss
Little things that mean so much, a word, a smile, and a kiss
When a woman loves a man, he’s a hero in her eyes
And a hero he can always be, if he’ll just realize63
While other artists like Frank Sinatra understood “wearing the same shabby dress” or “things she
may never possess” as needing a man to fill the void in a phallocentric society, Otis Redding
seemed to interpret them as the trappings of a former era forced on women who desired an equal
place with men. Clearly Redding found more meaning in the bridge than the introduction, where
“it’s not just sentimental, no no no, she has her grief and care, yeah yeah yeah.” Certainly the
Ray Noble and His Orchestra, Notable Noble, © 1932 by World Records, SH 429, “Try a Little Tenderness;” Otis
Redding, Try a Little Tenderness, © 1966 by Volt, V-141, “Try a Little Tenderness.”
62
Examples include: The Drifters, This Magic Moment/Baltimore, © 1960 by Atlantic, 45-2050, “This Magic
Moment;” The Drifters, Under the Boardwalk, © 1964 by Atlantic, SD 8099, “Under the Boardwalk,” “On
Broadway,” “Up On the Roof;” Ray Charles, I Got a Woman/Come Back, © 1954 by Atlantic, 1050; Sam Cooke,
Twistin’ the Night Away, © 1962 by RCA Victor, SF-5133, “Twistin’ the Night Away;” Sam Cooke, Having a
Party/Bring It on Home to Me, © 1962 by RCA Victor, RCA-1296, “Bring It on Home to Me.”
63
Frank Sinatra, Try a Little Tenderness, © 1967 by Capitol Records, SPC 3452, “Try a Little Tenderness.”
61
86
answer may have been found partially in romantic love, as evidenced in the closing exclamations
of “squeeze her,” but when he added “don’t tease her” and “never leave her,” once again
Redding demonstrated the nuanced approach indicative of gradual change within progressive
males in the 1960s who recognized both the need to include women as equals and the
pragmatism of acknowledging accepted gender norms to achieve civil rights goals in Memphis.64
The 12/8 ballad, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” further demonstrated the complexity
of Redding’s body of work and the failure of a masculinist-feminist binary to adequately frame
analysis of gender in the civil rights movement. Musically, the song bore the trademarks of a
Redding composition and performance, with harmonic movement in sixths and thirds but using
major chords, and a higher vocal range that brought his signature emotional cry to the lyric. 65 To
be sure, black popular music prior to Redding and Stax already contained a wealth of themes
around losing a beloved woman, but this approach was markedly different. Rather than anger or
sadness, Redding exhibited a urgent and pleading desire to keep the relationship intact. Making
no promises, showing no dominance, he simply acknowledged that the woman grew tired and
wanted freedom but expressed his deep love for her and laid out his fear of losing her. In so
doing, theorists of masculinism might accuse him of falling victim to emasculation, and
feminists scholars might compare his song to the racial and sexual violence committed against
black men in the name of protecting white womanhood, but both would be significantly off
Try a Little Tenderness, “Try a Little Tenderness;” Edmund Orgill, letter to Mrs. Hubert F. Fisher, 3 March 1956
(Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A; Edward J. Meeman, “To My Negro Friends,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 29
October 1962, 6 (University of Memphis, Special Collections: Edward Meeman Papers, MVP 2207, MS 85, Box 2,
Folder 3); correspondence between Russell Sugarmon, president of Actors’ Equity Association, Wade H. Sides, and
Wm. F. Kirsch, regarding mistreatment of Mr. and Mrs. Sugarmon and Mr. and Mrs. Willis at local production of
Gypsy, November 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 15); Mrs. Maxine A. Smith, letter to War on Poverty
Committee, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); “Job Gains Are Urged For Women, Blacks,”
Memphis Press-Scimitar, 23 September 1973 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 1418).
65
Otis Blue, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long;” Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 244; Gordon, Respect Yourself,
96.
64
87
target.66 Understanding Otis Redding as a southern black man in the 1960s who worked with
black and white people as well as men and women helps shape a middle ground for “I’ve Been
Loving You Too Long” as a forthright and deeply connective song between a person still in love
and a person seeking to leave the relationship. Placed in this context, the song continued to push
for a gradually new understanding of equal gender relationships without overtly challenging the
established expectations of society. It seemed only fitting that the song ended on a vamp
between B-flat major and G-flat major, a decidedly non-traditional chord progression that left the
listener in a sort of limbo that mirrored the turbulent and changing racial and gender dynamic of
the civil rights era.
In addition to Carla Thomas and Otis Redding, Stax also featured traditional blues artists
who presented a fascinating study of the interplay of traditional and progressive gender dialogues
in music. Two of the finest examples included Johnnie Taylor and Mable John. Both artists
developed out of the blues tradition more than the newer soul idiom, but their convergence at
Stax in the 1960s and 1970s framed their blues performances in a slightly different light than
more strictly blues-oriented stars like B.B. King or Bobby Bland.67 The male Taylor’s approach
sought a deeper understanding of the root causes of male-female problems, while the female
John’s songs demonstrated the continued lineage of earlier female stars using the blues as
personal and political expression of sexual and political liberation.
66
Masculinist readings of reclaiming emasculated manhood include: Moynihan, The Negro Family, 51, 62, 74;
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 16-17, 206; Daryl Cumber Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black
Americans (Bloomington, Indiana, and London: Indiana University Press, 1978), 102-103, 110-112; Van De Burg,
New Day in Babylon, 296-298; Estes, I Am a Man!, 7-8, 35, 62-63, 74-75, 139, 155, 165; Wendt, The Spirit and the
Shotgun, 154, 177-178. Feminist readings of racial and sexual problems for black men include: Wallace, Invisibility
Blues, 19-20; Evans, Personal Politics, 78-82; Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 69, 177-179; Breines, The Trouble
Between Us, 27-28, 61; McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 21, 49, 121-122, 174-175.
67
B.B. King, Singin’ the Blues, © 1957 by Crown Records, CLP 5020; Bobby Bland, Two Steps from the Blues, ©
1961 by Duke, DLP 74; Haralambos, Right On, 21-25.
88
Two of Johnnie Taylor’s songs, “I Got to Love Somebody’s Baby” and “Who’s Making
Love,” exemplified this old-and-new approach to gender relationships in the blues.68 The first,
written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, contained familiar blues themes of infidelity and malefemale relationship problems, but with a slightly different twist. In this song, rather than calling
the unfaithful woman no good or taking retaliatory action against the other man, Taylor simply
began the search for another partner, even if that woman was already in a relationship herself.
Taylor demonstrated the macho bravado of a blues man who cared little for the feelings of others
in his desire for sexual conquest, but also accepted the agency of other women who could freely
make the choice to take on other lovers as well.69 “Who’s Making Love” took these notions to a
new level, challenging unfaithful men to consider the fact that their own partners were likely
unfaithful “while you were out making love.” While Redding, Taylor, and the other men of Stax
may not have fought for women’s political and economic equality, they at least recognized the
changing times and capitalized on the notion that sexual prowess and infidelity were no longer
merely men’s territory.
Brian Ward addressed this issue in his analysis of soul music, noting that animosity
between black men and women often became the subject of black popular music, but that such
issues of power and control were often exaggerations intended to express cultural issues rather
than true mirror images of reality. Additionally, he accurately recognized that many black
singers, such as Johnnie Taylor, exhibited macho and sensitivity simultaneously.70 Trumpeter
Wayne Jackson acknowledged the wake-up call that “Who’s Making Love” sounded to men of
Johnnie Taylor, I Got to Love Somebody’s Baby/Just the One I’ve Been Looking For, © 1966 by Stax, S-193, “I
Got To Love Somebody’s Baby;” Johnnie Taylor, Who’s Making Love, © 1968 by Stax, STS 2005, “Who’s Making
Love.”
69
I Got to Love Somebody’s Baby, “I Got to Love Somebody’s Baby;” Jones, Blues People, 28-29; Keil, Urban
Blues, 8-9, 15-16, 185-186; Ritz, “Happy Song,” 51-52; Haralambos, Right On, 59, 112-117; Ellison, Lyrical
Protest, 115-116, 119.
70
Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 72-73, 79, 371, 375, 379.
68
89
the era: “It was during a time when I was certainly guilty of those charges, and it nailed me right
between the eyes. So if you think the horn lines are particularly inspired during that session,
you’re one hundred percent correct!”71 It is especially important to consider the fact that “Who’s
Making Love” was co-written by Bettye Crutcher, one of the most important writers in the later
years of Stax Records. Typically partnered with Homer Banks and Raymond Jackson, Crutcher
once admitted in an interview that she wrote “mostly for women and children,” because they
represented the largest numbers of record buyers, but this song demonstrated far more depth of
understanding as a black woman in the civil rights era.72
Blues women never exhibited any lack of depth in sexual and racial relations, and Mable
John sought to continue that lineage during her tenure at Stax. “Able Mable,” unlike male love
songs like “Love Man” or “I Got to Love Somebody’s Baby,” held nothing back. John exhibited
all of the bravado and sexual power often attributed to the blues men and women of earlier years,
and her candid willingness to share her pride in her skills represented a stark contrast to the
nuanced, often veiled approach of the male Stax performers.73 John’s assertiveness in sexual
relations shared similarities with Maxine Smith’s assertiveness in civil rights activism, as both
women reached beyond widely accepted gender norms in their quest for musical success and
civil rights gains.74 When Mable John performed Hayes and Porter’s “Your Good Thing Is
About to End,” she signaled to disrespectful men a new kind of black woman, no longer willing
71
Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1, 176.
Mary Ann Lee, “Composers Tell Do’s, Don’t’s of Songwriting, Memphis Press-Scimitar, 2 March 1973 (PressScimitar Morgue, File 2106).
73
Mable John, Able Mable/Don’t Get Caught, © by Stax, S-249, “Able Mable.”
74
Mrs. Maxine A. Smith, letter to War on Poverty Committee, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder
III.F); Maxine Smith, Memo to Human Relations Council and Alliance of Community Organizations, January 1968
(Smith NAACP Collection, Box V, Folder 14); Maxine Smith, Memo to Memphis Alliance of Community
Organizations Steering Committee, May 1969 (Smith NAACP Collection, Box V, Folder 14).
72
90
to put up with oppression or inequality.75 The man, clearly fortunate to have such a woman,
received notice that mistreatment would no longer be tolerated, and while the song never
achieved the same level as Aretha Franklin’s remake of “Respect,” it could have easily served as
a black feminist anthem for its social undertones.76 Neither explicitly challenging existing norms
nor succumbing entirely to prevailing establishment views, Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, Johnnie
Taylor, and Mable John represented the blended views and transitioning approaches to gender in
the civil rights movement.
Conclusion
It was no mere coincidence that men in Memphis during the civil rights era held key
positions as mayors, principals, and record executives, even though those who knew better
readily accepted and encouraged a gradual but recognizable increase in female occupation of key
roles. Memphis men and women seemed to understand implicitly that few tangible civil rights
and economic gains would be made if at the same time they attempted to move too fast on
feminist gains. Admittedly, this outlook opened analyses to the same criticism as civil rights
movements in other places, namely, that the quest for full equality struggled in the face of
divisions of race, gender, sexuality, or class, typically with women forced to wait for race gains
and black women suffering the double indignity of sexual and racial oppression. Yet Memphis
experienced significant successes in desegregation and job gains that eluded other cities for
years, and did so with cooperative leadership from black and white men and women, and they
Mable John, Your Good Thing (Is About to End)/It’s Catching, © 1966 by Stax, S-192, “Your Good Thing (Is
About to End).”
76
Cade, The Black Woman, 7, 164; bell hooks, Bone Black: memories of girlhood (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1996), xii-xiii; Wallace, Invisibility Blues, 14, 19-20, 23; Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 5, 13-15, 2829, 100, 107.
75
91
did so largely because of their ability to act in a progressive fashion within established southern
gender norms.
James Cone argued that to truly understand the theology of Black Power, white people
must in a sense become black.77 In a similar way, one might argue that to truly understand the
goals and needs of feminism, men must in a sense become like women. Perhaps without truly
understanding this, the activists in Memphis and the artists at Stax played a role in that process.
When Edmund Orgill called upon women to serve on biracial community organizations, when
Jim Stewart and Al Bell gave increasing authority and respect to Deanie Parker and Estelle
Axton, or when Otis Redding and Johnnie Taylor treated women with greater agency than male
performers before them, the men at Stax and throughout Memphis acted in a moderately
progressive manner. No one could consider them feminists, but their understanding of the need
for racial equality in Memphis and at Stax must have influenced their desire to cooperate with
some of the brightest and most talented women in their fields.
Deanie Parker, Estelle Axton, Maxine Smith, Frances Coe, Carla Thomas, and Mable
John represented the range of remarkable women at Stax Records and in the Memphis civil
rights movement whose work challenged the binary understanding of masculine reclamation or
feminist empowerment in civil rights scholarship. None of them claimed to be feminists, nor did
their work focus on overtly feminist causes, but their very existence as strong and capable
women working in previously male-dominated fields such as record production and civil rights
also served to further women’s rights by demonstrating their desire and ability to work alongside
men in leadership positions. While Memphis did not represent progressive feminist
developments in the civil rights era, the civil rights movement benefited enormously from its
77
James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), 53-54, 71, 134, 147148, 151.
92
leadership’s pragmatic approach to improving the gender relationships without explicitly
challenging existing gender norms.
93
CHAPTER 4
I’LL TAKE YOU THERE
Stax Records, Memphis Civil Rights, and the Blurred Lines of Sacred and Secular Activism
Roebuck “Pop” Staples raised his children to love music, faith, and justice. His
daughters, Mavis, Cleo, and Yvonne, and son Pervis, joined him to create The Staple Singers,
who eventually landed at Stax. Pop Staples’ family band started by singing mostly gospel, and
worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., to help spread his Christian-based civil rights work through
music. The Staple Singers became international stars performing a hybrid of gospel and soul
with a decidedly social justice-driven message, and alongside Isaac Hayes, they helped define
the second Al Bell era of the Stax sound.1
After King’s assassination, Al Bell felt inspired to use Stax Records to emphasize the
notion of black economic empowerment, which led him to collaborate with civil rights leaders
like Jesse Jackson. Such partnerships brought Stax into a new era of direct activism and
facilitated the rise of the Staple Singers with such hit songs as “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take
You There.” If Stax’s early years focused on making hit records and inadvertently contributing
to the sound of the civil rights movement, the later years, especially as exemplified in The Staple
Singers, demonstrated a bold new direction of civil rights activism through community action,
national support for the movement, and music with an explicit civil rights message. Ironically,
this message primarily focused on Christian themes of community, peace, love, and respect,
“Biography: The Staple Singers,” 8 August 1973 (University of Memphis, Special Collections: Memphis PressScimitar Morgue, File 60101); Arnold Shaw, The World of Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop Music
Scene (New York: Cowles Book Company, Inc., 1970), 198-199; Rob Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of
Stax Records (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 157.
1
94
while the national civil rights movement apparently moved toward a secular focus on Black
Power.2
In the Black Power era, the new social justice oriented Stax contributed to the civil rights
conversation with gospel-infused, religious-driven music that inspired a nation seemingly
moving toward secular notions of black empowerment and self-determination. The results
challenged the older academic notions and prevailing music literature claiming that civil rights
activism and soul music existed in a sacred-secular binary. This was primarily due to the fact
that African American life and culture existed in a holistic nature that defied boundaries and
incorporated Christian beliefs and practices into everyday life.3 The mixed sacred and secular
nature of the Memphis civil rights movement and the music and activism at Stax Records
challenged the notion of separation between religious and secular approaches to the movement in
general. I demonstrate this first by examining the interactions between religious, civic, and
Sources on Stax’s sacred-influenced civil rights direction include: Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 143-145, 157, 202205, 236, 259-260, 290-291; Robert Gordon, Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (New York:
Bloomsbury USA, 2013), 188-189, 199, 220-221, 245, 264-265, 269-271, 284-286. Sources on the national
movement’s secular-oriented nationalist direction include: Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (New
York: William Morrow & Company, 1967), 383, 455-456; C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow,
Third Revised Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974, 1955, 1965), 190-191, 193-194; Adam
Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000 (New York and London: Viking Penguin, 2001),
313; Steve Estes, I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and
London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 142; Laurie B. Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality:
Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press,
2007), 253-254, 257.
3
Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 25-26; LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka),
“The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music),” in Black Music (New York: William Morrow & Company,
Inc., 1971), 180-211, 182-183; James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation (New York: The
Seabury Press, 1972), 29-30, 35, 111, 119; Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: AfroAmerican Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom, 30th Anniversary Edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1977, 2007), 7-8, 239-240; Aldon D Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black
Communities Organizing for Change (New York and London: The Free Press, 1984), 5, 97; Brian Ward, Just My
Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and
London: University of California Press, 1998), 184, 192, 202; Teresa L. Reed, The Holy Profane: Religion in Black
Popular Music (Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003), 12, 39-40, 93-94, 111-112; David
L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and
London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 86, 87; Jennifer Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness’: Soul and
Salvation in Memphis Music” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008, 16, 31, 43.
2
95
educational institutions in the Memphis movement, then by comparing key scholarship on sacred
and secular issues in black music to the reality at Stax, and finally by analyzing selected Stax
music, especially from Eddie Floyd, Albert King, and of course The Staple Singers.
“Respect Yourself”: Sacred and Secular Interactions in the Memphis Movement
As in other southern cities, the black church exerted a powerful influence on Memphis. It
offered a refuge for African American free expression, provided an impetus for social justice and
community activism, and served as a training ground for young musicians. The Church of God
in Christ originated in Memphis, and included white civic leaders in its celebrations while
maintaining the proud tradition of black Christian theology. Church leaders played key roles in
Memphis activism, most notably James Lawson’s participation in the 1968 sanitation strike.
Memphis musicians, including those who worked at Stax, often cited the church as their primary
source of music education, where young black musicians sat on laps or mimicked their mentors
without plugging into amplifiers to learn how to play and sing.4 Additionally, several white
churches and synagogues proved willing to support the black freedom struggle, although these
4
Bishop Cornelius Range, Sr., letter to Mayor Edmund Orgill, 25 October 1957; Mayor Edmund Orgill, letter to
Bishop Louis Henry Ford, 28 October 1957; Mayor Edmund Orgill, letter to Bishop Cornelius Range, 29 October
1957 (University of Memphis, Special Collections, Mississippi Valley Collection: Edmund Orgill Papers, MSS 87,
Box 16, Folder IX.A); Lucius E. Burch, Jr., letter to Dr. W.B. Selah (First Methodist Church, Jackson, Mississippi),
8 January 1963 (University of Memphis, Special Collections, Mississippi Valley Collection: Lucius E. Burch
Papers, MSS 126, Box 46); Jane Anderson, “Isaac Hayes, Soul, and Symphony: It’s the Hot Buttered Blen for a
Concert Called ‘Fusion’ at the Coliseum Tomorrow Night,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 2 April 1971 (University of
Memphis, Special Collections: Memphis Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); William, H. Chafe, Civilities and
Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1980), 25; David M. Tucker, Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civil Reformers 19481968 (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980), 135-136; Morris, 5, 12, 97; C. Eric Lincoln
and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, North Carolina, and
London: Duke University Press, 1990), 97, 195, 212; Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 87; Green, Battling the Plantation
Mentality, 174-176; Michael K. Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last
Campaign (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 220, 222; Ryan, 16, 43, 153-154; Levon
Williams (Curator of Collections/Registrar, Stax Museum of American Soul), interview by author, Memphis,
Tennessee, 16 July 2013.
96
tended to be the smaller denominations in Memphis, such as Catholics, Unitarians, and Jews.5
Yet, the majority of civil rights leadership came not from clergy, but from secular fields,
including law, education, and business.6 This phenomenon, rather than contradicting the notion
of a church-led movement, exemplified the problematic nature of constructed binaries of sacred
and secular in understanding the civil rights movement, for in Memphis, as in African American
culture generally, the sacred and secular regularly and seamlessly intersected in social and
political activism.
Memphis churches and religious organizations frequently interacted with civic leadership
throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Edmund Orgill, personally a racial moderate but in reality the
most progressive mayor of the civil rights era, regularly corresponded with black churches and
activist religious organizations, as well as being a member of the Memphis Council on
Community Relations alongside black and white religious and civic leaders.7 In the late 1950s,
while many southern politicians struggled to resist desegregation in the wake of the 1955 Brown
decision, Orgill wrote to Frank Ahlgren of the local Commercial Appeal advocating positive
news coverage of desegregation in other cities: “…I guess it is a foregone conclusion as to how
Edward J. Meeman, “Men Won’t Lay Down Their Arms Unless They First Disarm Their Minds of Prejudice,”
Memphis Press-Scimitar, 2 June 1960, p. 6 (University of Memphis, Special Collections: Edward Meeman Papers,
MVP 2207, MS 85, Box 2, Folder 3); Program, “Second Annual Brotherhood Award Dinner Honoring Edward J.
Meeman, Recipient of the National Human Relations Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews,” 25
February 1963 (Meeman Papers, Box 2, Folder 27); “Brief History of the Council,” from Program for Mass and
Dinner of the Catholic Human Relations Council, 25 March 1968 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B).
6
Edmund Orgill, letter to Mrs. Hubert Fisher about appointing black person to John Gaston Hospital board and
addressing rudeness of white bus drivers toward black riders, 3 March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); L.
Alex Wilson, letter to Edmund Orgill inviting to Tri-State Defender annual awards program at Universal Life
Cafeteria, 22 November 1957 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Edmund Orgill, letter to Hollis Price, president
of LeMoyne College, about statistics of black families, 22 March 1958 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A);
“Constitution, Purpose, and By-Laws of the Memphis Committee on Community Relations, including list of
members that included media people Frank Ahlgren and Bert Ferguson, Mayor Edmund Orgill, educators Hollis
Price, Blair Hunt, and Francine Coe, lawyers Lucius Burch, Russell Sugarmon, and A.W. Willis, businessman J.E.
Walker, Rabbi James Wax, and Reverend James Lawson (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.A); “The Civil Rights
Movement in Memphis, Tennessee 1960,” unpublished scrapbook containing clippings on desegregation movement
in Memphis, 1960 (Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis Tennessee, Memphis & Shelby County Room:
Maxine A. Smith NAACP Collection, Box IV, Folder 1).
7
Ibid.
5
97
the case will be decided, therefore I wonder if it might not be a good idea to report these and
other cities where buses have been de-segregated…Properly timed, it might be helpful.”8 Orgill
sparked controversy with a failed attempt to appoint an African American to the board of the
John Gaston Hospital, but his modest efforts to improve relations between black and white
Memphians earned him favor in the early years of the movement.9 Despite Orgill eventually
disappointing black civil rights leaders and losing elections to less progressive mayors in the
1960s, these early gestures demonstrated a combination of moderate civic action and friendly
church-state cooperation to work toward basic goals in the early part of the civil rights
movement.10
Even more than white political leadership, black political leaders who used the Shelby
County Democratic Club to increase black electoral participation and ran black candidates in the
1960s, relied heavily on cooperation with black Christian leadership in Memphis. Instructions
for canvassers on one form encouraged good behavior, much like what would have been
expected in church: “Many of the voters will sum up their opinion of our candidates by the way
you conduct yourself in both words and action…Do not in any way have misconduct (horseplay,
etc.) among the workers…” Another included instructions such as “dress properly” and “be
courteous,” and on a form to report excuses for not voting, one of the top options was “thinks
POLITICS are unchristian,” noting the frequent concern that older black Christians sometimes
8
Edmund Orgill, letter to Frank Ahlgren, 25 February 1956.
Bishop Cornelius Range, letter to Mayor Orgill, 25 October 1957 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); L. Alex
Wilson, letter to Edmund Orgill, 22 November 1957 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A).
10
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 76-77, 82-86, 99; Lester C. Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee 1791-1970 (Knoxville,
Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, published in cooperation with The Tennessee Historical
Commission, 1981), 104; Roger Biles, “A Bittersweet Victory: Public School Desegregation in Memphis,” in The
Journal of Negro Education 55, no. 4 (Autumn 1986), 470-483 (Washington, D.C.: Journal of Negro Education,
1986), 472-473; Green, 190-191, 218, 253-254; G. Wayne Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom: Memphis and the
Political Transformation of the American South (Jackson, Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi, 2010),
22-23, 51.
9
98
felt it unbecoming to engage in worldly endeavors like politics.11 The Democratic Club reached
out directly to churches, as in a form letter to black church leaders across Memphis urging votes
in the Democratic primary. This advocacy made many black voters unable to vote in the
Republican primary for longtime black spokesman George W. Lee, who “has and will continue
to serve this community well and we make no personal attack on him; however, we feel that the
Negro’s hope, destiny and future rest in the Democratic party…” The Democratic Club instead
asked black Christians to vote for black candidates Russell Sugarmon, Jesse Turner, Alexander
Gladney, George Holloway, and Fred Davis, as well as in favor of integrationist-leaning white
candidates Frank Clement for governor of Tennessee and Ross Pritchard for U.S. House of
Representatives. The letter opened and closed as follows:
The Scripture says: “Ye shall know the truth- - - - - -”
The Holy Writ concludes: “- - - - - -and the truth shall make you free.”12
Lieutenant George W. Lee represented the small number of African Americans in
Memphis who remained with the Republican party while continuing to strive for civil rights.
Lee was part of an older generation, having known bluesman W. C. Handy and spent a good part
of his life striving to honor his memory in Memphis.13 Like his younger counterparts in the
Shelby County Democratic Club, “Instructions for Poll Workers on Election Day,” “Instructions for Canvassers,”
“Voter Registration Campaign: Report of Excuses,” 1962 (University of Memphis, Special Collections: Russell B.
Sugarmon Jr. Papers, MSS 108, Box 1, Folder 3). Analyses of older (especially middle class) black religious
aversion to politics include: James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: The Seabury Press,
1969), 112, 134; Gary T. Marx, “Religion: Opiate or Inspiration of Civil Rights Militancy Among Negroes?,” in
American Sociological Review 32, no. 1 (February 1967), 64-72 (Washington, D.C.: American Sociological
Association, 1967), 66, 67, 69, 72; Kenneth W. Eckhardt, “Religiosity and Civil Rights Militancy,” in Review of
Religious Research 11, no. 3 (Spring 1970), 197-203 (Galva, Illinois: Religious Research Association, Inc., 1970),
199, 201, 202-203; Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism (Garden City, New York: Doubleday
& Company, Inc., 1972), 194, 238; John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
(Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 75-77; Stephen G.N. Tuck, Beyond Atlanta: The
Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 (Athens, Georgia, and London: The University of Georgia
Press, 2001), 247-248; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 74, 177, 222, 253.
12
Rev. Alexander Gladney (General Chairman, Shelby County Democratic Club), form letter to “Dear Reverend”
about 1962 election, 19 July 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3).
13
George W. Lee, “The Legend of W. C. Handy – ‘Father of the Blues,’” pamphlet on W.C. Handy to raise funds
for memorial statue and scholarship, committee included Frank Ahlgren of Commercial Appeal, Bert Ferguson of
11
99
Shelby County Democratic Club, Lee understood the intertwining nature of sacred and secular
approaches to the black civil rights struggle that represented a more holistic way of life. In a
speech delivered at the home office of his employer, the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, he
addressed the issue of black economic empowerment with comfortable references to the walls of
Jericho, the “martyrdom” of Martin Luther King, Jr., the growth of soul culture, and the
importance of spirituals like “We Shall Overcome.” Yet these biblical references flowed
seamlessly alongside constitutional and economic arguments, as in his closing statement:
My faith mothers the belief that it lies in white leadership helping that segment of
Negro leadership that stands for moderation. My faith mothers the belief that it
lies in a Marshall Plan at home in which the government can show the same
compassionate concern to the poor of our land as it did when it assumed the
burdens of helping Europe back on its feet after World War II. My faith mothers
the belief that it lies in black ownership of homes, of land, of businesses, and of
productive enterprise, and ownership of businesses which will not give impetus to
the advocacy of a separate but black economy, but will serve to help black
employees to become black employers and make the concept of self help a
workable reality.14
Lee, like most African American civil rights activists, failed to fit constructed binaries such as
religious or secular, instead being recognized simultaneously for “alleviating the burden under
which our people have been laboring for the past ninety years,” and for being “chosen by the
Supreme being like Moses in the days of old…”15
WDIA, Blair T. Hunt, Hollis Price of LeMoyne College, and Jesse Turner of NAACP (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder
VI); William E. Shelton, III (Chairman, Beale Street National Landmark Designation Ceremony), letter to
Lieutenant George W. Lee, thanking for speech at Beale Street National Landmark designation ceremony, 31
October 1966 (Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis & Shelby County Room: George
W. Lee Collection, Box III, Folder 67); Deanie Parker (Publicity Director, Stax Records), letter to Lieutenant
George W. Lee (Atlanta Life Insurance Company), inviting to accept award at first annual Memphis Sound awards,
14 May 1971 (George W. Lee Collection, Box III, Folder 67).
14
George W. Lee, “Black Economy Rather than the Rhetoric of ‘Black Power’ as a Way Out,” Address delivered at
the home office of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company (Lee Collection, Box IV, Folder 6).
15
C. A. Rawls (Manager, Rawls’ Funeral Home), letter to Mr. Frank Scott praising his association with George Lee,
3 November 1959 (Lee Collection, Box III, Folder 67).
100
One of the chief vehicles for the black civil rights activists in Memphis was WDIA, a
white-owned radio station that made history as the first in the nation to convert to all-black
programming. During the historic 1962 campaign, the station hosted candidates and campaign
workers in forums on the election such as “Where the Negro Stands in the August 2nd Election,”
featuring local black leaders attempting to persuade black Memphians to vote for the Democratic
ticket, which featured several black civil rights leaders.16 WDIA’s black programming in 1960s
Memphis represented African American cultural expression by blending entertainment and
politics, civic and personal interests, and most importantly, sacred and secular music and news.
Depending on the day of the week or the time of day, one could turn to WDIA and expect to hear
local community news, the latest gospel music, soul hits from Stax Records or across the nation,
housekeeping tips, or local and national political commentary. Radio personalities included Nat
Williams, who also taught social studies at Booker T. Washington High School and remained
active in black Memphis, and Rufus Thomas, who hosted a local talent night and became a Stax
Records celebrity.17 Bert Ferguson, the white head of WDIA, may have initiated the all-black
programming for primarily economic reasons, but in addition to helping create a station that
symbolized black pride, Ferguson himself served on the MCCR, corresponded with civic leaders
on race issues, authorized editorials supporting black civil rights in Memphis, and sponsored the
annual Starlite and Goodwill Revues (which frequently employed Stax performers) to raise funds
for community projects.18
“The Shelby County Democratic Club Presents a Forum on ‘Where the Negro Stands in the August 2 nd Election”
on WDIA Radio Station, 31 July 1962 and 1 August 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3).
17
Louis Cantor, Wheelin’ on Beale: How WDIA-Memphis Became the Nation’s First All Black Radio Station and
Created the Sound that Changed America (New York: Pharos Books, 1992), 21, 25-26, 29-30, 59-60, 62-63, 89, 9597, 126-127, 196-203.
18
Bert Ferguson, “Three Good Goals for Community Relations Committee,” WDIA Editorial broadcast 14 August
1967; “Riots Rarely Happen in Neighborhoods Where People Care,” WDIA Editorial broadcast 16 August 1967
(Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); Letters between Bert Ferguson and George Lee on numerous topics (Benjamin
Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis & Shelby County Room: George W. Lee Collection, Box
16
101
Although public schools often invoke images of church-state separation, the existence of
segregated black schools in Memphis further blurred the lines between the sacred and the secular
at places like Booker T. Washington and Manassas. These institutions instilled black cultural
pride in their isolation from white society, included teachers and administrators who also served
in key positions in local Memphis religious and civic organizations, and produced a wealth of
activists and artists who continued to defy categorization within the sacred-secular binary.19 Of
particular importance to Stax Records, Booker T. Washington High School was located in the
same south-side neighborhood as the studio, produced many of the company’s finest artists, and
served as a connecting link between Memphis black life and civic and religious engagement in
the civil rights movement.
Blair T. Hunt served as the principal of Booker T. Washington High School through the
1950s, acted as pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church for decades, and participated in
the struggle for racial equality in Memphis. It was under his leadership that the high school
developed a reputation for producing outstanding young African American leaders, and it was
under his administration that local celebrity Nat D. Williams taught social studies while
simultaneously providing entertainment and social commentary in black newspapers and on the
airwaves. Booker T. Washington produced music legends Phineas Newborn, Jr., Gene
III, Folder 17); “Red, White and Blues: Starlite Revue Tomorrow Night at Coliseum,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 3
July 1970 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Starlite Revue Nets $32,000,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 7 July
1970 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867); Cantor, Wheelin’ on Beale, 1-2, 140, 155, 202-203; Brian Ward, Radio
and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2004), 2-3, 14-15,
320, 362; Green, 145, 169-172, 174-176, 243-244, 257-258.
19
Stuart L. Goosman, Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm & Blues (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 57-58; D’Army Bailey with Roger Easson, The Education of a Black Radical: A
Southern Civil Rights Activist’s Journey, 1959-1964 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press,
2009), 10-11, 19-20; Katherine Mellen Charron, Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark (Chapel Hill, North
Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 4, 42, 70, 73; Mario T. Garcia and Sal Castro, Blowout!:
Sal Castro & the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2011), 16.
102
“Bowlegs” Miller, and Al Jackson, and politicians D’Army Bailey and Marian Barry. Bailey
said of Hunt: “He sought to instill pride and accountability in each student, always telling us in
his rich, deep voice, ‘You are somebody.’ Hunt ruled the school with a firm hand… Hunt had
guided decades of students, including my parents, and at the same time he pastored one of
Memphis’s most prominent black churches…”20
Even after Hunt’s tenure, the high school continued to produce such important cultural
and political icons as Stax stars Booker T. Jones, David Porter, Homer Banks, the Bar-Kays, and
Barbara Clark of the Mad Lads, Earth, Wind, and Fire founder Maurice White, and historian
Bobby Lovett. Clearly, Hunt’s legacy at this segregated black high school on the south side of
Memphis was far-reaching, and Booker T. Washington, which would play an important part in
the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, merits closer examination as a component of the sacred and
secular intersection in the movement.21
In addition to excellent music education, most Booker T. Washington students at some
point took social studies with Nat Williams. One of the most beloved and powerful black
cultural leaders in Memphis for decades, Williams also emceed a legendary talent show and
parade, wrote articles for local and regional publications, and served as the pivotal figure in
WDIA’s decision to become the nation’s first all-black radio station. Few Memphians embodied
the seeming contradictions of sacred and secular life – or the blurred lines of entertainment and
20
Bailey, The Education of a Black Radical, 19-20.
The Warrior, Booker T. Washington High School Yearbooks, 1950, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963,
1964, 1966, 1967, 1969 (Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee: Memphis & Shelby County
Room); Constitution & By-laws for Memphis Committee on Community Relations, membership list including Blair
T. Hunt (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.A); Bobby L. Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative
History (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 2005), xxiv; Sandra M. Frink, “’Freedom Is
Everyone’s Job’: Segregation, Identity, and the Freedom Train Controversy in Memphis, Tennessee, 1947-1948,” in
Tennessee Historical Quarterly 66, no. 4 (Winter 2007), 328-349 (Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical
Society, 2007), 342; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 126, 233; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 336337, 358.
21
103
activism, for that matter – like Williams. Just as Hunt combined educational, religious, and civic
work in his quest for civil rights, Williams understood that his presence on Beale Street and on
the airwaves, his clever combination of folksy wit and educated commentary on black issues
made him an ideal cultural leader in the early years of the movement. His nearly impossible
days included early broadcasts at the radio station, a full day of teaching (including several years
sponsoring the student yearbook), more work at the radio station, hosting Amateur Night at the
Palace Theater, and somehow continuing to write and raise a family. Of Williams, D’Army
Bailey commented:
He was a favorite among the students as he exhorted us to have multiple skills and
to learn how to do the things that would help us get a job. Williams was an
intellectual who wrote a weekly syndicated column for black newspapers and was
a popular radio host at the city’s first black radio station. In front of my
Tennessee history class, Williams stood with a broad smile as he summed up his
theory of strategic survival: “The Indian fought and died, the Negro grinned and
multiplied.” In Williams’s class, the question wasn’t whether you would succeed,
but how.22
While some criticized Williams’s more worldly pursuits, such as his love of the blues, there can
be little doubt that his students at Booker T. Washington experienced engaging lessons with a
fascinating local personality that helped shape their future as black community and national
leaders.23
22
Bailey, The Education of a Black Radical, 20.
The Warrior, 1953, 1955, 1959, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1965 (Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee,
Memphis & Shelby County Room); Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall, Beale Black & Blue: Life and Music on
Black America’s Main Street (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 33-34;
Cantor, Wheelin’ on Beale, 25-26, 29-30, 38-39, 46-47, 62-63, 115, 126-127; Green, Battling the Plantation
Mentality, 126, 145, 174-176.
23
104
“Touch a Hand (Make a Friend)”: Sacred, Secular, and the Soul of Stax Records
Numerous Stax artists attended Booker T. Washington High School, including members
of the Mad Lads and the Bar-Kays, who began by hanging out at the Satellite record shop and
eventually worked their way to the studio.24 From the roots of black music to the soul music of
the 1960s and 1970s, sacred and secular influences coexisted comfortably, and in Memphis
during the civil rights era this tradition continued. The holistic black education at Booker T.
Washington and in the south Memphis black community influenced the soul music created by
these groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as evidenced in songs like the Mad Lads’ “Cry
Baby” and the Bar-Kays’ “A Piece of Your Peace.”25 Both songs demonstrated the flexible
relationship between sacred and secular influences at Stax, and served as a case study for the
problematic nature of binary interpretations of civil rights activism and soul music in this period,
both in Memphis and nationally.
On the surface, “Cry Baby” served up standard teenage fare, a song about a lost love
returned in 12/8 meter. The solo vocals on the verses that crescendo into harmonized choruses
of “cry baby” sung over long-tone horn backgrounds and soulful guitar fills provided a sense of
musical comfort in the long tradition of gospel-inspired black group harmony. While the theme
and the music may not have challenged any existing notions of race or culture, closer
examination of the lyrics demonstrates a significant point about the sacred-secular interaction in
Stax’s music. In short, the lads’ crying lover mirrored in every possible way the story of the
Prodigal Son from the Gospels; she left her loving man for a better one, only to return to him
broken. Despite his initial reaction of “cry baby,” he concluded each chorus with the line
24
The Warrior, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967 (Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis &
Shelby County Room); Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 14; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 84-85, 145-146.
25
The Mad Lads, The Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Lads, © 1969 by Volt, VOS-6005, “Cry Baby;” The Bar-Kays,
Black Rock, © 1971 by Volt, VOS-6011, “A Piece of Your Peace.”
105
“welcome back home.”26 Religious themes like this, rather than challenging rigid notions of
sacred and secular exclusivity in black popular music, reinforced the notion that such constructed
categories served no purpose in analysis of the music, either at Stax or on the national scene.
The Bar-Kays recorded “A Piece of Your Peace” two years later, and provided a funkier,
angrier song that nonetheless combined religiously influenced imagery with the sadness of lost
love. Despite feeling like “a penny with a hole in it” as a result of “having lost my best friend
while you just sit there so contented,” they continually ask for “a piece of your peace.” At some
point in their youth, these young performers must have heard how Jesus claimed to be the good
shepherd, who protected his flock while others did not care for them. One may interpret the BarKays’ anger and confusion over the loss of a woman alongside the desire to share in her
contentment as the youthful exploration of such themes common to religious and secular life.
Obviously such connections require a postmodern interpretation of popular music in the context
of black culture, which defied easy categorization of the sacred and secular. Yet through this
interpretation we may begin to understand how the same holistic nature of black life that guided
Memphis civil rights activists was also present in the McLemore studios as Stax artists and staff
brought their life experiences to the company.27
Existing scholarship on sacred and secular influences on black popular music offers
fascinating and meaningful dialogue worth mentioning, for it established an important
foundation from which to examine the interplay of these ideas in the music of Stax Records in
the civil rights era. Pop music writers Phyl Garland and Arnold Shaw acknowledged the
influences of both gospel and blues musical styles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, noting the
The Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Lads, “Cry Baby;” Luke 15.11-32 New American Bible.
Black Rock, “A Piece of Your Peace;” John 10.11-21 New American Bible; Levine, 7-8; Christopher Ballantine,
Music and its Social Meanings (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1984), xvi, 5, 20-21; bell hooks,
“Postmodern Blackness,” from Yearning (South End Press, 1990), 367, 368.
26
27
106
black church as a constant factor in black life and culture and comparing soul singers to black
preachers.28 Theologian James Cone, writing during the height of soul popularity, understood
both the spirituals and the blues as essentially expressions of black liberation theology, rightly
asserting that the two possessed more similarities than differences, and that black culture never
existed in a vacuum of separate religious or worldly construction.29 Beginning in the late 1990s,
several scholars contributed vitally important works that enhanced the dialogue about the
connections between the sacred and secular in soul music. Brian Ward traced the origins of soul
to the 1950s black vocal groups, who facilitated a new sexual discourse in music by singing of
hopeful, even idealistic romance as “relief from r&b’s dominant vision of opportunistic,
predatory, distrustful and often destructive black sexual politics.” Despite his understanding of
the gospel and black church roots of black popular music, Ward study became problematic in
that he downplayed the continued influence of the black church on soul music. Writing about
the growing secular nature of the music and the movement, he failed to understand the
continuing internal influence of black theology on black life, whether or not the church remained
a central authority, and thus missed an important aspect of the multifaceted nature of soul in the
civil rights era.30 Fortunately, scholars such as Lawrence Levine, Teresa Reed, Craig Werner,
and Jennifer Ryan provided relief to Ward’s otherwise important study. Taken together with
Ward’s more secular-focused interpretations, black popular music has emerged as both sacred
and secular in nature, with some going so far as to pronounce black popular music as the key
black religious expression of the twentieth century. In this context, the music produced at Stax
Records in civil rights-era Memphis should be seen as continuing a legacy of artistic and
28
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 2-3, 25-26; Shaw, The World of Soul, 5-6, 9-10.
Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 1-2, 29-30, 35, 62-63, 95, 111, 112, 119, 141-142.
30
Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 80, 184, 206, 244.
29
107
commercial expression that sought neither to overtly express nor purposely eschew separately
religious and worldly influences that both comfortably coexisted in black life.31
African Americans at Stax Records brought all of these influences to their work at the
company, creating a southern soul sound that was simultaneously gospel, pop, and country,
without being any of those, with a message of love and brotherhood that primarily meant to sell
records. Stax historian Robert Gordon recounted a story of the difference between black and
white members of the company on Memphis Sunday that produced “Walking the Dog”:
…arrangements were made to play golf on Sunday morning with some of
the guys… “…all of a sudden Steve says, ‘Well, we’d better be heading back to
the studio, we just about have time to get coffee and doughnuts.’ And I was
surprised because it was Sunday. Well, on Sunday when people come out of
church, they fall by the studio. Al Jackson shows up and Isaac [Hayes] and David
[Porter] and the horns mosey in… Then Rufus Thomas comes walking in the
door and says, ‘Hi everybody…’ So Rufus runs thissong by the once or twice,
and I’m up in the control room to engineer and I’m laughing…Rufus never broke
stride. He sang it for the band twice, says, ‘See y’all later!’ and he walked back
out the door, going home to have Sunday dinner. It was very casual…” Jim said
it was the best-sounding record yet to come off their console…32
While Gordon’s story legitimately focused on the magical nature of a casual session at Stax that
produced one of the biggest hits of the era, it also provided an important insight into the subtle
differences between white and black culture in 1960s America. The golfers were white, and the
churchgoers who came later to the studio were black, perhaps signaling the continuing
importance of the black church in 1960s Memphis, where many Stax artists attended services
and sometimes play and sing at services.33 Yet they were not above breaking the Sabbath to
31
Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, xvii-xx, 7-8, 239-240; Reed, The Holy Profane, 1-4, 12, 32, 60,
93-94, 111-112, 127-128, 130; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America (Ann
Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 5, 6, 10, 58, 88, 98-99; Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness?,’”
16, 31, 43, 88, 173.
32
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 80-81. Quotes are from the author’s interview with engineer Tom Dowd.
33
Reed, The Holy Profane, 28; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 291.
108
come to the studio and create the music that brought them all together, music that clearly bore
the imprints of music from the church as well as the streets.
Stax artists, like anyone, expressed varying degrees of religiosity, further complicating
the notion of a sacred-versus-secular framework. In a city that built the Church of God in Christ
and served as home to numerous Baptist and Pentecostal churches, a young Booker T. Jones
actually discovered the Hammond organ not in the sanctuary but in Club Handy on Beale Street
before being chased away as a youngster. In fact, he was apparently warned not to go into
Pentecostal churches as a child.34 Trumpeter Wayne Jackson, a white West Memphian who
collaborated with nearly every major southern soul artist in and out of Stax throughout the 1960s,
discussed his Methodist upbringing as just a part of his identity: “I find it hard to say that it
influenced me, but it did. It influenced how I felt about people in my church.” Yet he could not
deny the value of black religion in soul music: “Soul music was an offspring of black
preachers…I mean, James Brown was acting like a black preacher.”35 Perhaps Jennifer Ryan
summarized it best when she discussed her on-site research among Memphis musicians
negotiating faith and club performances, writing “Nearly every musician with whom I worked
cited scripture that was particularly inspirational to them and that justified their position as
secular musicians. Many also come up with novel explanations for their beliefs…This
discrepancy suggests that the unique situations of these musicians calls for a unique approach to
faith.”36 Just as it was not uncommon for civic leaders and civil rights activists in Memphis to
blend faith and worldly activities in their quest for justice, individuals at Stax Records
demonstrated a wide variety of approaches to the soul music their produced.
Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness?,’” 16; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 26.
Wayne Jackson (with wife Amy), interview by author, Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis, Tennessee, 14 February
2015.
36
Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness?,’” 153-154.
34
35
109
Deanie Parker, for example, flowed comfortably between faith-based and secular
expressions in conversation. When asked about her early musical influences, she cited Rosetta
Tharpe and James Cleveland alongside The Platters and Ray Charles, but emphasized that she
particularly “chose to immerse myself in music that were unique to my roots, and that was
gospel, because I loved the gospel quartets” such as The Soul Stirrers. Parker never overtly
mentioned her own religious beliefs, but when she spoke of her time at Stax, she noted the
importance of morally grounded mentors who provided positive guidance for rising stars, the
application of the Golden Rule in biracial work at the company, and the fact that “we also fed the
hungry, we clothed the naked, and we sheltered the homeless.”37 Indeed, Parker’s words
translated to actions, as when racial violence broke out and she joined other Stax employees in
going around Memphis to assist in encouraging angry black youth to remain peaceful. True to
the teachings of her Christian faith, she made no mention of this incident in her interview and
received no mention in the press, which focused primarily on Isaac Hayes’s role in negotiations
with the mayor and the city council.38
Despite a Christian-based faith of words and actions, Parker also wrote about secular and
even non-Christian ideas in her songs and press releases. Her songs, such as “My Imaginary
Guy” and “(Ain’t That) A Lot of Love,” focused on standard themes of love, and while one
might argue that her work bore similarities to that described by the Mad Lads and Bar-Kays in
applying spiritual principles to worldly lyrics, the former spoke mostly of an unreachable ideal,
37
Deanie Parker, phone interview by author (facilitated by Levon Williams), Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 18 June 2013.
38
The article discussing this incident focused on Memphis City Council chairman Jerred Blanchard and Stax star
Isaac Hayes: “Citizenship In Action,” in Memphis Press-Scimitar, 22 October 1971 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
55889). Robert Gordon’s book, which included extensive interviews, mentioned the involvement of Parker, Rufus
Thomas, and James Alexander as well: Gordon, Respect Yourself, 264, 265. Bowman noted that Hayes and Thomas
received awards along with seven other black Memphians for “outstanding contributions to the community”:
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 241-244.
110
while the latter expressed a scope and breadth of emotion normally reserved for the divine
applied in this case to romantic love.39 Additionally, her publicity department submitted
biographies on artists including David Porter, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, and Rufus
Thomas, which spanned an enormous breadth of spiritual references and worldly vernacular.
While Hayes credited “God-fearing neighbors who believed that cheerful givers are blessed and
will someday inherit the Kingdom of Heaven” with assisting his upbringing, David Porter’s
background primarily focused on his sexual prowess and ambitious work ethic being attributed
to his astrological sign, Scorpio. Rufus Thomas’s biography made no mention of a religious
upbringing, focusing on his heroic stature on the Memphis cultural scene and his uncanny ability
to create teenage dance crazes in his fifties, while even the Staple Singers, who originated as a
gospel group, found their message distilled to the leftist desires of the age: “It is more than just
characteristic Negro spirituals or Gospel songs. It is peace. Although the Staple Singers
originally began with pure Gospel, today they sing almost anything they like that carries the
message…”40
Stax artists like Steve Cropper, Rufus Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Wayne Jackson, Deanie
Parker, and others, negotiated sacred and secular influences with flexibility and little overt
attention to the role either played in their music. The resultant product was the sound that
defined southern soul music in the civil rights era, and existed as a form of artistic activism
without any explicitly activist overtures. The most publicly recognized activist and commercial
endeavor in Stax history, the Wattstax concert in Los Angeles, has been identified by scholars in
Deanie Parker & the Valadors, My Imaginary Guy/Until You Return, © 1963 by Volt, 105, “My Imaginary Guy;”
Homer Banks, A Lot of Love, © 1966 by Minit, 32000, “A Lot of Love.”
40
Deanie Parker, “David Porter: A Scorpio with His Eye on the Stars,” official Stax press release (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 55889); Deanie Parker, “Biography of Isaac Hayes,” official Stax press release, 30 March 1971 (PressScimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Rufus Thomas – 40 Years of Memphis Soul,” official Stax press release, 3 July
1972) (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867); “Biography: The Staple Singers,” no official letterhead/author, 8
August 1973 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 60101).
39
111
purely secular context, but this enormous undertaking also warrants attention for the way it
maneuvered sacred and secular territory in the later years of the civil rights movement.
Wattstax, especially as captured in the documentary motion picture, demonstrated the holistic
nature of black entertainment and activism in its inclusion of gospel and pop acts, as well as in
its combination of black economic empowerment and Christian-inspired mainstream civil rights
goals.41
Just a few years after Wattstax, Michael Haralambos interpreted the event as primarily an
expression of Black Power. He noted Kim Weston’s version of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
performed to raised fists, and Jesse Jackson leading the audience in the so-called “Black Litany,”
in which the audience affirmed, “I am somebody.” Yet he mentioned very little about the music
at the event.42 Peter Guralnick and Brian Ward saw Wattstax as primarily an economic
endeavor, one that provided considerable charitable donations for important causes while
simultaneously assisting Al Bell’s goal of black economic empowerment and commercial
expansion into the West Coast market.43 Stax historians Rob Bowman and Robert Gordon better
understood the multifaceted goals of the event, including philanthropy, political engagement,
economic empowerment, and commercial promotion. Both Al Bell and Jesse Jackson increased
their audiences, the artists won acclaim for their performances as well as their generosity, and the
event stood as a peaceful and successful expression of black unity and pride, complete with
Rufus Thomas keeping fans off the field and Isaac Hayes dazzling the crowd in his customary
bald head and chains.44
41
Wattstax, 30th Anniversary Special Edition, prod. and dir. By Larry Shaw and Mel Stuart, 1 hr. 43 min., Warner
Brothers, 2001 (1972), DVD.
42
Michael Haralambos, Right On: From Blues to Soul in Black America (New York: Drake Publishers Inc., 1975),
146.
43
Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York: Harper &
Row, 1986), 387-388; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 402-403.
44
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 267-271; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 297-299, 302, 306-307.
112
What no interpretation of Wattstax included was that the event also represented deeply
religious influences within a primarily secular context. Wattstax included religious
performances from Jimmy Jones and the Rance Allen Group, as well as the ambiguous “message
songs” the legendary Staple Singers, who by that time had made a name for themselves for a
crossover that never truly left religious music behind them.45 The very notion of the crossover,
from Sam Cooke to Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers, belied the strict separation of sacred
and secular music in black culture, for while gospel music developed as a popular genre in its
own right, rhythm and blues continued to carry gospel messages of unity, equality, and
spirituality, further blurring the lines between Rance Allen or the Staple Singers and “secular”
Stax stars like Albert King, Isaac Hayes, and Rufus Thomas.46 The producers took no issue with
the combination of sacred and secular performers, nor did the audience, a fact further supported
by the gospel-infused performances of the so-called secular artists. When the Bar-Kays prefaced
“Son of Shaft” with a message to follow them to a new freedom, when Johnnie Taylor warned of
the dangers of adultery in “Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone,” or when Carla Thomas invoked the
Mad Lads’ and Bar-Kays’ use of romantic love and reconciliation in “Pick Up the Pieces,”
popular music dripped with gospel sentiment despite the total absence of sacred intent.47
Furthermore, Wattstax encompassed a wide range of black cultural endeavors, despite the
tendency of scholars to consider only secular motives. There is, of course, more than a little
truth to the argument that the event and subsequent movie represented a stunning mix of
45
Wattstax, 30th Anniversary Edition DVD; Shaw, The World of Soul, 198-199; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 157.
Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 111; “Biography: The Staple Singers,” 8 August 1973 (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 60101); Angela M.S. Nelson, “Why We Sing: The Role and Meaning of Gospel in African American
Popular Culture,” in The Triumph of the Soul: Cultural and Psychological Aspects of African American Music, ed.
Ferdinand Jones and Arthur C. Jones (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2001), 100; Mark Burford, “Sam
Cooke as Pop Album Artist: A Reinvention in Three Songs,” in Journal of the American Musicological Society 65,
no. 1 (Spring 2012), 113-178 (Berkeley, California, and Brunswick, Maine: University of California Press, on behalf
of American Musicological Society, 2012), 114-115, 124, 166, 169; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 220-221.
47
Wattstax, 30th Anniversary DVD.
46
113
nationalist and integrationist accomplishments, such as the inclusion of civil rights leader Jesse
Jackson, singing the black national anthem, raising funds for charities, promoting black financial
enterprises, and bringing pride and unity to a city torn apart by racial and economic uprisings.48
But Wattstax also represented the unity, hope, generosity, and love that stemmed from a long
tradition of black Christianity, a faith rooted in the struggle against oppression and the promise
of a better future.49 When Al Bell and Jesse Jackson (a religious leader who had recorded his
own sermons on a Stax subsidiary) organized the event, they were driven as much by the
religious impulse to improve African American life as they were by civil rights or profits.50
David Chappell and Teresa Reed started to get at the issue by claiming that the civil rights
movement and soul music, respectively, existed as extensions of black religious expression in the
twentieth century, but this view tends to tip the balance too far away from the secular
contributions to the movement and the music at Stax.51 Jackson himself put it best in his
introductory remarks at Wattstax:
Today we are together. We are unified, and on one accord…Today on this
program you will hear gospel, and rhythm and blues, and jazz. All those are just
labels. We know that music is music, all of our people got a soul. Our
experience determines the texture, the taste, and the sound of our soul. We say
that we may be in the slum, but the slum is not in us…In Watts, we have shifted
from “burn baby, burn” to “learn baby, learn.” We have shifted from having a
seizure about what the man got to seizing what we need…That is why I challenge
you now to stand together, raise your fist together, and engage in our national
Black Litany… “I am somebody…”52
48
Haralambos, Right On, 146; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 362-366, 387-388; Nelson George, The Death of
Rhythm & Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 106, 138-139; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 80-81, 202-205,
267-271; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 402-403; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 113-116, 188-189, 269-271, 297298, 298-299.
49
Russell B. Barbour, Black and White Together: Plain Talk for White Christians (Philadelphia and Boston: United
Church Press, 1967), 96, 104; James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 1-2, 3-4, 35-36, 53-54, 134, 151;
Lincoln and Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience, 5, 97, 195; Chappell, A Stone of Hope,
8, 86, 87, 112.
50
Rev. Jesse Jackson, I Am Somebody, © 1971 by Respect, TAS-2601.
51
Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 2, 3-8; Reed, The Holy Profane, 12.
52
Wattstax, 30th Anniversary DVD.
114
The civil rights movement in Memphis and across the nation, as expressed in the music of Stax
Records, consistently defied essentialist notions of sacred and secular, instead continuing the
holistic African American tradition of oneness of all things in life.
“Raise Your Hand”: Musical Analysis of Sacred and Secular Expression at Stax Records
Stax artists throughout the civil rights era rarely limited their work to strictly sacred or
secular modes of expression, displaying the same varied influences and blurred lines of spiritual
and worldly notions as the Memphis civil rights activists. In a city and culture overwhelmingly
rooted in Christianity, these artists and producers converged in Memphis and made music about
having fun, falling in love, sharing fellowship, demanding respect, and seeking a higher power
without often even considering the deeper notions of the songs they wrote, performed, and
produced. Some at the company demonstrated an affinity for astrology, one of the more popular
trends of the time, yet even then maintained musical and lyrical connections to black cultural
roots in racial unity and gospel hope. Musical analysis of three key artists in the 1960s and
1970s yields a fascinating range of expression, especially in the popular blues-based work of
Albert King and Eddie Floyd, and of course in the gospel-infused message songs of The Staple
Singers.
Written by Stax artists William Bell and Booker T. Jones, Albert King’s “Born Under a
Bad Sign” skyrocketed to fame, eventually becoming standard fare for blues musicians.53 The
song did not follow the standard twelve-measure blues form, instead remaining on the tonic until
reaching the chorus section of each verse – “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at
Albert King, Born Under a Bad Sign, © 1967 by Stax, S-723, “Born Under a Bad Sign;” Cream, Wheels of Fire,
© 1968 by Polydor, 582 031/2, “Born Under a Bad Sign;” Jimi Hendrix, Blues, © 1994 by MCA Records, MCAD11060, “Born Under a Bad Sign.”
53
115
all” – which applied the last four measures of the blues (V-IV-I). The lyrics focused entirely on
negative experiences, weaving a typical blues tale of difficulty in childhood and continued
challenges throughout the singer’s life. Complemented by an album cover filled with
traditionally superstitious symbols of bad luck, King sang about having been born under a “bad
sign,” taking advantage of the popular fascination with astrology just as Deanie Parker would a
few years later when highlighting David Porter’s Scorpio identification.54 Rather than signaling
a departure from black cultural tradition, however, the song ultimately shared much more with
the blues and gospel traditions than with any astrological fad. Like traditional bluesmen, King
also expressed himself in the singular first person, making difficult life experiences a highly
personal experience to which the audience could relate. Furthermore, he employed techniques
like repetition and call and response between his vocal lines and guitar fills, musical practices
typically associated with both gospel singing and black church preaching.55 One line of the lyric
said, “wine and women is all I claim,” a point worth boasting about in some blues songs. For
King, the line stood alone, which offered two possible analyses: To some, the line might be
interpreted in a pious manner, moralizing about wine and women being a continuance of the
negative blues experience, but others might argue that superstition, sex, and alcohol, despite
more modern Christian proclamations, represented parts of the fuller, less either-or
understanding of life from African heritage.56 Regardless of the interpretation, it is clear that
Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign” defied easy categorization.
Deanie Parker, “David Porter: A Scorpio with his Eye on the Stars” (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889).
Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press), 1966, 96-97; Garland, The
Sound of Soul, 25-26; Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, 112; Haralambos, Right On, 46-49, 78-79; Levine, Black
Culture and Black Consciousness, 6, 221-223; Hans Weisethaunet, “Is There Such a Thing as the ‘Blue Note’?,” in
Popular Music 20, no. 1 (January 2001), 99-116 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 99, 102-103;
Reed, The Holy Profane, 33; Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come, 88.
56
Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 7-8; Gerhard Kubik, Africa and the Blues (Jackson, Mississippi:
University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 4, 21-23, 26; Peter R. Aschoff, “The Poetry of the Blues: Understanding the
Blues in Its Cultural Context,” in The Triumph of the Soul, ed. Ferdinand Jones and Arthur C. Jones (Westport,
54
55
116
Eddie Floyd represented another seemingly simple blues and soul voice from Stax who,
like King, proved far more complicated upon further analysis. Floyd was beloved by the Stax
family, described by trumpeter Wayne Jackson as “the nicest guy of all,” “a Southern
gentleman,” and “a real man” who would “work the hardest on stage,” and listed among his
favorite artists to work with at Stax.57 While his positive songs, including “Knock on Wood”
and “Raise Your Hand,” seemed a far cry from the bad luck blues of Albert King, he also
included a reference to superstition by guessing he “better knock on wood” in order to hang onto
such a wonderful partner.58 Floyd clearly considered himself lucky to have his woman: “I don’t
want to lose this good thing” – and proved willing to transform a seemingly insignificant
superstitious cultural practice into an act worthy of the chorus of a hit song (complete with
“knocking” provided by Al Jackson smacking eighth notes on the snare drum between the words
“knock” and “on wood”). As the song faded out at the end, a practice common to Stax
recordings, Floyd sang “Think I better knock,” which received echoes of “knock-knock” in the
background vocals. Once again, the practice of repetition invoked the feeling of preaching and
singing in the church, this time with the enhanced sense of urgency and spiritual duty. While
nobody would assume Floyd or collaborators Steve Cropper and Wayne Jackson considered it
even remotely the late night they wrote the song at the Lorraine Motel, one cannot help but
marvel at the fact a black man and two white men sat together in a hotel room in 1967, within
years of the Shelby County Democratic Party knocking on doors and contacting church leaders
to integrate Tennessee politically through the electoral process.59
Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2001), 37, 55, 58; Reed, The Holy Profane, 1-4, 39-40; Werner, A Change Is
Gonna Come, 10.
57
Jackson, interview by author; Wayne Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1 (Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and
Jackson Publishing, 2005), 170.
58
Eddie Floyd, Knock on Wood, © 1967 by Stax, 714, “Knock on Wood,” “Raise Your Hand.”
59
Knock on Wood, “Knock on Wood;” Keil, Urban Blues, 96-97; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 25; Shelby County
Democratic Club, “Instructions for Poll Workers on Election Day,” “Instructions for Canvassers,” 2 August 1962
117
Musically, the song featured the trademark power of the Memphis Horns, doubled by the
guitar, providing the “blue notes” of the flatted third and seventh to emphasize the African roots
of blues and gospel. As was usually the case with Jim Stewart productions, the notes remained
in those lines, while the chords in the rhythm section remained distinctly major, thereby further
reinforcing the notion of a separate musical vocabulary in the black tradition that makes it
difficult to analyze within the limits of western harmony.60 Harmonically, “Knock on Wood”
employed the I and IV throughout, frequently referred to as a plagal cadence in western music
theory, and regularly applied to gospel music. In the mixed context of civil rights and
commercial endeavors, or sacred and secular interplay, one can forgive Floyd the claim that “I’m
not superstitious” while he continued to “knock on wood” to hang onto his good luck in a clearly
gospel-inspired musical context.61
The I-IV progression also served as the foundation for Floyd’s “Raise Your Hand,” from
the same 1967 album.62 Unlike “Knock on Wood, which dealt with employing superstitious
methods to hold onto good luck in the form of a woman, “Raise Your Hand” opened Floyd up to
love beyond that of simple romance. Cloaked in the search for a partner to satisfy, this song
never actually referred to a particular woman or relationship, instead offering love and support to
those who identified themselves as needing something. To further enhance this aspect of
offering deep, meaningful love, the song featured an aspect rare in much of the Stax catalogue:
(Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3); Alexander Gladney, form letter to Memphis pastors encouraging Democratic
votes in 1962 election, 19 July 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1, Folder 3); Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 94; Gordon,
Respect Yourself, 139-140.
60
Keil, Urban Blues, 53; Rob Bowman, “The Stax Sound: A Musicological Analysis,” in Popular Music 14, no. 3
(October 1995), 285-320 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 285-286, 297-301; Kubik, Africa and the
Blues, 123; Weisethaunet, “Is There Such a Thing as the ‘Blue Note?,’” 99, 104-105, 108; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 330.
61
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 297-301; Reed, The Holy Profane, 1-4, 37-38, 39-40, 60, 93-94, 111-112; Ryan,
“Can I Get a Witness?,’” 88, 94-95, 98.
62
Knock on Wood, “Raise Your Hand.”
118
background vocals. While Rob Bowman’s useful and detailed musicological analysis of Stax
noted that the majority of recordings featured solo vocals with horn backgrounds, this recording
added background vocals that created a call-and-response effect with Floyd’s lead singing.63 The
decision to include group singing on a song welcoming others into a loving fellowship created a
sense of inclusion familiar to both the black Christian tradition and the Memphis civil rights
movement.64
When Floyd sang, “I’m standing by, I want to give you my love, please let me try,” even
though he may have simply intended to have invited a woman to receive his romantic affection,
his lyric within this context resembled the notion of agape, or perfect love, a concept central to
the black Christian tradition.65 James Cone expanded on the idea of agape in his defense of
Black Power and black liberation theology: “Love without the power to guarantee justice in
human relations is meaningless. Indeed, there is no place in Christian theology for sentimental
love, love without risk or cost.”66 In 1967 and 1970, Gary Marx and Kenneth Eckhardt produced
studies finding a generally inverse relationship between religiosity and civil rights militancy, but
these scientific approaches further highlighted the limited nature of essentialist binary
understandings of religion and civil rights. When compared to nuanced philosophical and
religious understandings of the black church’s deep roots in oppression and multifaceted
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 290-291.
Mayor Edmund Orgill, letter to Bishop Cornelius Range congratulating jubilee anniversary of Bishop Charles H.
Mason of the Church of God in Christ, 29 October 1957 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Edward J. Meeman,
“To My Negro Friends,” Memphis Press-Scimitar 29 October 1962, 6 (Meeman Papers, Box 2, Folder 5); Russell B.
Sugarmon, letter to “Frank” (handwritten name on form letter) inviting to reception for Congressman John Conyers,
24 October 1966 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 3, Folder 2); Minutes of the MCCR Executive Committee Meeting, Dr.
Hollis Price presiding, discussion of poverty problems in Memphis, 10 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder
I.B); Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 80, 184; Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to
Hip-Hop (Berkeley, California, and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), 21-22; Reed, The Holy
Profane, 12, 37-38, 93-94; Goosman, Group Harmony, 2.
65
John 14.21 New American Bible.
66
Barbour, Black and White Together, 19; Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 53-54.
63
64
119
approach to social justice, these studies failed to comprehend the complicated layers of
spirituality and worldliness that influenced African Americans to fight for their rights. When
considered through a postmodern lens, African Americans called upon varying levels of religious
influence in different circumstances to stand up for their rights at the ballot box, in the church, on
the streets, or – for artists like Albert King and Eddie Floyd – in the recording studio.67
No group at Stax represented the blurred lines of sacred and secular music and activism
like the Staple Singers, the quintessential message group of the early 1970s and one of the most
popular acts on the company’s roster. Two of the group’s best known hits, “Respect Yourself”
and “I’ll Take You There,” presented starkly different approaches to the Staples’ call for social
justice in song. While “Respect Yourself” chose sarcasm, humor, and direct confrontation over
significant issues of the era, “I’ll Take You There” offered a transcendent vision of heaven that
promised a brighter future.68 Together, the songs offered important insight into the various ways
civil rights musical activists blended spiritual and worldly messages to call their audiences to
action.
“Respect Yourself,” written by Mack Rice and rising Stax singer Luther Ingram, seemed
almost confrontational in the demand for respect, a respect that people could only show for
themselves by earning it through their respect for others. As Pop Staples sang in the opening
line, “If you disrespect everybody that you run into, how in the world do you think anybody’s
Marx, “Religion,” 67, 68, 72; Eckhardt, “Religiosity and Civil Rights Militancy,” 199, 201, 202-203; E. Franklin
Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, Revised and Abridged Version (New York: The Dryden Press,
1948), 91, 134; Barbour, Black and White Together, 3, 19, 96; Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 3-4, 12, 3536, 53-54, 134, 143; Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, xii, 38-39, 238, 306; Hart M. Nelsen and Anne
Kusener Nelsen, Black Church in the Sixties (Lexington, Kentucky: The University of Kentucky Press, 1975), 123;
Lincoln and Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience, 5, 6, 11-16, 97; Diana L. Hayes, And
Still We Rise: An Introduction to Black Liberation Theology (New York and Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press,
1996), 2-3, 57; Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 4-8; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 200, 218, 241-242; Honey,
Going Down Jericho Road, 80, 84, 220, 222, 299.
68
The Staple Singers, Be Altitude: Respect Yourself, © 1972 by Stax, STS-3002, “Respect Yourself,” “I’ll Take You
There.”
67
120
supposed to respect you?” Clearly, the Staples understood the African American Christian
theology of community uplift and agape love for others.69 For a song about self-respect,
however, the lyrics offered a wide variety of complaints about people, including disagreements
with religious leaders, selfishness, feelings of entitlement, cursing around women, and (of all
things) environmental concerns (“Keep talking about the president, won’t stop air pollution. Put
your hand on your mouth when you cough, that’ll help the solution.”) Set to one of the few
minor keys found in the Stax catalogue (Al Bell had taken control by this time, allowing a
broader range of musical expression than Jim Stewart had preferred in the control room), the
song seemed not only serious but also unhappy.70 But despite the song’s overall demands for
more respect and patronizing tone (even addressing the audience in the second person to drive
the point home), an air of hope remained, first in the libertarian response to the anti-clergy
complaints (“Just get out the way, let the gentleman do his thing”) and later in the invitation to
the Klansman for reconciliation (“Take the sheet of your face, boy, it’s a brand new day”). One
cannot help but feel that, in the midst of anger and despair, the Staple Singers continued to offer
hope for a brighter future.71
If hope required searching among the frustration and admonition of “Respect Yourself,”
it burst from the seams of “I’ll Take You There.” Written by Al Bell during a sorrowful time in
his life, the song actually featured minimal lyrics focused entirely on the hope of a place where
Be Altitude: Respect Yourself, “Respect Yourself;” Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 12, 42-43, 53-54,
143; Marx, “Religion,” 72; Eckhardt, “Religiosity and Civil Rights Militancy,” 202-203; Morris, The Origins of the
Civil Rights Movement, 5, 97; Lincoln and Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience, 11-16,
214; James H. Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books,
1991), 121-122, 303-304; Hayes, And Still We Rise, 57, 189-190; Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 86, 87.
70
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 296; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 179. It is worth noting that Be Altitude
was released two years after David Ritz’s scholarly article lamenting the lack of angrier, message-driven songs from
the soul music that black activists claimed represented them: David Ritz, “Happy Song: Soul Music in the Ghetto,”
in Salmagundi 12 (Spring 1970), 43-53 (Saratoga Springs, New York: Skidmore College, 1970), 43-44, 49, 51-52,
52-53.
71
Reed, The Holy Profane, 127-128, 130; Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 86.
69
121
there was “nobody crying” and “no smiling faces lying to the races.”72 The song focused
primarily on the groove, which like much of the Staple Singers’ work was provided not by
Memphis players but at the Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. Bell and the Staples collaborated
with the band to exploit the growing popularity of Jamaican music in the United States with a
reggae-influenced feel that allowed the true star of the group, Mavis Staples, to improvise over
the top of the groove. In doing so, much as she did on “Respect Yourself” and throughout her
career, Staples provided one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in soul music, including
passionate, audible breathing similar to what preachers and gospel singers had done for
generations.73 The notion of heaven not as a reward after this life, but rather as a sense of
community and freedom worth working for in this world, was embodied in the floating reggae
groove, the hope of greater joy, and the repeated promise that “I’ll Take You There.”74
In 1973, the Staples Singers produced another album, featuring “Touch a Hand, Make a
Friend,” a musical feeling far different from the previous year’s funky grooves.75 Featuring
strings and prominent melody lines from flutes and marimba, the song ventured farther from the
sound that had defined Stax through much of the 1960s, demonstrating strong influences from
Detroit and Philadelphia soul as well as the Caribbean music that drove “I’ll Take You There.”76
The symphonic sound cropped up from time to time at Stax, but typically the team had
maintained a primarily rhythm- and horn-dominated sound for financial, pragmatic, and aesthetic
Be Altitude: Respect Yourself, “I’ll Take You There;” Gordon, Respect Yourself, 285-286.
“Biography: The Staple Singers,” 8 August 1973 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 60101); Bowman, Soulsville,
U.S.A., 259-260; Ryan, “’Can I Get a Witness?,’” 180-181.
74
Jesse Jackson, opening speech and Black Litany, Wattstax, 30th Anniversary DVD; Cone, Black Theology and
Black Power, 35-36, 134, 151; Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, 91-92, 95; Lincoln and Mamiya, The Black
Church in the African American Experience, 6, 347.
75
The Staple Singers, Be What You Are, © 1973 by Stax, STS-3015, “Touch a Hand, Make a Friend.”
76
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 290-291; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 49-50; Alexander Stewart, “’Funky
Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown, and the Rhythmic Transformation of American Popular Music,” in Popular
Music 19, no. 3 (October 2000), 293-318 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 308-309; Werner, A
Change Is Gonna Come, 200-201; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 119, 202-204.
72
73
122
reasons. Partially due to Isaac Hayes’s enormous success with Shaft, however, the company
obviously used more strings, such as on this example, when desired.77 While the use of strings
primarily signaled a commercial decision driven by popular tastes in the early 1970s, the fact that
orchestral musicians were overwhelmingly white people working with black artists to produce
music for an increasingly mixed audience also represented the religious and secular desire for
meaningful integration. James Cone wrote about the need for white people to become black in
order to truly reconcile and make racial progress. Perhaps this track, performed over a decade
after Mayor Edmund Orgill received a hail of criticism for attempting to appoint J. E. Walker to
a Memphis hospital board, helped to facilitate exactly that.78
“Touch a Hand, Make a Friend” provided much more of the forward-looking hope found
in “I’ll Take You There” than the frustration of “Respect Yourself.” The song featured Mavis
Staples prominently, with her strong, gritty gospel ad lib riffs over the repeated chorus driving
the song ever forward, urging people “reach out and touch a hand, make a friend if you can.”
Like Eddie Floyd on “Raise Your Hand,” the Staple Singers offered their agape love to anyone
willing to grasp it, urging others “from every walk of life” to see the light and embrace in
fellowship. Once again bridging the essentialist gap between the sacred and the secular, the
Staple Singers, along with other Stax artists such as Albert King and Eddie Floyd, innately
understood that successful soul music and civil rights progress both relied on taking action and
Roy Brewer, “String Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee,” in Popular Music 19, no. 2
(April 2000), 201-215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 202, 204, 207.
78
Mrs. Bailey, letter to Edmund Orgill, 16 February 1956 (this letter actually referred to him as a “Negro”); C.N.
Oswalt, letter to Edmund Orgill, 27 February 1956; Allan Asher, letter to Edmund Orgill, 28 February 1956; E.B.
Brown, letter to Edmund Orgill, 9 March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); Cone, Black Theology and
Black Power, 147-148, 151; Brewer, “String Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee,” 205,
207, 209; David Sanjek, “Tell Me Something I Don’t Already Know: The Harvard Report on Soul Music
Revisited,” in Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music, ed. Norman Kelly (New York: Akashic
Books, 2002), 64-65, 69, 74-75.
77
123
working with others in a framework that regularly applied the worldly and the otherworldly to
the important work they carried out.
Conclusion
Stax Records created music that defied the limited constructed binary interpretations of
religious or worldly endeavors. Beyond the label’s overtly gospel releases, the pop stars
consistently provided decidedly secular popular music with noticeably broad influences,
including black theology and gospel music, despite the overarching themes of love, fellowship,
or entertainment. This is not surprising, nor is it unlike the complicated interplay of the more
general notion of creating music that both entertains and inspires to activism. Furthermore, the
soul music from Stax Records was influenced by and helped to influence the civil rights
movement, both at home in Memphis and across the nation.
Civil rights activism, in Memphis and nationally, rarely existed solely within a sacred or
a secular milieu. The grassroots activists and civic and religious leaders who carried out the
important work of racial progress sought to achieve gains of integration, economic
empowerment, racial harmony, and black pride in a way that crossed the boundaries of such
academically constructed binaries. The holistic nature of African and African American culture,
which defies compartmentalization into such essentialist categories, shaped the work of
Memphis religious and civic leaders, and naturally influenced the music produced in the
McLemore and Muscle Shoals studios by Jesse Jackson’s friend and colleague, Al Bell. As a
result, Stax Records provided a wealth of powerful musical evidence that the civil rights
movement in all its forms applied the full scope of human emotion and experience to creating the
sound of an era and of a movement.
124
CHAPTER 5
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
The Connections between Stax Records and the Memphis Civil Rights Movement in the
American Federalist System
Rufus Thomas and William Bell came to Stax Records in the early days of the company
as veterans of the Memphis music scene. They presented starkly different voices and styles, with
Bell bringing a smooth, high class polish from his experience as a jazz singer and Thomas
honing his image as a Southern soul entertainer with a knack for staying young and having fun.
While Bell crooned about love lost and gained, charming women with his sly smile and silky
voice, Thomas built an image of equal parts black spokesperson and fun-loving life of the party.
For all their outward differences, these two Memphians played key roles in building Jim
Stewart’s experiment on McLemore into an international black music success story. They
helped write hit songs, brought important artists to the label, and built outstanding reputations as
recording artists and performers who brought the soul music of Memphis to the world. And in
doing so, Rufus Thomas and William Bell represented the kind of all-of-the-above approach to
artistic and commercial success that mirrored the work of local civil rights activists working for
equal constitutional participation in the complicated American federalist system.1
Mary Ann Lee, “Stars of Stax Win Bundle of Image Awards,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 26 November 1971
(University of Memphis, Special Collections: Memphis Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); Stax Press Release,
“Rufus Thomas – 40 Years of Memphis Soul,” 3 July 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867); “Rufus Performs
at Benefit,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 28 March 1980 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867); Louis Cantor, Wheelin’
on Beale: How WDIA-Memphis Became the Nation’s First All Black Radio Station and Created the Sound that
Changed America (New York: Pharos Books, 1992), 95-97, 126-127 Rob Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of
Stax Records (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 14, 19-20; Robert Gordon, Respect Yourself: Stax Records and
the Soul Explosion (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2013), 31-32, 57, 109.
1
125
African American history and American federalism share a complicated history. Both
contain roots in the early years of a republic that combined the lofty rhetoric of liberty with the
brutal realities of slavery, segregation, and political and economic inequality.2 The civil rights
movement created new interactions between the black freedom struggle and the conflict between
national power and states’ rights that raised questions over the proper channels for political and
economic reform. In general, despite conservative analyses lamenting the immense growth of
national power, to deal with issues such as poverty and civil rights activists themselves
demonstrated a more inclusive approach to racial problems, turning to varying levels of local,
state, and national government depending on the immediate needs and best long-term outcomes
of their goals. This was the case in Memphis just as in other locations, and represented a similar
all-of-the-above approach to achieving aims of equality to that employed by Stax Records in
their quest for success. Consequently, an analysis of Memphis civil rights movement, coupled
with an analysis of the people, actions, and music of Stax, illustrates the complex relationship of
federalism and civil rights, and the artistic and philanthropic expression of a local company
provides a unique lens through which to view this interplay.3
2
Paul Frymer, Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America (Princeton, New Jersey, and Oxford:
Princeton University Press, 1999), 6-7, 8-10.
3
David M. Tucker, Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civil Reformers 1948-1968 (Knoxville,
Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980), 65, 75, 82-86, 92-94, 136-137, 143, 165-166; Cynthia G.
Fleming, “’We Shall Overcome’: Tennessee and the Civil Rights Movement,” in Tennessee Historical Quarterly 54,
no. 3 (Fall 1995), 230-245 (Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 1995), 232-235, 236-237, 243; Will
Sarvis, “Leaders in the Court and Community: Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams, Jr., and the Legal Fight for
Civil Rights in Tennessee, 1940-1970,” in The Journal of African American History 88 (no. 1 (Winter 2003), 42-58
(Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc., 2003), 43, 53-54; Bobby
L. Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee Press, 2005), 117, 189-191, 197, 288, 300-302; Laurie B. Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality:
Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press,
2007), 114, 137, 184-185, 192-193, 198, 200, 221, 253-254; G. Wayne Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom: Memphis and
the Political Transformation of the American South (Jackson, Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi,
2010), 22-23, 67-68, 106, 137.
126
John Gaventa performed a study of power in Appalachia that offered credence to the
notion of Third World colonization applying power in such a way that lent a sense of legitimacy
to the colonizers, which subsequently he applied to the communities he studied. Gaventa based
this work on scholars like Franz Fanon, a frequently cited theorist among Black Power advocates
seeking to place the position of African Americans in a third world context. If such power, as he
argued, fostered quiescence in the victims of colonization, then in the case of civil rights,
activists faced a difficult uphill battle against local, state, and national forces.4 Yet despite the
overwhelming odds, African Americans achieved significant gains in the area of civil rights
through action designed to attack systematic problems like segregation, unequal education,
poverty, and job opportunities, according to what they perceived to be the most promising
avenue. Writing at the height of the civil rights struggle, political scientist Hanna Pitkin
addressed the problematic nature of purely descriptive or substantive representation, a problem
surely compounded for black Americans who were denied such representation. While some later
activists and politicians called for more direct representation of black people by black people,
this approach largely failed to take into account the diversity of black America or the potential
for further political alienation through racial gerrymandering.5 Furthermore, Pitkin noted,
representatives in a federal republic such as the United States faced the unenviable position of
balancing the desires of their constituents with the needs of the country, a particularly acute
problem for members of Congress representing Southern districts with newly enfranchised black
voters.6
4
John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Urbana, Illinois,
and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980), 3, 27-28, 31-32.
5
Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, and London:
University of California Press, 1967), 10-11, 64, 84-87, 115, 130.
6
Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, 216-218, 238.
127
Theorists like Gaventa and Pitkin were not writing directly about the political needs of
African Americans, but the dialogue they initiated through their work applies here, particularly
in the context of the civil rights movement in Memphis. Power lay at the root of the oppression
of African Americans, and it was the goal of the black freedom struggle. While the struggle
involved issues of method, gender, and spirituality, ultimately it relied on political representation
in the American federal system of government, and gaining that representation meant working
through that system. At the same time Memphians negotiated such political realities, the artists
and staff at Stax Records continued to produce the soundtrack to the revolution, and their daily
lives became intertwined with the struggle. While few may view the issue of federalism and
American politics in a binary framework, the existence of national and state power necessitated a
movement that understood and worked within all levels of government. Similarly, Stax Records
negotiated local and national issues related to growing a successful company and producing
outstanding soul music. This chapter examines the ways in which this happened.
“The World Is Round:” The Memphis Civil Rights Movement and American Federalism
In the late 1950s, Mayor Edmund Orgill of Memphis was one of many in Tennessee
reexamining reapportionment. The state’s system overwhelmingly favored rural areas in a time
that witnessed enormous migration to the cities, particularly among the black population. One
study concluded that “Moore County, with a voting age population of 2,340, elects one member
to the House of Representatives; the floterial district of Anderson and Morgan, with a voting age
population of 42,398, also elects one member. The First Senatorial District has a total voting age
population of 99,355 as compared to 25,190 in the 13th District.”7 The study went on to list
League of Women Voters of Tennessee, “A Study of Reapportionment in Tennessee” (University of Memphis,
Special Collections, Mississippi Valley Collection: Edmund Orgill Papers, MSS 87, Box 16, Folder I).
7
128
numerous problems with this unequal system of representation, including aggravation of
problems in larger cities and increased relationships between the local and national governments
coinciding with decreased effectiveness of state legislatures.8 Memphis represented one of those
growing cities in the 1950s, and with an increased African American population receiving even
less attention from the state government while national civil rights organizations prepared for
action in the wake of Brown, local and state officials in Tennessee certainly must have
understood the problems of representation in a changing state.9
Memphis in particular, and Tennessee in general, experienced the phenomenon of the
plantation mentality, a desire for white supremacy to remain intact despite changing
demographics from rural to urban environments and agricultural to manufacturing economies.
The multi-layered forms of oppression to maintain the traditional racial order took on many
guises, including sexual violence, menial labor, segregated schools, and censorship of radio,
television, and film, but the goal remained the same: maintaining white dominance in politics,
economics, and social and cultural life.10 Memphis challenged white political, economic, and
social oppression in two important ways that get at the heart of the political problems for African
Americans in the federalist system. Black Memphians originally represented, and later
8
Ibid.
Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 117; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 2, 185.
10
Hugh Davis Graham, Crisis in Print: Desegregation and the Press in Tennessee (Nashville, Tennessee:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), 4-5; David R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and
Region, 1607-1980 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 3, 4-5, 7, 166168, 191; David R. Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture, 1940 to the
Present (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 2; Marcus D. Pohlmann and
Michael P. Kirby, Racial Politics at the Crossroads: Memphis Elects Dr. W. W. Herenton (Knoxville, Tennessee:
The University of Tennessee Press, 1996), 10, 12-13, 53-55; Whitney Strub, “Black and White and Banned All
Over: Race, Censorship, and Obscenity in Postwar Memphis,” in Journal of Social History 40, no. 3 (Spring 2007),
685-715 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 685, 689, 697; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 2, 49,
87, 185, 198, 214-215; Michael K. Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s
Last Campaign (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007), 3, 11, 55; Danielle L. McGuire, At the
Dark End of the Street: Women, Rape, and Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa
Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), xix-xx, 7-8, 21, 51, 121-122.
9
129
challenged, what political scientist Paul Frymer referred to as a “captive electorate.” Under the
Crump Machine, African Americans received paternalistic treatment in exchange for votes, and
as the city mobilized toward civil rights progress, local African American leaders fought to break
free from such captivity through organizations like the Shelby County Democratic Club. 11
Furthermore, as a city known for its “good race relations,” Memphis nonetheless served as home
to numerous instances of resistance to the system of oppression, most notably the sit-ins of the
early 1960s and the sanitation strike of 1968. The existence of a powerful, biracial movement
for integration and job opportunities belied the city’s claims of good race relations, and ushered
in an era of civil rights activism that included a complicated dance between local, state, and
national powers.12
As Memphis entered the 1960s, the black population clearly exemplified the captured
electorate. While votes were far less restricted than many other parts of the South, neither party
11
J. E. Walker, letter to Lucius Burch promising support for Kefauver campaign, one of the candidates crediting
with taking down the Crump machine, 8 December 1953 (University of Memphis, Special Collections, Mississippi
Valley Collection: Lucius E. Burch Jr. Papers, MSS 126, Box 41: John Birch Society – Legal documents Vol. II);
Shelby County Democratic Club, flyer supporting A. Alexander Looby for Supreme Court of Tennessee, 1962
(University of Memphis, Special Collections: Russell B. Sugarmon Jr. Papers, MSS 108, Box 1, Folder 3; Tucker,
Memphis Since Crump, 3, 17, 57, 101; Frymer, Uneasy Alliances, 6-7, 8-10, 15, 32-33, 93-94, 120-121, 131; Wayne
G. Dowdy, “The White Rose Mammy: Racial Culture and Politics in World War II Memphis,” in The Journal of
Negro History 85, no. 4 (Autumn 2000), 308-314 (Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of African
American Life and History, Inc., 2000), 309, 310; Beverly G. Bond and Janann Sherman, Memphis in Black and
White (Charleston, South Carolina, Chicago, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing,
2003), 90-91; Will Sarvis, “Leaders in the Court and Community: Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams, Jr., and
the Fight for Civil Rights in Tennessee, 1940-1970,” in The Journal of African American History 88, no. 1 (Winter
2003), 42-58 (Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc., 2003), 43,
48, 53-54; Wayne G. Dowdy, Mayor Crump Don’t Like It: Machine Politics in Memphis (Jackson, Mississippi: The
University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 113; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 137, 190-191, 221.
12
“The Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee 1960,” unpublished scrapbook containing news clippings
from the 1960 sit-ins (Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis & Shelby County Room:
Maxine A. Smith NAACP Collection, Box IV, Folder 1); Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the
States, 2nd edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1972), 6-7, 18, 53, 150-151, 153-154; Lester C.
Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee 1791-1970 (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, with The
Tennessee Historical Commission, 1981), 98-99, 104; Joseph F. Zimmerman, Contemporary American Federalism:
The Growth of National Power (Leicester and London: Leicester University Press, 1992), 1, 11, 34-37, 56; Lovett,
The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, xxiv, 189-191, 197, 216-217; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 2,
109-110, 141, 192-193, 224, 253-254; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 64, 80, 119, 207-208.
130
truly represented African Americans in the city, despite the attempts of the national Democratic
Party to garner black votes through civil rights initiatives that were opposed by southern
members of the party.13 Even more importantly, black Memphians not only found themselves
out of electoral politics, but also excluded from local government employment above the most
menial positions.14 To combat this problem, Democratic Clubs for Memphis and Shelby County
mobilized the African American population by running black candidates for political office.
While mostly unsuccessful at the time, the candidacies of J. E. Walker, Russell Sugarmon,
Alexander Looby, and others brought national civil rights leaders to Memphis, increased the
black voter rolls in the area, and forced the Democratic Party to answer to the questions of racial
inequality in politics and economics.15
Scholars have noted the existence of a powerful NAACP in Memphis, an organization
which linked the city to the national movement for black legal equality.16 Members of the
Memphis NAACP supported the sit-in movement and worked tirelessly on legal battles for civil
13
Estes Kefauver, often regarded as an important influence on progressing western Tennessee Democrats on civil
rights, admitted he preferred that not to be a national issue: J. E. Walker, letter to Lucius Burch promising support
for Kefauver campaign, 8 December 1953; Estes Kefauver, letter to Edmund Orgill, 2 April 1954 (Burch Papers,
Box 41, Vol. II). Elazar, American Federalism, 150-151; John R. Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 11-12.
14
“Mayor Backs Down On Negro Appointee,” AP (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); O. Z. Evers, T. R. Fugh,
and Eliehue Stanback (President, Vice President, and Chairman of Binghampton Civil League), letter to Mayor
Edmund Orgill urging better city employment for Negros, 9 November 1959 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A).
15
Shelby County Democratic Club & WDIA, “Where the Negro Stands in the August 2nd Election, 31 July 1962 and
1 August 1962; Democratic Club flier, “Unite – Elect Z. Alexander Looby,” 1962; Shelby County Democratic Club,
“Instructions for Poll Workers on Election Day,” 2 August 1962; Alexander Gladney, form letter to Memphis
ministers encouraging support of black candidates in Democratic primary, 19 July 1962 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 1,
Folder 3); Bob Bourne (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), letter to Russell B. Sugarmon, Jr., Esq., 7 May 1963
(Sugarmon Papers, Box 3, Folder 10); Pamphlet, “The Board of Education Needs Hollis F. Price” (LeMoyne-Owen
College, Dr. Hollis F. Price Library: Hollis F. Price Folder); Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom, 22-23, 67-68, 106, 137.
16
Deanie Parker, phone interview with author (facilitated by Levon Williams), Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 18 June 2013; Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 117, 144, 189-191; Green, Battling the
Plantation Mentality, 184-185, 190-191; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 38-39; Dowdy, Crusade for Freedom,
78-80.
131
rights issues such as integration and poverty.17 The NAACP offered an important response to the
complications of the federalist system as it worked on the local and national levels to deal with
problems associated with racial inequality. Working through local chapters, NAACP members
dealt largely with problems in and around Memphis, but their fundraising and publicity
simultaneously supported national efforts and benefited from national assistance. It is important
to note also that, just as the study on reapportionment warned, Memphis activists tended to focus
on local and national issues while bypassing a stubborn Tennessee state government.18
Compared to more visible sites, such as Little Rock or Birmingham, Memphis garnered
relatively little attention in its struggle to desegregate schools and public facilities. While not
without arrests and local media disagreements, Memphis students, assisted by the NAACP,
succeeded in desegregating facilities such as the libraries and swimming pools in the early 1960s
without violence or national attention.19 Despite these impressive gains, however, meaningful
public school integration remained elusive for black Memphians. In a desire to remain below the
radar, local and state officials took more tempered positions on Brown than their counterparts in
other places, and the white power structure ensured that quiet token integration combined with
eventual white flight to the suburbs maintained a mostly segregated education in Memphis.20 In
response to this, a white Jewish woman by the name of Myra Dreifus, who had moved from
“The Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tennessee 1960” (Smith NAACP Collection, Box IV, Folder 1);
Maxine Smith (Executive Secretary, Memphis NAACP), letter to War on Poverty Committee, 7 December 1967
(Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F).
18
League of Women Voters of Tennessee, “A Study of Reapportionment in Tennessee” (Orgill Papers, Box 16,
Folder I); Elazar, American Federalism, 6-7, 81; Sarvis, “Leaders in the Court and Community,” 53-54; Lovett, The
Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 197; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 185.
19
Graham, Crisis in Print, 254-256; Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 189-191; Green, Battling the
Plantation Mentality, 233, 241-242.
20
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 121-122, 165-166; Roger Biles, “A Bittersweet Victory: Public School
Desegregation in Memphis,” in The Journal of Negro Education 55, no. 4 (Autumn 1986), 470-483 (Washington,
D.C.: Journal of Negro Education, 1986), 473-474, 474, 477, 478-479; Fleming, “’We Shall Overcome,’” 236-237;
Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 198.
17
132
Detroit to Memphis, cooperated with white educator Frances Coe and black head of LeMoyne
College Hollis Price to improve conditions in poor black Memphis schools. The Fund for Needy
School Children fought through state-level aversion to federal assistance to provide free lunches,
school supplies, and educational materials and activities in another example of local-federal
cooperation bypassing state resistance.21
In addition to the NAACP and the national connections, Memphis civil rights leaders also
took advantage of the federalist system to engage in significant work at the local level,
particularly in economic affairs. Most restaurants desegregated in the mid-1960s through a
combination of student sit-ins, a biracial women’s lunch group, and, surprisingly, the
encouragement of a typically strong-armed police commissioner, Claude Armour. Without
national attention or reference to the recent Katzenbach v. McClung case desegregating
restaurants, Memphian activists demonstrated the peaceful nature of blacks and whites dining
together while Commissioner Armour highlighted the disadvantage to businesses in continuing
to fight for segregation.22 Perhaps the most important local organization throughout much of the
Stax era in Memphis was the Memphis Committee on Community Relations, a biracial group
that included civic and education leaders, lawyers, business owners, and members of the
NAACP. One of the most important functions of the MCCR included pressuring local
businesses to hire African Americans above menial positions, and ensuring fair opportunities for
education and training to earn those jobs. While federal affirmative action mandates remained
Maxine Smith, letter to War on Poverty Committee, 7 December 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); “Dr.
Hollis Price to Get Brotherhood Award,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 17 October 1974 (Hollis F. Price Folder); Gail S.
Murray, “White Privilege, Racial Justice: Women Activists in Memphis,” in Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege:
White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era, ed. Gail S. Murray (Gainesville, Florida: University Press
of Florida, 2004), 211-213; Kimberly K. Little, You Must Be from the North: Southern White Women in the
Memphis Civil Rights Movement (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 36, 37, 43.
22
Tucker, Memphis Since Crump, 136-137; Murray, Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege, 208-209; Little, You Must
Be from the North, 5-6, 9, 17, 118-119.
21
133
years from enactment, local leaders in Memphis achieved significant gains within their city
through biracial cooperation and coordination between civic and economic leaders.23
Few Memphians embodied the spirit of the all-of-the-above approach to civil rights
activism within the federal system more than Benjamin Hooks. The grandson of a music teacher
who had once assisted W. C. Handy with orchestration when she was not busy establishing a
black juvenile court or fighting for desegregation of the library, Hooks joined forces with fellow
attorneys Russell Sugarmon and A. W. Willis to lead Memphis in its more forceful desegregation
efforts of the 1960s.24 Hooks proved a brilliant legal mind and passionate civil rights leader who
defended students during the sit-ins of the early 1960s. He was not only a leader in the Memphis
civil rights movement; he eventually earned a position as the first black criminal judge in
Tennessee. He also moved from state to federal government employment when he was
appointed as Commissioner to the Federal Communications Commission. Hooks concluded his
symbolic move through the American federalist system by serving as Executive Director of the
NAACP for nearly two decades, where he oversaw local and national civil rights issues.25
Throughout Hooks’s impressive career, he continued to return to Memphis for speaking
engagements, reminding citizens about the importance of justice alongside law and order, urging
“Constitution, Purpose, and By-Laws of the Memphis Committee on Community Relations” (Orgill Papers, Box
24, Folder I.A); Clark Porteous, “Memphis Provides More and Better Jobs for Negroes: Report on Work of
Employment Committee,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 20 May 1963 (Burch Papers, Box 456, Vol. I); Hollis Price,
presiding, Minutes of the MCCR Executive Committee, 10 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B);
Edmund Orgill, presiding, Minutes of the Memphis Committee on Community Relations, 16 January 1968 (Orgill
Papers, Box 24, Folder I.A).
24
Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall, Beale Black & Blue: Life and Music on Black America’s Main Street
(Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 18-19; Tucker, Memphis Since
Crump, 101; Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee, 104; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 190-191.
25
Lovett, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee, 189-191; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 218, 249.
23
134
for more jobs for blacks and women, demanding an end to racism in radio and television, and
encouraging young African Americans to set high goals and take pride in themselves. 26
Another Memphian dedicated to justice and equality, Ed Meeman, spent his career in the
fourth branch of government. Meeman wrote countless editorials for the Press-Scimitar
supporting integration and economic opportunity, participated in the MCCR, and corresponded
privately with civic leaders on topics such as Martin Luther King’s letter from Birmingham jail
and their need to take a stance on racial issues.27 Meeman’s Christian faith led him to take a
strong stance from the early days of the movement, beginning with his public approval of the
Brown decision, a bold move for a white newspaper man in the mid-1950s.28 Meeman’s careful
moderation sometimes limited his willingness to support the freedom struggle through the 1960s,
and in hindsight often made him appear tepid and weak from his privileged position, but as the
editor of a major white newspaper in Memphis he proved instrumental in ushering in a more
peaceful and cooperative movement than other cities experienced.29 Despite certain
understandable criticism, Meeman’s ability to influence the citizens and leaders of Memphis and
Tennessee through the press earned him the National Human Rights Award of the National
“Judge Hooks Calls for Law, Order and Justice for all,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 1968; “FCC Member Calls
for End to ‘Racism,’” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 18 November 1972; “Job Gains Are Urged for Women, Blacks,”
Memphis Press-Scimitar, 23 September 1973; “Memphian Hooks Admonishes Students to Be ‘Somebody!’,”
Memphis Press-Scimitar, 12 November 1976; National Conference of Christians and Jews News Release,
“Commissioner and Mrs. Ben L. Hooks Will Receive the Brotherhood Award for 1977,” 2 December 1976 (PressScimitar Morgue, File 1418).
27
Ed Meeman, letter to Edmund Orgill supporting strong stance on desegregation of public golf course, 15 February
1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.B); Edward J. Meeman, “Men Won’t Lay Down Their Arms Unless They
First Disarm Their Minds of Prejudice,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 2 June 1960, 6 (University of Memphis, Special
Collections: Edward Meeman Papers, MVP 2207, MS 85, Box 2, Folder 3); Lucius Burch, letter to Edward Meeman
with Letter from Birmingham Jail enclosed, 12 July 1963; Edward Meeman, letter to Lucius Burch supporting
King’s ideology but questioning his action, 15 July 1963 (Burch Papers, Box 46, Vol. I).
28
Graham, Crisis in Print, 41.
29
Edward J. Meeman, “Payments to Parents Of Private School Pupils,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 6 October 1958, 6;
Edward J. Meeman, “To My Negro Friends,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 29 October 1962, 6; Edward J. Meeman,
“Next Race Relations Task in Memphis: More and Better Job for Negroes,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 26 February
1963, 6 (Meeman Papers, Box 2, Folder 5).
26
135
Conference of Christians and Jews in 1963, an honor which he used to give one of his most
powerful addresses urging employment equality for African Americans based on Christian
principles of brotherhood.30
The Memphis civil rights movement existed within a complex web of local, state, and
national factors. The work of activists like Russell Sugarmon, Myra Dreifus, Hollis Price, Ben
Hooks, and Ed Meeman, among others, demonstrated the need for an all-of-the-above approach
to negotiating change in the federalist system. Their quest for equality demonstrated
understanding of the nuances of American federalism and political representation.
“I Had a Dream:” Stax Records’ All-of-the-Above Approach to Commercialism and Activism
In a 2005 article, Howard Harrington provided a compelling case for the city the center of
black music production, “the nexus of musical as well as industrial organization, creativity,
innovation and production for music as a culture products industry within the cultural economy.”
He argued that African American music represented “the totality of society in which they are
embedded,” a cultural expression rooted in performer-audience interaction and heavily
influenced by social-cultural interactions. Post-World War II black music, such as that created at
Stax, was thus the product of multiple factors converging in cities like Memphis, driven forward
by technical innovations in recording and radio, and circulated through black (and white)
communities in growing urban environments.31 Harrington’s insightful article provided the basis
for understanding black music production as an urban phenomenon, but for Stax Records, the
Edward J. Meeman, editor emeritus of Press-Scimitar, speech later printed under title “Next Race Relations Task
in Memphis” (Meeman Papers, Box 2, Folder 5); program from award ceremony (guest list included Hollis Price,
Blair Hunt, Bert Ferguson, Henry Loeb, Frances Coe, Edmund Orgill, and Lucius Burch), 25 February 1963
(Meeman Papers, Box 2, Folder 27).
31
Howard Harrington III, “Black Stars or Black Holes?: Cities as Sites for Verticality in Popular Music Production,”
in Built Environment 31, no. 3, Music and the City (2005), 208-225 (Oxford: Alexandrine Press, 2005), 208-209,
213, 216, 216-217, 222.
30
136
city of Memphis existed in a Southern environment of mixed urban and rural influences. This
created a soul sound entirely unique to Stax, but like other companies (such as Motown in
Detroit), the company also sold internationally and sent its stars on tour, contributing to the
national and international development of soul.32 In other words, while Memphis activists
approached civil rights through all levels of government, Stax demonstrated a similar all-of-theabove approach to commercial and artistic success through the civil rights era.
While the Memphis civil rights movement actively engaged with all levels of government
throughout the black freedom struggle, Stax Records’ history can be clearly delineated into two
distinct periods. The first was the Jim Stewart-dominated era, from 1960 until around 1968 after
the deaths of Otis Redding and Martin Luther King. In this period, Stax existed primarily as a
local company, recording exclusively at the McLemore studios, utilizing mostly Memphis-based
singers, players, and producers, and remaining true to Stewart’s specific vision of Southern black
soul. With the rise of Al Bell’s influence in the late 1960s, Stax expanded to a more national
product. Bell brought in outside producers and artists, utilized other studios such as that in
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and incorporated both musical and sociopolitical influences from
places like Detroit and Chicago into the expanding Stax catalogue. The result was that the
company’s historical narrative, in many ways, developed from a local to a national theme before
its ultimate demise in the mid-1970s.33
32
Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers, 3, 4-5, 7; Robert Gordon, It Came from Memphis (New York: Pocket
Books, 1995), 3; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 1, 30-31, 123, 267-271; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 2,
185, 198, 214-215, 226; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 69, 110-112, 123-124, 152-153, 158.
33
Levon Williams (Curator of Collections/Registrar, Stax Museum of American Soul), interview by author,
Memphis, Tennessee, 16 July 2013; Michael Haralambos, Right On: From Blues to Soul in Black America (New
York: Drake Publishers Inc., 1975), 154; Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern
Dream of Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 98, 108-111, 131, 169-170, 212, 359, 362-366, 368-372; Rob
Bowman, “The Stax Sound: A Musicological Analysis,” in Popular Music 14, no. 3 (October 1995), 285-320
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 285-286, 317; Gordon, It Came from Memphis, 64-66, 70;
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 13, 61, 70, 80-81, 143-145, 165, 179, 202-205, 211, 250; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 98,
113-116, 151-152, 188-189, 202-204, 207-208, 245, 269-271, 283-284, 355.
137
From its inception, Stax Records was white-owned and black-featured, and while Jim
Stewart was white, he took pride in producing what many considered to be black soul music.
Early music writers consistently commented on the harmonious integrated nature of the house
band and the company leadership.34 Despite the constant descriptions of Stax as an “oasis”
where blacks and whites came together to create music without social conflict, one must
acknowledge that it was a white-run company through the 1960s, a fact made more poignant in
light of the sharecropping system imposed from Atlantic Records during much of Stewart’s
tenure. While the music made at Stax created a sense of black pride and provided much of the
soundtrack for the civil rights movement, the two-edged sword of white management, at once
beneficial for sales and distribution as well as indicative of a city, state, and nation run by white
men, likely called into question the colonialist nature of race relations in the United States.35 In
fact, some scholars even went so far as to question whether black music was hurt by
integrationist goals which led middle- and upper-class African Americans to turn away from the
black lower class and white executives to maintain hegemony over the recording industry.36
Unlike politics, however, black Stax artists could hardly have been considered a captive
34
Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 120-122, 127, 163; Charlie Gillett,
The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 231-232, 233; Arnold Shaw,
The World of Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop Music Scene (New York: Cowles Book Company, Inc.,
1970), 181-182, 270.
35
Deanie Parker, phone interview by author (facilitated by Levon Williams), Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 18 June 2013; Haralambos, Right On, 130-131, 142-143; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 5, 10-11;
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 60, 70, 250; David Sanjek, “One Size Does Not Fit All: The Precarious Position of the
African American Entrepreneur in Post-World War II American Popular Music,” in American Music 15, no. 4
(Winter 1997), 535-562 (Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 538, 543; Brian Ward, Just My
Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and
London: University of California Press, 1998), 326, 336; Cynthia A. Young, Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and
the Making of a U.S. Third World Left (Durham, North Carolina, and London: Duke University Press, 2006), 5;
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 31-32, 41, 67-69, 175, 199, 330.
36
Haralambos, Right On, 61, 66-67; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 66-67; Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm and
Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 9-10, 106, 117-119, 147, 167; Richard J. Ripani, The New Blue Music:
Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 7, 179, 182;
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 345, 350-351, 355.
138
electorate. They collaborated with each other, engaged in comfortable dialogue with Stewart and
his sister, Estelle Axton, and became the faces of some of the most exciting and important music
in the civil rights era.37
Through the mid-1960s, Stax generated hit records and gained international popularity,
but remained primarily a locally-run company. Even when artists like Sam and Dave came from
Florida via New York or Otis Redding came from Georgia (originally as the driver for a potential
act that did not end up with the company), their work became different versions of a similar
formula: writing with Isaac Hayes and David Porter or Steve Cropper, cutting with Booker T.
and the MGs and the Memphis Horns, originally engineered mostly by Stewart himself. The
result was a clearly defined product, albeit including a wide range of talents and tastes in the
songwriting and vocals. Critics and audiences fell in love with the “Memphis Sound,” a product
of integrated work in a segregated city, blending country, gospel, and blues influences to create
the sound of Southern soul.38
By the time Al Bell’s control over Stax Records increased in the late 1960s, a great deal
had occurred in Memphis and across the nation. Otis Redding died in a plane crash in 1967,
Martin Luther King was assassinated during his involvement in the Memphis sanitation strike in
1968, and the movement experienced greater diversity in membership and approach as a result of
Pat Guibao, “Soul Sound Opens Heart for Needy,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 18 March 1968 (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 2106); Deanie Parker (Publicity Director, Stax Records, Inc.), letter to Lieutenant George W. Lee
inviting to Memphis Sound Awards, 14 May 1971 (Lee Collection, Box III, Folder 67); Mary Ann Lee, “Stars of
Stax Win Bundle of Image Awards,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 26 November 1971 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
55889); George V. Lee (Grand Commissioner of Education), Elks Department Press Release, “Elks Department of
Education to Give “Hot Buttered Soul” Isaac Hayes an Award at National Citizenship Banquet,” 26 August 1972
(Benjamin Hooks Central Library, Memphis & Shelby County Room: George W. Lee Collection, Box I, Folder 11);
Mary Ann Lee, “Luther Ingram: Happiness Is an Uphill Climb,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 6 October 1972 (PressScimitar Morgue, File 55889); Addie D. Jones, Portrait of a Ghetto School (New York: Vantage Press, 1973), 140142, 148-149; Wayne Jackson (with wife, Amy), phone interview with author, Des Moines, Iowa, and Memphis,
Tennessee, 14 February 2015.
38
Parker, interview by author; Jackson, interview by author; Garland, The Sound of Soul, 2-3, 120-122, 141, 148149, 163; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 290-291, 291-293, 303-304, 311-313, 317; Bowman, Soulsville,
U.S.A., 61, 70, 91; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 67-69, 71, 96, 98, 103, 107.
37
139
frustration over lack of change in the years following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting
Rights Act of 1965. Bell could not help but be influenced by these monumental experiences, but
as a black executive in a Southern company with experience in the movement, he took Stax in
new directions of broader musical expression, message songs, and corporate involvement in
political and economic issues.39 Bell brought in producer Don Davis from Detroit, collaborated
with visionary Larry Shaw to promote a strong Black Power-oriented image, and hired out work
at studios like American across town and Fame in Muscle Shoals to broaden the Stax sound.
Additionally, Stax employed a wider range of artists and allowed them far more room to stretch
creatively, resulting in such enormous hits as the message music of the Staple Singers and the
pre-disco funky sound of Isaac Hayes.40
In essence, Stax Records went from local to national in an era when the national
government increased its scope and power over the states in the realm of civil rights. While the
sound of the company went from a narrowly defined Southern black sound under Jim Stewart to
a broader scope of African American expression with Al Bell at the helm, civil rights leaders in
Memphis and across the South applied an all-of-the-above approach that eventually connected
local needs with federal power at the expense of state influence. This is not to say that
federalism did not also include state actions, but clearly the direction shifted to national
39
Commentary on 1960s civil rights includes: Russell B. Barbour, Black and White Together: Plain Talk for White
Christians (Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1967), 47, 104, 155; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968), 29-30, 59-60, 115, 210; James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black
Power (New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), 3-4, 13, 134; Theodore L. Cross, Black Capitalism: Strategy for
Business in the Ghetto (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 10, 23, 119, 124; C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of
Jim Crow, 3rd Revised Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 135, 139, 190-191, 193-194.
Commentary on changes at Stax includes: Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 169-170, 331, 335, 362-366; Bowman,
Soulsville, U.S.A., 80-81, 143-145, 179, 202-205; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 113-116, 151-152, 178-184, 188-189,
202-204.
40
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 127; Gillett, The Sound of the City, 240-241; Shaw, The World of Soul, 198-199;
April Reilly, “The Impact of Technology on Rhythm ‘n’ Blues,” in Black Perspective in Music 1, no. 2 (Autumn
1973), 136-146 (Port Charlotte, Florida: Foundation for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts, 1973), 136,
140, 143-144; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 368-372; Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286; Bowman, Soulsville,
U.S.A., 157, 165, 180-183, 202-205; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 188-189, 202-204, 207-208, 220-221, 245, 283-284.
140
institutions when southern white citizens and their state government representatives continued to
resist integration and economic opportunity through the civil rights era. When white Memphians
distributed pamphlets opposing integration and wrote letters to state and local officials
discouraging racial progress, Stax Records grew in popularity, garnering recognition from fans in
Los Angeles, New York, and London, and civil rights activists in Memphis turned to
Washington, D.C., for assistance they could not receive in Tennessee.41
While Stax was never an overtly political organization, the company involved itself in
numerous community projects, demonstrating the value of social and cultural activism and the
power of black celebrities supporting important civil rights causes.42 In 1967, for example, the
“How the Negro Got Here: a little bit of fun – but a whole lot of TRUTH,” pamphlet distributed in Memphis
opposing integration and federal intervention on race issues, 1958 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder XIV); Glenview
Community, “Are you aware that a planned negro invasion has happened to an ALL-WHITE Memphis
Community?,” pamphlet opposing integration; “It Has Happened Here in Memphis: Behind the Plot to Sovietize the
South,” pamphlet warning of civil rights-communism connections (Orgill Papers, unmarked folder, box 16); Russell
Sugarmon, letter to President Lyndon Johnson warning of paternalism in local government of Memphis, 1965
(Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 5); Maxine Smith, letter to War on Poverty Committee, 7 December 1967 (Orgill
Papers, Box 24, Folder III.F); Stax News Release, “’Hot Buttered Soul’ Man, Isaac Hayes, to Receive Key to
Cleveland,” 9 October 1969 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); Mary Ann Lee, “Stars of Stax Win Bundle of
Image Awards,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 26 November 1971 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); U.S. Senate, S
17899: Stax Records Organization’s Gift to the Watts Community (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Record:
Proceedings and Debates of the 92d Congress, Second Session, Vol. 118, 13 October 1972, No. 165); Elazar,
American Federalism, 32, 53, 81, 150-151; Lucius Burch, “Why I Am A Liberal,” commencement speech at Rhodes
College, 31 March 1986 (Burch Papers, Box 89, Folder 1); Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern
Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 10-11, 25, 30;
Zimmerman, Contemporary American Federalism, 1, 11, 56.
42
Other examples of celebrity endorsements of important civil rights causes include: Mary Ellison, Lyrical Protest:
Black Music’s Struggle Against Discrimination (New York, Westport, Connecticut, and London: Praeger, 1989), 2930, 59-61; Reebee Garofalo, “Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement,” in Rockin’ the Boat: Mass Music and
Mass Movements, ed. Reebee Garofalo (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 232-233, 235-236; Ward, Just My Soul
Responding, 301, 303; Craig Werner, Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the
Rise and Fall of American Soul (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 5-6, 63-64, 140, 206; Ruth Feldstein, “’I
Don’t Trust You Anymore’: Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 1960s,” in The Journal of American
History 91, no. 4 (March 2005), 1349-1379 (Bloomington, Indiana, and Oxford: Organization of American
Historians, 2005), 1366-1369, 1376-1377; Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of
America (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 40-41, 103-104, 122-125, 189-191;
Young, Soul Power, 80-82; Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Calls Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 152-157, 176; Rickey Vincent, Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black
Panthers’ Band and How Black Power Transformed Soul Music (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2013), 4, 51, 152154.
41
141
U.S. Department of Labor approached Stax about participating in a “Stay in School” campaign.
According to Rob Bowman:
Four thousand copies of the album were pressed, which were then distributed by
the Department of Labor in August as a public service to disc jockeys and radio
stations across the country. Deanie Parker coordinated putting the album
together…
Altruistic gestures like the Stay in School album garnered a certain amount
of free publicity for the label and its artists. Deanie Parker confirmed that Stax
was well aware of this potential…For a brief period, the message on the marquee
outside of the company’s studio was changed from “Soulsville U.S.A.” to “Don’t
Be a Dropout.” When neighborhood children greeted the new message with a
barrage of rocks one evening, it was quickly changed back.43
Despite the mixed public reception, Stax demonstrated business savvy as well as investment in
the community and the country. Education served a vital function in uplift of the African
American community, and Stax, located in the heart of a middle class black neighborhood in
south Memphis that produced Indiana University graduate Booker T. Jones, understood this
clearly.44
Stax artists engaged in spontaneous and long-term projects to assist Memphians and
others nationally and internationally, including participating in benefit concerts for youth
projects, coordinating with local officials to halt racial violence and raising funds to support lowincome housing projects. Artists such as Booker T. and the MGs, the Mad Lads, Eddie Floyd,
and Rufus Thomas performed at annual revue concerts to support the Goodwill Home for Boys
and other local charities; this event also brought in artists from across the country, demonstrating
the national development of soul music.45 In 1971, racial violence erupted in Memphis, and
43
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 124-126.
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 137-139; Katherine Mellen Charron, Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 4, 42, 70-71; Gordon, Respect
Yourself, 22-23, 76-77; John L. Rury, Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling
(New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 1, 19, 167-168, 184, 191, 211.
45
Pat Guibao, “Soul Sound Opens Heart for Needy,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 18 March 1968 (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 2106); “Isaac Hayes to Star in Benefit Show,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 14 November 1969 (PressScimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Red, White, and Blues: Starlite Review Tomorrow Night at Coliseum,” Memphis
44
142
Mayor Henry Loeb (already viewed as hostile to African Americans in the city after the 1968
sanitation strike) issued a curfew that negatively affected black workers and families. Isaac
Hayes participated in negotiations to lift the curfew, and then led various Stax artists through the
black neighborhoods encouraging calm and order.46 Al Bell and Isaac Hayes also engaged in
plans to build low-income housing in Memphis and elsewhere, combining their wealth, concern
for others, and public personas into active uplift of African Americans locally and nationally. 47
Other examples of Stax’s civil rights involvement included a David Porter performance at a
penal colony, the company’s sponsorship of a daycare and trade school, collaboration between
Al Bell and Jesse Jackson in the studio and through philanthropic performances around Chicago,
and donations to numerous organizations such as the NAACP, the Urban League, and the United
Negro College Fund.48
Stax Records and the civil rights movement did not exist in a vacuum of domestic racial
issues. The most significant international issue affecting Stax artists and staff from the mid1960s on was the escalation of the Vietnam War. While progressive Americans tended to look
hopefully to the national government for assistance in achieving movement aims, the legacy of
Vietnam raised significant questions about the power of the president and the role of the United
States government in world affairs. Many at the company either served in the conflict or had
Press-Scimitar, 3 July 1970 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889); “Starlite Revue Nets $32,000,” Memphis PressScimitar, 7 July 1970 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867); “Spinners Top Goodwill Revue,” Memphis PressScimitar, 21 November 1976 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 59867).
46
“Citizenship In Action,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 22 October 1971 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889);
Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 204, 242-243; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 264-265.
47
“Hayes Plans $100 Million Housing Project, Memphis Press-Scimitar, 6 September 1972; James Kingsley,
“Hayes Casting In Area For Next Housing Site,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 7 September 1972 (Press-Scimitar
Morgue, File 55889); Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 241-242, 290-291; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 308-309.
48
Stax News Release, “Stax Artists Headline Benefit Show,” 8 May 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 55889);
“Crime Fighters May Get Support of Isaac Hayes,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 20 June 1973 (Press-Scimitar Morgue,
File 55889); Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 202-205, 241-244, 290-291; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 232-233, 269-271,
317-318.
143
friends and family sent to Southeast Asia, an issue addressed personally and musically at the
company. Robert Gordon noted that Estelle Axton prepared monthly care packages and secured
employment for artists William Brown and John Gary of the Mad Lads, William Bell, and
songwriter Homer Banks. Booker T. Jones had been in the ROTC at Booker T. Washington
High School but received a college deferment to avoid combat.49 While Stax made no outward
gestures for or against the war and did not produce the wealth of Vietnam-related songs seen in
the world of rock and roll, several important songs addressed this important issue, including the
Charmels’ “Please Uncle Sam” (1966) and Eddie Floyd’s “People, Get It Together” (1969).50
William Bell seemed particularly affected by his two-year stint in Vietnam, recording “Marching
Off to War” and “Soldiers Good-bye” in 1966 and “Lonely Soldier” in 1970.51
Stax Records rose to national prominence in an era of shifting federalist power due to
civil rights and social justice movements as well as Cold War foreign entanglements. The
development of the company led to involvement in local and national causes, despite a lack of
overtly political claims in corporate dialogue or musical expression. While artists, producers,
and staff at Stax may not have intended to speak to the political atmosphere of the 1960s and
early 1970s, their music and social and cultural activities displayed the value of examining the
work of the company in light of growing national power and a local civil rights movement intent
on bringing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the people of Memphis.
49
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 109. David Porter also had the title of Captain and claimed his ambition was to serve
in the Armed Forces: The Warrior, Booker T. Washington High School Yearbook, 1961 (Benjamin Hooks Central
Library, Memphis & Shelby County Room).
50
The Charmels, Please Uncle Sam (Send Back My Man)/Something Sweet About My Baby, © 1966 by Volt, V-142,
“Please Uncle Sam (Send Back My Man;” Eddie Floyd, Why the Wine Is Sweeter (On the Other Side)/People, Get It
Together, © 1969 by Stax, STA-0051, “People, Get It Together.”
51
William Bell, Share What You Got/Marching Off to War, © 1966 by Stax, 45-191, “Marching Off to War;”
William Bell, Never Like This Before/Soldiers Good-bye, © 1966 by Stax, 45-199, “Soldiers Good-bye;” William
Bell, Lonely Soldier/Let Me Ride, © 1970 by Stax, STA-0070, “Lonely Soldier.”
144
“Please Uncle Sam:” Musical Analysis of Stax Records, Civil Rights, and Federalism
Robert Gordon made an important point about Rufus Thomas’s decision to present
himself to Jim Stewart in the early days of Stax:
Rufus’s simple act of entering on his own terms was actually no simple act at
all…
Rufus meeting Jim on McLemore was taking place five years after the
nearby Emmett Till murder; three years after the Little Rock Nine defied the city
and upheld the nation’s law, integrating their Central High School. It was four
years the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act…
The entertainment culture, music particularly, moved at a faster pace than
social changes…
Social issues were not on Jim’s mind when he leased the Capitol, but
music was. While Stax was getting into rhythm and blues, rhythm and blues was
working its way into Jim…52
Rufus Thomas, a famous black entertainer in 1960s Memphis, approaching Jim Stewart, a white
man starting a record company, represented an act of agency worth noting in the Jim Crow
South. Thomas’s wife, Lorene, served as secretary for the NAACP, and he regularly engaged
black audiences in witty dialogue to ease discussion of difficult issues on WDIA radio.53
Thomas developed a reputation for himself as “the world’s oldest teenager” and “the funkiest
man alive,” but underneath his fun-loving exterior he was both brilliant and serious in engaging
in cultural codes to use popular music and entertainment as a method of achieving important
aims of the black freedom struggle.54 A comparison of two of Thomas’s biggest dance hits,
“Walking the Dog” and “Funky Chicken,” with one of his more politically-driven songs, “Get on
52
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 22-23.
Cantor, Wheelin’ on Beale, 95-97, 126-127 Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 244.
54
Christopher Ballantine, Music and its Social Meanings (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers,
1984), 5, 20-21; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 103; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 14, 19-20, 243-244; James C. Hall,
Mercy, Mercy Me: African-American Culture and the American Sixties (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001), 6-7; Wayne Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1 (Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson
Publishing, 2005), 171-172; Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come, 61-64; William C. Banfield, Cultural Codes:
Makings of a Black Music Philosophy: An Interpretive History from Spirituals to Hip Hop (Lanham, Maryland: The
Scarecrow Press Inc., 2010), 8, 9, 62, 156; Gordon, Respect Yourself, xii, 22-23, 29, 31-32, 80-81, 264-265, 302.
53
145
Up and Do It,” illuminates the subtle ways in which he negotiated significant topics of the era
without drawing controversy to himself.55
Thomas made a reputation for himself as an artist who initiated teenage dance crazes.
One of his best-known early hits, “Walking the Dog,” opened by quoting the “Wedding March”
from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, most famous for its use as a wedding
recessional.56 For “Walking the Dog,” the horn section played the introduction across three
octaves, providing a powerful opening, following by a bluesy guitar lick that set up the groove.
This playful attitude characterized much of Thomas’s music and stage antics, and demonstrated
his ability to move effortlessly between the intellectual and the vernacular, a trait shared by Nat
D. Williams when discussing black issues on the radio or Russell Sugarmon when inviting
potential supporters to a political reception.57 The rest of the song served as a vehicle for
dancing, with an E-flat vamp under verses that included snippets of folk tales and children’s
rhymes and a V-IV-I blues cadence offering assistance in learning the dance (“If you don’t know
how to do it, I’ll show you how to walk the dog”).58
In a similarly fun-loving fashion, “Funky Chicken” began with Thomas imitating a
chicken, following by a short “rap” where he introduced the song by listing other dance hits over
the years. The verses consisted of nothing more than describing the proper moves to do the
Rufus Thomas, Walking the Dog, © 1963 by Stax, 704, “Walking the Dog;” Rufus Thomas, Do the Funky
Chicken, © 1970 by Stax, STS-2028, “Funky Chicken;” Rufus Thomas, Crown Prince of Dance, © 1973 by Stax,
STS 3008, “Get on Up and Do It.”
56
Felix Mendelssohn, Incidental Music to a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich
Leinsdorf, © 1963 by RCA Victor Red Seal, LSC-2673.
57
Cantor, Wheelin’ on Beale, 46-47, 115, 126-127; D’Army Bailey with Roger Easson, The Education of a Black
Radical: A Southern Civil Rights Activist’s Journey, 1959-1964 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State
University Press, 2009), 19-20; R. B. Sugarmon (handwritten: “Russ”), form letter inviting supporters to Shelby
County Democratic Club reception for John D. Conyers, 24 October 1966: “This means that if we are to serve any
type of beverages, we must rely on our friends (hopefully, smile) to supply the, ‘makings.’ In the vernacular, if you
can make this scene, man, please bring a bottle (if you really want to make the scene, bring two).” (Sugarmon
Papers, Box 3, Folder 2).
58
Walking the Dog, “Walking the Dog.”
55
146
“Funky Chicken,” interspersed with Thomas talking and joking over the groove. He performed
this song at Wattstax to roaring approval and dancing audience members of all ages, which was
followed famously by the crowd temporarily losing control and storming onto the football field
behind the stage. Thomas, ever the leader, stayed on the microphone and successfully coaxed
the crowd back to their seats with his signature combination of wit and pride, spontaneously
using phrases like “more power to the folks that is goin’ to the stands” and “don’t jump the fence
because it don’t make sense” while amicably teasing individuals like a comic.59
Some may question the value of analyzing Rufus Thomas dance hits in the context of
civil rights and American federalism, but not to do so would be to miss the larger point of black
popular music. Susan McClary and Robert Walser wrote about the body as a link between the
physical and spiritual in African and African American culture, and argued that music and dance
actually served a more important expressive function than so-called high art in the Western
tradition. Consequently, scholars must consider the discourse over black music, the body, and
sexuality, and understand that commercial music like Thomas produced at Stax actually provides
as valuable a topic of analysis than other, more traditional artifacts.60 Thus, when Rufus Thomas
created dance hits using vernacular lyrics and his trademark entertainer style, he provided a
meaningful context for discourse over black culture, and when he combined his musical
endeavors with public radio appearances, he represented a valuable black spokesperson in the
59
Wattstax, 30th Anniversary Special Edition, prod. Larry Shaw and Mel Stuart, dir. Mel Stuart, 1 hr. 43 min.
Warner Bros., 1972/2001; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 302.
60
Susan McClary and Robert Walser, “Theorizing the Body in African-American Music,” in Black Music Research
Journal 14, no. 1, Selected Papers from the 1993 National Conference on Black Music Research (Spring 1994), 7584 (Chicago and Champaign, Illinois: Center for Black Music Research – Columbia College Chicago, and
University of Illinois Press, 1994), 76-77, 78-79, 80, 80-81. For more discussion of vernacular and application of
cultural history to political movements, see: Daryl Cumber Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemprary
Black Americans (Bloomington, Indiana, and London: Indiana University Press, 1978), xvii, 78, 110-112, 165-166,
180-181; William L. Van De Burg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 19651975 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 9, 28, 183, 184, 193, 195-197, 308.
147
Memphis community and across the country. As Brian Ward explained, “the crucial point here
is that during the black power era, black pride, the quest for a common black heritage, and the
celebration of a distinctively black world view were simultaneously a genuine reflection of a new
black consciousness, and a lucrative commercial and marketing opportunity. Even the most
escapist rituals and crass exploitation of the search for roots and cultural validation could be
transformed by acts of creative individual and collective consumption into thoroughly positive
assertions of self and community.”61
When Rufus Thomas recorded “Get on Up and Do It” in 1973, he entered the explicitly
political realm with a distinctly Black Power-based message. Demanding that his audience –
ostensibly African Americans – stop waiting for opportunity and take action, Thomas touched on
themes such as taking oneself seriously (“If you wanna be somebody, you can’t mess around”),
motivation and entrepreneurship (“You gotta go and do it, ‘cause doin’ ain’t comin’ to you”),
and avoiding troublemaking (“Hangin’ on the corner can cause some tears, you’ll find more
trouble in five minutes then you can get out in twenty years”).62 By the early 1970s, trust in the
national government waned from both sides, as civil rights activists grew frustrated over lack of
improvement following major legislative and court victories and conservatives began to demand
devolution back to the states in an attempt to capitalize on anger aimed at civil rights gains. 63
61
Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 349-350.
Crown Prince of Dance, “Get on Up and Do It.”
63
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 11-12, 59-60, 79-80, 115;William F. Haddad and G. Douglas Pugh, ed., Black Economic
Development (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969), 2, 2-3, 5; Elazar, American Federalism, 18,
32, 150-151, 153-154, 224; Christopher Jencks, Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in
America (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 3-4, 28, 255-256; Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 190191, 193-194, 211-212, 217-218; Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder, News that Matters: Television and
American Opinion (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 1-2, 33, 88-89; Van De Burg, New
Day in Babylon, 31, 58-59; Zimmerman, Contemporary American Federalism, 1, 11, 56; Frymer, Uneasy Alliances,
32-33, 93-94, 164-166; Christopher Paul Lehman, “Civil Rights in Twilight: The End of the Civil Rights Movement
Era in 1973,” in Journal of Black Studies 35, no. 3 (January 2006), 415-428 (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage
Publications, 2006), 415-416, 425-426, 426-427; Gerald N. Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About
Social Change?, 2nd edition (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 4, 46, 50-54, 61, 70, 75,
85, 93, 97-100, 147.
62
148
This led many African Americans to call for economic empowerment and black
entrepreneurship, with Al Bell counted among those ranks. Certainly “Get on Up and Do It” fit
the message of self-sufficiency, black capitalism, and racial pride in an era of disappointment
over lack of gains after years of struggle for equality.64
Musically, “Get on Up and Do It” represented a new approach for Thomas. Like others,
he utilized several 1970s influences, including the Shaft-inspired wah-wah guitar effect and the
dominant seventh chord with a sharp nine, a harmonic structure previously reserved for vocal or
horn lines while the keyboard and guitar played simpler chords per Jim Stewart’s preferences. 65
As black popular music developed as a national phenomenon, the various artists and record
labels borrowed more and more from each other, and clearly this Thomas record was no
exception. While Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia all adopted Memphis practices, Stax
branched out and picked up influences such as James Brown and the Meters, as evidenced on
this song.66 Once again, while the federal government steady increased its power throughout the
civil rights era, Rufus Thomas and Stax Records nationalized a previously regional sound to
create music for a new generation of listeners and dancers.
William Bell, like Rufus Thomas, spanned almost the entire history of Stax Records, and
demonstrated enormous talent as both performer and songwriter. One of his biggest early hits,
John Z. DeLorean, “The Problem,” in Black Economic Development, 10-11, 19-20; Roy Innis, “Separatist
Economics,” in Black Economic Development, 53, 54; Cross, Black Capitalism, ix, 16, 108-110, 124; Van De Burg,
New Day in Babylon, 31, 114; Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000 (New York
and London: Viking Penguin, 2001), 313.
65
Isaac Hayes, Shaft, © 1971 by Stax, 2629 002, “Theme from Shaft;” Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 285-286, 297301, 310-311; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 259-261.
66
James Brown, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, © 1965 by King Records, 938; The Meters, Look-Ka Py Py, © 1969
by Josie Records, JOS 4011; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., 49-50, 61, 165, 180-183, 211; Roy Brewer, “String
Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee,” in Popular Music 19, no. 2 (April 2000), 201-205
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 202, 204; Alexander Stewart, “’Funky Drummer’: New Orleans,
James Brown, and the Rhythmic Transformation of American Popular Music,” in Popular Music 19, no. 3 (October
2000), 293-318 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 296-297, 304; Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come,
xii-xiv, 76-78, 103-104, 137, 146-147, 166-167, 170, 200-201, 358; Gordon, Respect Yourself, 71, 119, 202-204,
283-284.
64
149
“You Don’t Miss Your Water,” became a kind of signature for him, and when compared his
post-Vietnam experience singles “Share What You Got” and “Marching Off to War,” formed a
foundation for understanding the interplay between Bell’s music and political events of the day.67
“Water” represented the transition period, a 12/8 ballad with the horns taking the place of vocals
in a doo-wop feel but with a definite gospel influence through the IV-I plagal cadence and the
call-and-response between Bell’s vocal lines and the organ fills.68 Lyrically, Bell sang about his
lost love, with the metaphor of the well as the woman he drove away. He begged her to return,
admitting his own flaws in the process, much like when the black community turned to the city
of Memphis, the state of Tennessee, and the United States government, and sought reconciliation
through the civil rights movement.69
After his two-year stint in Vietnam, William Bell returned and recorded “Share What
You Got (But Keep What You Need)” and “Marching Off to War” as the A- and B-side to an
important single. In the former, Steve Cropper’s choppy guitar imitated the marching snare
drum before joining with Al Jackson’s military quarter-note feel. Other than the “hut-two-threefour” chants, the song mostly described Bell’s experience waiting at the train station to be
William Bell, You Don’t Miss Your Water/Formula of Love, © 1961 by Stax, S-116, “You Don’t Miss Your
Water;” Share What You Got/Marching Off to War, “Share What You Got,” “Marching Off to War.”
68
Bowman, “The Stax Sound,” 290-291, 297-301, 303-304; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 148, 184; Teresa L.
Reed, The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music (Lexington, Kentucky: The University of Kentucky
Press, 2003), 1-4, 93-94, 111-112; Stuart L. Goosman, Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm & Blues
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 5, 10, 87; Richard J. Ripani, The New Blue Music: Changes
in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 70, 85; Jennifer Ryan,
“’Can I Get a Witness?’: Soul and Salvation in Memphis Music” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008),
88, 94-95, 98.
69
Edmund Orgill, letter to W. C. Johnson urging action on poor treatment of black riders by white bus drivers, 3
March 1956 (Orgill Papers, Box 16, Folder IX.A); Russell Sugarmon and A. W. Willis, letter to Wade Sides
(President, Front Street Theatre) complaining of racial discrimination in local theater attendance, 24 November 1962
(Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 15); Russell Sugarmon, letter to President Johnson regarding unfair representation
for black Memphians under Mayor Ingram, 1965 (Sugarmon Papers, Box 2, Folder 5); Hollis Price presiding,
MCCR Executive Committee Meeting Minutes discussing economic, educational, and employment relief for black
citizens from Memphis businesses, 10 August 1967 (Orgill Papers, Box 24, Folder I.B); “Judge Hooks Calls for
Law, Order and Justice for All,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 1968 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File 1418); “FCC
Member Calls for End to ‘Racism’,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, 18 November 1972 (Press-Scimitar Morgue, File
1418).
67
150
shipped overseas, particularly having to say goodbye to the woman he loves and promising to
return to her. Robert Gordon accurately described the tone of the song: “Set to a martial beat,
this story of a soldier being shipped out and saying good-bye to his sweetheart captures the mid1960s zeitgeist, the young man’s quandary: duty versus freedom, R-O-T-C versus L-O-V-E.”70
Compared to the other side of the record, however, this analysis does not seem to go far enough.
“Share What You Got (But Keep What You Need)” stood alone as a love song of greater
depth and maturity than “You Don’t Miss Your Water.” Bell sang about giving his money, his
efforts, and his home to help a friend in need, but above all other things, he remained fiercely
devoted to his baby. Several years after acknowledging his wrongs and missing his water, and a
flip of the record away from saying goodbye to serve his country, William Bell seemed to
intuitively understand exactly how important love truly was, and he refused to do anything to
risk losing it. Perhaps his own personal experience in the conflict, well before it developed into
the national crisis of conscience it became in the later 1960s, helped influence this work.
William Bell and the Stax family, like the American public, could not have predicted the
impact Vietnam would eventually have on the nation. In the mid-1960s, black Americans
remained heavily invested in the cause of domestic civil rights, seeking an equal voice in the
representative system at the same time that Stax sought to increase their audience across the
country. Unlike the competitive nature of capitalism, however, civic equality remained a
demand rooted in the American ideal, and participation remained elusive for African Americans
throughout the South.71 In the quest for civil rights, African Americans fought for their place in
70
Gordon, Respect Yourself, 109.
Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American
Politics (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 1-2, 28-29, 53, 189; Michael X.
Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters (New Haven, Connecticut,
and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 6-7, 10-12, 58, 91-92, 103-104, 131, 156-157, 163, 247-248, 265.
71
151
a political system theoretically built on representing all interests, and William Bell, a black man
returning to Memphis after serving his nation to find that the musicians he worked with could not
all be served from the same counter and the black garbage workers risked their lives for pay that
could not sustain their families, must have intuitively understood these inherent contradictions
when he went to the studio to record this music.72
Eldridge Cleaver and William Bell shared little in common other than the color of their
skin, but in an era defined by the civil rights movement, this formed a powerful connection.
Writing in 1968, in the height of the controversy over continued American involvement in
Vietnam, Cleaver argued that President Johnson “adopted Goldwater’s foreign policy,” causing
disillusionment among a population who had expected to finally witness the long-awaited
changes in civil rights. He went on to note the connection between civil rights and Vietnam in
American politics: “The fact that the brains in the Pentagon see fit to send 16 per cent black
troops to Vietnam is one indication that there is a structural relationship between these two
arenas of conflict. And the initial outrageous refusal of the Georgia Legislature to seat
representative-elect Julian Bond, because he denounced the aggressive U.S. role in Vietnam,
shows, too, the very intimate relationship between the way human beings are being treated in
Vietnam and the treatment they are receiving here in the United States.”73 Cleaver refused to
mince words or mask his message in code the way black performers frequently did, and his
criticism of the Vietnam War found growing support among African Americans in the late
1960s.74
72
Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, 115, 141, 209, 216-218, 232-234; Jackson, In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1,
142-143; Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality, 224, 241-242, 253-254; Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, 3,
55.
73
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 115, 121.
74
David Ritz, “Happy Song: Soul Music in the Ghetto,” in Salmagundi 12 (Spring 1970), 43-53 (Saratoga Springs,
New York: Skidmore College, 1970), 43-44, 49; Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come, 26-27, 34-37, 58, 108-109,
166-167, 191; Young, Soul Power, 210-213; Banfield, Cultural Codes, 7, 9, 156, 185.
152
Bell would not have gone this far; “Marching Off to War” served as a goodbye to his
girlfriend and not a question of his duty. But in the context of his developing understanding of
romantic love, from acknowledgement of his mistakes in “Water” to undying loyalty in “Share
What You Got,” his message becomes clearer, and it is above all a message of love. This love
went far beyond what could be shared between two people in a romantic relationship; it
expressed the kind of agape love that held the African American population together through
centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, violence, and unequal opportunity. Eldridge Cleaver feared truly
loving another person and acknowledged that difficulty in explaining the difficulty of romantic
relationships within a history of oppression, but James Cone understood the monumental
importance of this kind of love, not just in holding a community together through hardship, but
in reconciling black and white America and moving toward a brighter future.75 Cone went on to
argue that true racial harmony relied on meeting both black and Christian requirements, and in a
sense, it relied on white Americans reconciling by becoming black.76 Both liberals and
conservatives agreed that no amount of action by the federal government, no matter its best
intentions, had the power to create the kind of love and understanding that could reconcile black
and white Americans rooted in a history of oppression and inequality.77 William Bell and his
colleagues at Stax, however, may have held the key to reconciliation. Black popular music’s
expansion to a national audience throughout the 1960s and 1970s included white as well as black
listeners. When Stax artists traveled to hippie festivals in California and concert revues in
Europe, they transcended racial boundaries and brought together groups with vastly different
75
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 22; Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 53-54, 134.
Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 147-148, 151.
77
Elazar, American Federalism, 32, 53, 102, 153-154, 224; Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness, 31-32, 162-163,
260-261; Zimmerman, Contemporary American Federalism, 6-7, 56; Frymer, Uneasy Alliances, 6-7, 52-53, 120121.
76
153
social, political, and economic experiences. Faced with an electorate and a government hesitant
to act, these hopeful experiences did not materialize in the form of significant national change,
but certainly the music of artists like William Bell and Rufus Thomas offered at least a vision of
what could be if the country truly followed its representative and federalist ideals.78
Conclusion
American federalism and representative democracy presents a complicated system, and
the history of slavery, segregation, and economic inequality further complicates the relationships
between state and national governments and constituents and their political representatives. Stax
Records existed during the span of one of the nation’s most visible and controversial struggles
over American political identity. The artists and producers at the company constantly dealt with
the reality of being a racially integrated organization in a segregated Southern city during the
height of the civil rights struggle, and they did so far more admirably than anyone could have
possibly expected in that context. The music produced at Stax rarely dealt explicitly with the
larger political issues of foreign and domestic policy, and when it did, it tended to carefully tread
the line of artistic expression and commercial success. Nevertheless, the music of Stax records
in the civil rights era offered a wealth of important resources with which to consider the shifting
notions of federalism, representation, and racial equality in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The rise of Stax Records coincided with the rise of national power in the era of civil
rights, the War on Poverty, and escalating involvement in Vietnam. While Memphis civil rights
leaders demonstrated a nuanced, all-of-the-above approach to achieving its aims through local,
78
Garland, The Sound of Soul, 163, 166-167; Ray Pratt, Rhythm and Resistance: Explorations in the Political Uses
of Popular Music (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1990), 36-37, 205; Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., x, 76-77, 123,
202-205; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 12, 80, 157-159, 228, 240, 244, 402-403; Jackson, In My Wildest
Dreams: Take 1, 110, 111, 114, 119, 121-122; Gordon, Respect Yourself, xii, 110-112, 123-124, 152-153, 158, 220.
154
state, and national channels, Jim Stewart and Al Bell sought an ever-expanding national market
for their unique brand of Southern soul music. In their use of regional flavor and national
marketing, they mirrored in many ways the methods used by the NAACP and the MCCR.
Despite the disappointment in lack of change following major national action on civil rights,
Stax Records continued to expand its fan base – along with its musical expression – until its
ultimate demise in 1975, providing a fascinating and important example of the value of cultural
contributions speaking to the larger political context of the time.
155
CODA
TAG THE ENDING, REPEAT AND FADE
Memphis represents a crossroads, geographically, socially, economically, politically, and
culturally. A Mississippi River town at the top of the Delta, it served as the perfect example of
the plantation mentality, where white supremacist tradition transferred from the cotton fields to
the urban labor system. Beale Street, once one of the most important black districts in the United
States, served as a place to live and play, where black and white people discovered that art and
culture knew no segregated boundaries, and where some of the finest musicians in the world
honed their craft. A distinctly Southern town situated in a Mid-South border state, Memphis
provided the ideal location for biracial civil rights efforts and biracial musical collaboration in
the 1960s and early 1970s. At once modern and traditional, boasting “good race relations” while
struggling with segregation, Memphis offered a fascinating study in apparent contrasts and
contradictions to challenge the notion of essentialist binaries in historical analysis.
I must admit to originally being a fervent adherent to the four binaries laid out at the
beginning of this work, the method binary of integrationism and nationalism, the gender binary
of masculinity and feminism, the theological binary of sacred and secular, and the federalist
binary of national and state power. Fortunately, recent scholars provided meaningful and useful
challenges to these notions, and convinced me of the nuance necessary to truly understand civil
rights history. The music of Stax Records proved incredibly useful in challenging essentialist
notions through postmodern analysis in the context of the Memphis and national civil rights
movements.
156
No civil rights activist ever existed as purely integrationist or nationalist, and certainly no
activist in Memphis fit these categories. The black freedom struggle required varied approaches
to achieving goals of desegregation, economic empowerment, and opportunity, and black and
white Memphians proved adept at applying any means necessary to achieve those aims. While
operating in a highly traditional society marked by the plantation mentality, black and white men
and women worked apart and together as circumstances necessitated. Overt challenges to the
patriarchal system in particular were rare, yet women and men engaged in meaningful dialogue
that placed women in powerful positions throughout the city in order to work toward equality.
Memphis, a city filled with equal numbers of churches and nightclubs, negotiated the sacred and
the secular in ways not unlike the larger civil rights movement. The holistic nature of African
American culture, combined with the Southern religious tradition, enabled activists to apply
Christian principles to secular life without contradiction. Few truly believed that national and
state power existed in binary relation to each other, and Memphians intuitively understood the
intricate relationships of American federalism and representative democracy in ways that
allowed an all-of-the-above approach to achieving political aims.
Stax mirrored the Memphis civil rights movement in powerful ways. Despite the oasis
metaphor of race relations at the company, no one came to work in a vacuum. The music they
made reflected integrationist and nationalist goals, engaged in gender dialogue, exhibited
spiritual and secular influences, and spoke indirectly to the politics of the age. The company
began as a white-owned endeavor featuring black voices with a mixed band, and grew into a
national product symbolic of the drive for black economic empowerment as well as integration
into the world of commercial music. Artists and producers became involved in local and
157
national causes related to civil rights, poverty, education, and culture, further demonstrating the
role of soul in providing far more than a soundtrack to the revolution.
While WDIA and Beale Street boasted B. B. King and Bobby Bland, Sun claimed Elvis
Presley and Carl Perkins, and Hi fostered Al Green, Stax Records was the king of them all at its
height, the quintessential example of unlikely success, unintentional segregation, and unmatched
soul. Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton could scarcely have imagined what their gamble would
eventually pay out. William Bell, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, the
Mar-Keys, the Bar-Kays, the Mad Lads, the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Johnnie Taylor, Eddie
Floyd, Mable John, Albert King, and of course, Booker T. and the MGs and the Memphis Horns,
created the sound that defined Southern soul and changed American life and culture. Deanie
Parker, an ambitious young black woman with huge dreams, helped create an internationally
recognized brand that influenced local and national events and ideas for decades after the
company closed its doors, and then she worked another miracle when she revitalized the
Soulsvile neighborhood with a museum and school on McLemore. Al Bell, the perfect example
of the intersection of politics and culture, went from radio to civil rights activism to running one
of the most successful black businesses in the country from a Southern city with a history of
segregation and inequality. And lest we forget, all of this happened in the same city where Ben
Hooks, Russell Sugarmon, Edmund Orgill, Lucius Burch, Hollis Price, Frances Coe, Maxine
Smith, George Lee, Edward Meeman, A. W. Willis, J. E. Walker, and countless others fought
daily for equal opportunity.
Memphis remains a highly segregated city. White flight, city planning, and unanswered
calls for justice ensured that it would meet the same unfortunate fate as many American cities
that struggled so valiantly in the civil rights movement. Yet their fight was not in vain. Their
158
story remains in the archives of a library named after Benjamin Hooks and in the halls of a
beautiful museum honoring the black and white musicians who created a legacy on the south
side of town. The struggle for racial justice remains, and music holds the key. It defies
academically constructed categories, it transcends racial boundaries, and it offers a vision of
hope and beauty that remains limited in politics or religion alone. If we look to the Soul Men
and Soul Women, the promise remains: “I’ll Take You There.”
159
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Special Collections, University of Memphis, Ned McWherter Library
Lucius E. Burch Jr. Papers, MSS 126, Boxes 41, 46, 89 (Mississippi Valley Connection)
Edward Meeman Papers, MVP 2207, MS 85, Box 2
Edmund Orgill Papers, MSS 87, Boxes 16, 24, 36, 40 (Mississippi Valley Collection)
Russell B. Sugarmon Jr. Papers, MSS 108, Boxes 1, 2, 3
Memphis Press-Scimitar Morgue:
244 (Estelle Axton, Al Bell, John Smith, Stax Records)
1418 (Benjamin Hooks, Deanie Parker)
2106 (Earlie Biles, Bettye Crutcher, Eddie Floyd, Memphis Sound, Stax Records, Jim
Stewart)
55889 (Estelle Axton, Isaac Hayes, Luther Ingram, Johnny Keyes, Stax Records)
59867 (Rufus Thomas, WDIA)
60044 (Maxine Smith, Vasco Smith)
60101 (Staples Singers, Mavis Staples)
67998 (Wayne Jackson, Andrew Love)
72051 (Francine Coe)
74863 (Don Nix)
Memphis and Shelby County Room, Benjamin Hooks Central Library
George W. Lee Collection, Boxes I, III, IV
Maxine A. Smith NAACP Collection, Boxes IV, V, IX
The Warrior (Yearbook, Booker T. Washington High School). 1950, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1959,
1960, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1969.
Hollis F. Price Library, LeMoyne-Owens College
Hollis F. Price Folder
Museum Collections in Memphis, Tennessee
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
Memphis Rock n Soul Museum
National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
160
Interviews
Deanie Parker, phone interview by Jason Danielson (facilitated by Levon Williams). Des
Moines, Iowa – Memphis, Tennessee, 18 June 2013.
Levon Williams, interview by Jason Danielson. Memphis, Tennessee, 16 July 2013.
Wayne Jackson, phone interview by Jason Danielson (with Amy Jackson). Des Moines, Iowa –
Memphis, Tennessee, 14 February 2015.
Primary Sources
The American Assembly, Columbia University, William F. Haddad and G. Douglas Pugh,
editors. Black Economic Development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1969.
Baraka, Amiri. “Jazz and the White Critic,” in Black Music: Essays. New York: Akashic
Books, 1968.
Barbour, Russell B. Black and White Together: Plain Talk for White Christians. Philadelphia
and Boston: United Church Press, 1967.
Cade, Toni, ed. The Black Woman: An Anthology. New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New
American Library, 1970.
Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968.
Cone, James H. Black Theology and Black Power. New York: The Seabury Press, 1969.
Cone, James H. The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation. The Seabury Press, 1972.
Cross, Theodore L. Black Capitalism: Strategy for Business in the Ghetto. New York:
Atheneum, 1969.
Cruse, Harold. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. New York: William Morrow & Company,
1967.
Eckhardt, Kenneth W. “Religiosity and Civil Rights Militancy,” from Review of Religious
Research, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Spring 1970), p. 197-203. Galva, Illinois: Religious Research
Association, Inc., 1970.
Elazar, Daniel J. American Federalism: A View from the States, 2nd edition. New York: Thomas
Y. Crowell, 1972.
161
Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Family in the United States, Revised and Abridged Version.
New York: The Dryden Press, 1948.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Affluent Society (Fortieth Anniversary Edition). Boston and New
York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1958, 1969, 1976, 1998.
Garland, Phyl. The Sound of Soul. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969.
Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. New York: Pantheon Books,
1970.
Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1962, 1969.
Jencks, Christopher. Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in
America. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Jones, Addie D. Portrait of a Ghetto School. New York: Vantage Press, 1973.
Jones, LeRoi. Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: William Morrow and
Company, 1963.
Jones, LeRoi (Amiri Baraka). Black Music. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc.,
1971.
Keil, Charles. Urban Blues. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Mailer, Norman. The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster. San Francisco: City
Lights Books, 1957.
Marx, Gary T. “Religion: Opiate or Inspiration of Civil Rights Militancy Among Negroes?”
from American Sociological Review, Vol. 32, No. 1 (February 1967), p. 64-72.
Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association, 1967.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington,
D.C.: Office of Policy Planning and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, 1965.
Rainwater, Lee, ed. Black Experience: Soul, Second Edition. New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Transaction Books, 1973 (1970).
Reilly, April. “The Impact of Technology on Rhythm ‘n’ Blues,” from The Black Perspective in
Music, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Autumn 1973), p. 136-146. Port Charlotte, Florida: Foundation
for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts, 1973.
Ritz, David. “Happy Song: Soul Music in the Ghetto,” from Salmagundi, No. 12 (Spring 1970),
p. 43-53. Saratoga Springs, New York: Skidmore College, 1970.
162
Roach, Max. “What ‘Jazz’ Means to Me,” in The Black Scholar, Vol. 3, No. 10, BLACK
MUSIC (Summer 1972), p. 2-6. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 1972.
Shaw, Arnold. The World of Soul: Black America’s Contribution to the Pop Music Scene.
New York: Cowles Book Company, Inc., 1970.
Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972 (C. Eric Lincoln Series on Black Religion).
Secondary Sources
Bailey, D’Army, with Roger Easson. The Education of a Black Radical: A Southern Civil
Rights Activist’s Journey, 1959-1964. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State
University Press, 2009.
Behnken, Brian D. Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and
the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of
North Carolina Press, 2011.
Biles, Roger. “Epitaph for Downtown: The Failure of City Planning in Post-World War Two
Memphis,” in Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 3 (Fall 1985), p. 267-284.
Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 1985.
Biles, Roger. “A Bittersweet Victory: Public School Desegregation in Memphis,” from The
Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Autumn 1986), p. 470-483. Washington,
D.C.: Journal of Negro Education, 1986.
Bond, Beverly G., and Janann Sherman. Memphis in Black and White. Charleston, South
Carolina, Chicago, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and San Francisco: Arcadia
Publishing, 2003.
Breines, Winifred. The Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in
the Feminist Movement. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Bucy, Carole Stanford. “Tennessee in the Twentieth Century,” from Tennessee Historical
Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Fall 2010), p. 262-273. Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee
Historical Society, 2010.
Cell, John W. The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South
Africa and the American South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black
Struggle for Freedom. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
163
Chappell, David L. A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow. Chapel
Hill, North Carolina, and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Charron, Katherine Mellen. Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark. Chapel Hill, North
Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment (Perspectives on Gender, vol. 2). Boston: Unwin Hyman, Inc., 1990.
Cone, James H. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, New
York: Orbis Books, 1991.
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Scott Keeter. What Americans Know about Politis and Why It
Matters. New Haven, Connecticut, and London: Yale University Press, 1996.
Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Urbana and Chicago,
Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Dowdy, G. Wayne. “The White Rose Mammy: Racial Culture and Politics in World War II
Memphis,” from The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Autumn 2000), p. 308314. Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of African American Life and
History, Inc., 2000.
Dowdy, G. Wayne. Mayor Crump Don’t Like It: Machine Politics in Memphis. Jackson,
Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi, 2006.
Dowdy, G. Wayne. Crusade for Freedom: Memphis and the Political Transformation of the
American South. Jackson, Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Eskew, Glenn T. But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights
Struggle. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Estes, Steve. I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement. Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Evans, Sara. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement
and the New Left. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
Fairclough, Adam. Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000. New York and
London: Viking Penguin, 2001.
Fleming, Cynthia G. “’We Shall Overcome’: Tennessee and the Civil Rights Movement,”
from Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Fall 1995), p. 230-245.
Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society, 1995.
164
Frink, Sandra M. “’Freedom Is Everyone’s Job’: Segregation, Identity, and the Freedom Train
Controversy in Memphis, Tennessee, 1947-1948,” from Tennessee Historical Quarterly,
Vol. 66, No. 4 (Winter 2007), p. 328-349. Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical
Society, 2007.
Frymer, Paul. Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America. Princeton, New
Jersey, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Garcia, Mario T., and Castro, Sal. Blowout!: Sal Castro & the Chicano Struggle for Educational
Justice. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Gaventa, John. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley.
Urbana, Illinois, and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980.
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Goldfield, David R. Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980.
Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
Goldfield, David R. Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture, 1940 to
the Present. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1990.
Graham, Hugh Davis. Crisis in Print: Desegregation and the Press in Tennessee. Nashville,
Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967.
Green, Laurie B. Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Hall, Sir Peter. Cities in Civilization. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.
Hayes, Diana L. And Still We Rise: An Introduction to Black Liberation Theology. New York
and Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1996.
Honey, Michael K. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last
Campaign. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.
hooks, bell. “Postmodern Blackness,” from Yearning. South End Press, 1990.
hooks, bell. Bone Black: memories of girlhood. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. News that Matters: Television and American Opinion.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Jones, Patrick D. The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee. Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 2009.
165
Lamon, Lester C. Blacks in Tennessee 1791-1970. Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee Press, published in cooperation with The Tennessee Historical Commission,
1981.
Langston, Donna. “Black Civil Rights, Feminism, and Power,” from Race, Gender, & Class,
Vol. 5, No. 2: Race, Gender, & Class Studies in Australia, Canada and U.S. (1998). New
Orleans, Louisiana: Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal, 1998.
Lehman, Christopher Paul. “Civil Rights in Twilight: The End of the Civil Rights Movement
Era in 1973,” from Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3 (January 2006), p. 415-428.
Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2006.
Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American
Experience. Durham, North Carolina, and London: Duke University Press, 1990.
Little, Kimberly K. You Must Be from the North: Southern White Women in the Memphis Civil
Rights Movement. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
Lovett, Bobby L. The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History. Knoxville,
Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 2005.
Mansbridge, Jane. “Rethinking Representation.” American Political Science Review, Vol. 97,
No. 4, p.515-528. November 2003.
Martin, Jr., Waldo E. No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics and Postwar America.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2005.
McGuire, Danielle L. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance – A
New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power.
New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2010.
Morris, Aldon D. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for
Change. New York and London: The Free Press, 1984.
Morris, Aldon D. “A Retrospective on the Civil Rights Movement: Political and Intellectual
Landmarks,” in Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 25 (1999), p. 517-539. Palo Alto, CA:
Annual Reviews, 1999.
Murray, Gail S., ed. Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Women Activists in
the Civil Rights Era. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2004.
Nelsen, Hart M., and Anne Kusener Nelsen. Black Church in the Sixties. Lexington, Kentucky:
The University Press of Kentucky, 1975.
166
Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California,
and London: University of California Press, 1967.
Pohlmann, Marcus D., and Michael P. Kirby. Racial Politics at the Crossroads: Memphis Elects
Dr. W.W. Herenton. Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1996.
Pohlmann, Marcus D. Opportunity Lost: Race and Poverty in the Memphis City Schools.
Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 2008.
Robnett, Belinda. How Long? How Long?: African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil
Rights. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Rosenberg, Gerald N. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?, 2nd edition.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Rury, John L. Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling.
New York and London: Routledge, 2013.
Sarvis, Will. “Leaders in the Court and Community: Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams,
Jr., and the Legal Fight for Civil Rights in Tennessee, 1940-1970,” from The Journal of
African American History, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Winter 2003), p. 42-58. Washington, D.C.:
Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc., 2003.
Self, Robert O. American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland. Princeton,
New Jersey, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Tuck, Stephen G.N. Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980.
Athens, Georgia, and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2001.
Tucker, David M. Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civil Reformers 1948-1968.
Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980.
Van Deburg, William L. New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American
Culture, 1965-1975. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. Voice and Equality: Civic
Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard
University Press, 1995.
Wallace, Michele. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. London and New York:
Verso, 1990; first published New York: The Dial Press, 1978.
Wallace, Michele. Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory. London and New York: Verso,
1990.
167
Wendt, Simon. The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed Resistance and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2007.
Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public
Policy. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Third Revised Edition. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1974 (1955, 1965).
Zaller, John R. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Zimmerman, Joseph F. Contemporary American Federalism: The Growth of National Power.
Leicester and London: Leicester University Press, 1992.
Music & Cultural Texts
Adorno, Theodor W. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. J.M.
Bernstein. London: Routledge, 1991.
Awkward, Michael. Soul Covers: Rhythm and Blues Remakes and the Struggle for Artistic
Identity (Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Phoebe Snow). Durham, North Carolina, and
London: Duke University Press, 2007.
Ballantine, Christopher. Music and Its Social Meanings. New York: Gordon and Breach
Science Publishers, 1984.
Banfield, William C. Cultural Codes: Makings of a Black Music Philosophy: An Interpretive
History from Spirituals to Hip Hop. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 2010.
Baraka, Amiri (LeRoi Jones), and Amina Baraka. The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues.
New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1987.
Bowman, Rob. “The Stax Sound: A Musicological Analysis,” in Popular Music, Vol. 14, No. 3
(October 1995), p. 285-320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Bowman, Rob. Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records. New York: Schirmer Books,
1997.
Brackett, David. “Questions of Genre in Black Popular Music,” from Black Music Research
Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1/2 (Spring-Fall 2005), p. 73-92. Chicago and Champaign, Illinois:
Center for Black Music Research – Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois
Press, 2005.
168
Bratcher, Melanie E. Words and Songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone:
Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory. New York and London: Routledge,
2007.
Brewer, Roy. “String Musicians in the Recording Studios of Memphis, Tennessee,” from
Popular Music, Vol. 19, No. 2 (April 2000), p. 201-215. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000.
Burford, Mark. “Sam Cooke as Pop Album Artist: A Reinvention in Three Songs,” in Journal of
the American Musicological Society, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Spring 2012), p. 113-178.
Berkeley, CA, and Brunswick, ME: University of California Press on behalf of American
Musicological Society, 2012.
Burnim, Mellonee V., and Portia K. Maultsby, ed. African American Music: An Introduction.
New York and London: Routledge, 2006.
Cantor, Louis. Wheelin’ on Beale: How WDIA-Memphis Became the Nation’s First All Black
Radio Station and Created the Sound that Changed America. New York: Pharos Books,
1992.
Dance, Daryl Cumber. Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans.
Bloomington, Indiana, and London: Indiana University Press, 1978.
Ellison, Mary. Lyrical Protest: Black Music’s Struggle Against Discrimination. New York,
Westport, Connecticut, and London: Praeger, 1989.
Feldstein, Ruth. “’I Don’t Trust You Anymore’: Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in
the 1960s,” in The Journal of American History, Vol. 91, No. 4 (March 2005), p. 1349
1379. Bloomington, IN, and Oxford: Organization of American Historians, 2005.
Fink, Robert. “Goal-Directed Soul?: Analyzing Rhythmic Teleology in African American
Popular Music,” in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 64, No. 1
(Spring 2011), p. 179-238. Berkeley, CA, and Brunswick, ME: University of
California Press on behalf of American Musicological Society, 2011.
Fitzgerald, Jon. “Black Pop Songwriting 1963-1966: An Analysis of U.S. Top Forty Hits by
Cooke, Mayfield, Stevenson, Robinson, and Holland-Dozier-Holland,” in Black Music
Research Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Fall 2007), p. 97-140. Chicago and Champaign, IL:
Center for Black Music Research – Columbia College Chicago, and University of Illinois
Press, 2007.
Garofalo, Reebee, ed. Rockin’ the Boat: Mass Music and Mass Movements. Boston: South
End Press, 1992.
George, Nelson. The Death of Rhythm & Blues. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
169
Gibson, Chris. “Recording Studios: Relational Spaces of Creativity in the City,” from Built
Environment, Vol. 31, No. 3: Music and the City (2005), p. 192-207. Alexandrine Press,
2005.
Goosman, Stuart L. Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm & Blues. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
Gordon, Robert. It Came from Memphis. New York: Pocket Books, 1995.
Gordon, Robert. Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion. New York:
Bloomsbury USA, 2013.
Guillory, Monique, and Richard C. Green, ed. Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure. New
York and London: New York University Press, 1998.
Guralnick, Peter. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom.
New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Hall, James C. Mercy, Mercy Me: African-American Culture and the American Sixties. Oxford
and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Haralambos, Michael. Right On: From Blues to Soul in Black America. New York: Drake
Publishers Inc., 1975.
Harrington III, Howard. “Black Stars or Black Holes?: Cities as Sites for Verticality in Popular
Music Production,” in Built Environment, Vol. 31, No. 3, Music and the City (2005), p.
208-225. Oxford: Alexandrine Press, 2005.
Hirshey, Gerri. Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music. New York: Times Books, 1984.
Hitchcock, H. Wiley. Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction. Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969.
Jackson, Jeffrey H., and Stanley C. Pelkey, ed. Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines.
Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Jackson, Wayne. In My Wildest Dreams: Take 1. Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson
Publishing, 2005.
Jackson, Wayne. In My Wildest Dreams, Take 2. Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson
Publishing, 2006.
Jackson, Wayne. In My Wildest Dreams, Take 3. Memphis, Tennessee: Jackson and Jackson
Publishing, 2012.
170
Jones, Ferdinand, and Arthur C. Jones, editors. The Triumph of the Soul: Cultural and
Psychological Aspects of African American Music. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger
Publishers, 2001.
Jones, Roben. Memphis Boys: The Story of American Studios. Jackson, Mississippi: University
Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Kelly, Norman, ed. Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music. New York:
Akashic Books, 2002.
Kubik, Gerhard. Africa and the Blues. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi,
1999.
Kun, Josh. Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America. Berkeley, California, Los Angeles, and
London: University of California Press, 2005.
Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought
from Slavery to Freedom, 30th Anniversary Edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1977, 2007.
Mahon, Maureen. “Black Like This: Race, Generation, and Rock in the Post-Civil Rights Era,”
in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 2 (May 2000), p. 283-311. Hoboken, NJ, and
Arlington, VA: Wiley on behalf of American Anthropological Association, 2000.
McClary, Susan, and Walser, Robert. “Theorizing the Body in African-American Music,”
from Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, Selected Papers from the 1993
National Conference on Black Music Research (Spring 1994), p. 75-84. Chicago and
Champaign, Illinois: Center for Black Music Research – Columbia College Chicago,
and University of Illinois Press, 1994.
McKee, Margaret, and Fred Chisenhall. Beale Black & Blue: Life and Music on Black
America’s Main Street. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and London: Louisiana State
University Press, 1981.
Monson, Ingrid. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007.
Nager, Larry. Memphis Beat: The Lives and Times of America’s Musical Crossroads. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
Neal, Mark Anthony. Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation. New York
and London: Routledge, 2003.
Pratt, Ray. Rhythm and Resistance: Explorations in the Political Uses of Popular Music. New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1990.
171
Ramsey, Jr., Guthrie P. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. Berkeley,
California, and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003.
Reed, Teresa L. The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music. Lexington, Kentucky:
The University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Ripani, Richard J. The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999. Jackson,
Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.
Ryan, Jennifer. “Can I Get a Witness?”: Soul and Salvation in Memphis Music. PhD Music
Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2008. UMI Microform 3309501, ProQuest.
Salzman, Eric. Twentieth-Century Music: An Introduction, 4th edition. Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Sanjek, David. “One Size Does Not Fit All: The Precarious Position of the African American
Entrepreneur in Post-World War II American Popular Music,” from American Music,
Vol. 15, No. 4 (Winter 1997), p. 535-562. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois
Press, 1997.
Smith, Suzanne. Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1971.
Stewart, Alexander. “’Funky Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown, and the Rhythmic
Transformation of American Popular Music,” from Popular Music, Vol. 19, No. 3
(October 2000), p. 293-318. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Street, Joe. The Culture War in the Civil Rights Movement. Gainesville, FL: University Press of
Florida, 2007.
Strub, Whitney. “Black and White and Banned All Over: Race, Censorship, and Obscenity in
Postwar Memphis,” from Journal of Social History, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Spring 2007), p. 685715. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Sullivan, Denise. Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music from Blues to Hip-Hop. Chicago:
Lawrence Hill Books, 2011.
Vincent, Rickey. Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers’ Band and How Black
Power Transformed Soul Music. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2013.
Ward, Brian. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race
Relations. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
172
Ward, Brian. Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South. Gainesville, Florida:
University Press of Florida, 2004.
Weisethaunet, Hans. “Is There Such a Thing as the ‘Blue Note’?,” from Popular Music, Vol.
20, No. 1 (January 2001), p. 99-116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Werner, Craig. Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise
and Fall of American Soul. New York: Crown Publishers, 2004.
Werner, Craig. A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America. Ann Arbor,
Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Whitley, Carla Jean. Muscle Shoals Sound Studio: How the Swampers Changed American
Music. Charleston, South Carolina, and London: The History Press, 2014.
Young Cynthia A. Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left.
Durham, North Carolina, and London: Duke University Press, 2006.