Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the music.
A former cinema, a family label and a neighbourhood called Soulsville offer several ways into the story of Stax.
On this page
A label and its neighbourhood
Stax Records grew from Satellite Records, founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, and from about 1960 it recorded in the former Capitol Theatre at 926 East McLemore Avenue in South Memphis.
Its staff and artists formed a racially integrated team at a time of deep racial division in Memphis and across the South.
A sound and its artists
Booker T. & the M.G.’s were the label’s house band from 1962. Stax artists included Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, the Staple Singers, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Albert King, William Bell and Isaac Hayes.
In August 1972 the label’s Wattstax concert drew more than 100,000 people.
A museum on the original site
Stax closed in January 1976 and its studio building was demolished in 1989. The museum, a replica of the studio including the sloping floor of Studio A, opened on the same site in 2003.
This history belongs to the place and the people who made it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
