Respect Yourself
Page 53
Isaac Hayes sued Stax: Deanie Parker on the reaction from Stax’s front lines: “We were involved in the Wattstax project and so many other things. Our artists were really very hot and it just went unnoticed until we had finished a couple projects and realized that it looked like we were backing up instead of going forward.”
subpoenaed records: Commercial Appeal, October 15, 1974.
“willfully, wantonly”: “Stax Countersues CBS for $67 Million,” Commercial Appeal, October 29, 1974; “Judge Extends Order in Stax-CBS Dispute,” Press Scimitar, October 30, 1974.
“calculated to destroy”: “UP Bank Sues Stax and CBS,” Commercial Appeal, November 14, 1974.
His opponent in the 1972 race: J.O. Patterson.
“For an hour and a half”: Joseph Weilder, “Vote Count Proved an Upset,” Commercial Appeal, November 7, 1974, p. 1.
“and about ten”: Lynn Lewis, “Harold Ford Stuns Kuykendall,” Press Scimitar, November 6, 1974.
“We found the reports”: Ibid.
“Stax was perceived”: “CBS Sues to Hold Stax to Agreement,” Commercial Appeal, October 9, 1974, p. 3. The article refers to the CBS attorney acknowledging where the power lay, saying that “Bell gave verbal notice October 2 that Stax would ‘no longer abide by’ its agreement and that since then the firm has refused to furnish CBS with any records for distribution.”
“The discussion would have been different”: My friend, the beautiful and late Rick Ireland, who recorded at the Brunswick dairy barn and who worked with the bankers, told me, “Bill Matthews brought in a super brainy guy at bailing out financial institutions, Roger Shellebarger. He bailed out UP. There was a bunch of no good loans in there and he cleaned them out. His job was to collect the assets, to get as much as he could for the bank.”
26. A SOUL AND A HARD PLACE
“I tried to keep”: Joseph Weiler, “Many Saw Portents of Stax’ End, But Disagree on the Cause,” Commercial Appeal, February 9, 1976.
“Ouch”: Commercial Appeal, February 19, 1975, p. 30.
“‘way out of line’ ”: Joseph Weiler, “‘Memphis Sound’ Grew from Stax,” Commercial Appeal, February 9, 1976, p. 1. Article also states: “Reliable sources say that Stewart and Bell had hired several unneeded artists and employees at fantastic salaries and all of this was quickly gobbling up what little money there was.” East/Memphis Music “had hired writers and advanced them money on future royalties far beyond anything they could reasonably be expected to produce.”
Union Planters announced: Press Scimitar, January 31, 1975. Article also states, “During 1974 the bank recognized substantial loan losses which it attributes to the dishonesty and infidelity of former bank officers. Including claims filed relating to the bank’s investment division, the bank has now filed claims in excess of $16.5 million under its fidelity bond, claiming that losses in that amount were incurred as the direct consequence of wrongful conduct of former employees, including eight former officers.” In addition to embezzlement and thievery, the bank was affected by the depressed state of the real estate market and the state’s usury law that limited interest rates. At the year’s end, the bank had approximately $63 million in loans on which it was not accruing interest. “Any one of these factors would have harmed our earnings in 1974,” Matthews said. “We were unfortunate to have all of them occur simultaneously.”
over $4 million: Commercial Appeal, March 27, 1975.
phones were disconnected: “Stax Owner, Ex-Banker Named in Indictment,” Press Scimitar, September 9, 1975.
Big news broke on September 9, 1975: Michael Lollar, “Stax Records’ Owner, Ex-Banker Are Indicted,” Commercial Appeal, September 10, 1975; “Stax Owner, Ex-Banker Named in Indictment,” Press Scimitar, September 9, 1975.
it was paid by: Kay Pittman Black, “Al Bell Pleads Innocent to Bank Fraud Charges,” Press Scimitar, September 24, 1975.
“crawling with rats”: Commercial Appeal, September 25, 1975.
“Al was shot”: Andria Lisle, “Memphis Sunset: The Mysterious Death of Stax Heartbeat Al Jackson, Jr.,” Grand Royal no. 6, pp. 50–53.
“When my capital was zero”: Stephen Koch, “Al Bell Takes Us There: An Interview,” Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, April 2001, Vol. 32, no. 1, p. 49.
“industrial camera crew”: While making the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story, we tried to find that film and were unsuccessful. If anyone knows of its whereabouts, please write me care of this publisher.
27. “I’LL TAKE YOU THERE”
in excess of $10 million: Including the bank and all its creditors, Stax’s debt may have reached $30 million.
“I see hope”: “Stax Official Believes Firm to Rise Again,” Commercial Appeal, February 1, 1976.
“I am saying”: Ibid.
an album comprising vaulted Stax material: This idea morphed over time, and ultimately the Memphis Heritage Foundation paid tribute to Beale Street with an album of vaulted Memphis material. Producer Jim Dickinson put together Beale Street Saturday Night, featuring an array of known and unknown players and still available only as a vinyl LP, a thick slice of Memphis, chopped hot please.
“Those who forcibly”: Commercial Appeal, February 10, 1976. Joseph Weiler, “Stax Backers’ Talk Sounds Like Broken Record,” Commercial Appeal, February 10, 1976.
“$21 million”: Cliff White, “Stax: Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song),” New Musical Express, August 21, 1976. George Schiffer was the Motown consultant who testified as to the tape’s value, and Randy Wood is owner of Dot Records.
“elated”: “$1.8 Mil Paid by Al Bennett for Stax Publishing.” Billboard, March 12, 1977.
“could sign Mr. Bell’s name”: “Al Bell Denies Wrongdoing in Bank Loans,” Press Scimitar, July 28, 1976.
“running those”: Deborah Sontag, “Out of Exile, Back in Soulsville,” New York Times, August 14, 2009.
false entries: “Harwell would say, ‘I can massage this,’” says Tim Whitsett. “Harwell put down as collateral that Stax owned a radio station. The call letters belonged to a shrimp boat that had been damaged in a hurricane and was somewhere in Louisiana.”
After a respite: Bell’s trouble didn’t stop with his acquittal. Six weeks later he was notified by the IRS that he was $527,391 in arrears, taxes and penalties combined. In July 1977, he filed a $20 million federal lawsuit against Union Planters for malicious prosecution; five years later it went to trial, and on August 26, 1982, the bank was cleared.
“Al Bell had a laundry service”: “Recording Executive Fails to Convince Federal Jury,” Press Scimitar, October 26, 1978.
“I think I made”: “Record Producer Takes Credit for Stax’ Success,” Press Scimitar, October 20, 1978.
IRS money returned to Baylor: “$2.5 Million Is Awarded in Stax Suit,” Press Scimitar, October 25, 1978. Also, Otis Sanford, “Jury Finds Stax Payments Fraudulent,” Press Scimitar, October 26, 1978.
Al Bell says it was money earned: “Johnny was perceived by many as a tough guy because Johnny carried guns,” Al told me. “And Johnny didn’t have a problem sparring with you like he sparred with Sugar Ray Robinson. And that’s Johnny Baylor, my dear friend. I regret that he’s not alive to see how things happened after that. But he did achieve that great hit on Luther Ingram, whom he loved so much.”
not taxable: “Because Union Planters had carried the bond claims as an asset since 1974, the $6,300,000 received in 1977 was not reflected in current earnings for tax purposes,” an analyst explains. “Thus the bank received $6,300,000 in tax-free income in 1977.” The Turnaround, p. 149.
largest union: “State’s Largest Union Local? It’s AFSCME,” Press Scimitar, May 17, 1976. By 1976, AFSCME was representing the park commission, the zoo, and city and county hospitals. It achieved raises of 6 percent in 1975 and 5 percent in 1976.
Blues Brothers band: From the WFMU interview with Duck Dunn: “We were playing with Levon Helm and the horn players from Saturday Night Live. Belushi was a big fan of
Stax, so the trombone player at SNL connected us. Belushi was in New York, I was in California. He called and it was like three in the morning my time, I thought it was Don Nix playing a joke on me. I hung up. But he called back and he wanted me to come to New York. I was scared to death—Paul Shaffer, and Steve Jordan, they intimidated me. But I hadn’t had that much fun since the ’67 show, and then also playing with Eric Clapton [in the early 1980s].”
“It’s just a real estate sale”: Diana Dawson, “Last Vestiges of Stax Empire Auctioned,” Press Scimitar, October 15, 1981.
“You didn’t feel any back-off”: “Obituary: Estelle Axton, the Founding Force of Stax Records,” the Guardian, February 27, 2004.
“dance program”: Handy’s autobiography, Father of the Blues, is available online through Google Books.
Stax Museum of American Soul Music: Like their page:
https://www.facebook.com/staxmuseum.
When the museum was being built, a fireman stepped forward to say he’d saved Isaac Hayes’s Cadillac. He remembered his mother getting him out of school to drive by Stax and see it in the parking lot. Like his Oscar, Isaac’s Cadillac was a tangible pride that the neighborhood could share in. He bought it at the bankruptcy auction, put it up on blocks, and decades later sold it to the museum, which had it refurbished (engine removed), and today it spins on display at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
just a mirage: Al’s noble goal of a wider middle class was achieved in Memphis by Federal Express, the brainchild of Fred Smith. Smith’s grandfather had run a ferry line on the Mississippi River. His father had founded one of the bus lines that became Greyhound. Fred put wings onto the idea. A decade after establishing Federal Express in Memphis in 1973, it passed $1 billion in annual sales. Whole swaths of Memphis are populated with nice homes paid for by those earning FedEx paychecks.
“truth crushed”: Dr. King was quoting poet William Cullen Bryant.
Plate Section
926 East McLemore, July 1966. Notice Jim Stewart under the marquee. (Charles Okle)
L–R: Packy Axton, Don Nix, Steve Cropper, in front of Stax and Satellite, 1960 or 1961. (Photograph by Don Nix/Courtesy of the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture, Steve Todoroff Collection)
Early Mar-Keys gig. L–R: Unidentified, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Packy Axton (obscured), Don Nix, Wayne Jackson, Steve Cropper. (Photograph by Don Nix/Courtesy of the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture, Steve Todoroff Collection)
Steve Cropper, 1966. (Charles Okle)
Carla Thomas, 1966. The headboard is the one favored by Al Jackson, Homer Banks, and others. (Photograph by API Photographers/API Collection)
Sam and Dave session, probably 1966. L–R: Al Jackson’s back, Isaac Hayes, Wayne Jackson’s back, Sam Moore, Dave Prater, Duck Dunn, Steve Cropper, Booker T. Jones. (Photograph by API Photographers/API Collection)
Bar-Kays, Mach II, 1967 or 1968. L–R: Roy Cunningham, Ben Cauley, Harvey Henderson, Ron Gorden, Michael Toles (kneeling), James Alexander, Willie Hall. (Earlie Biles Collection)
The “We Three” songwriting team. L–R: Raymond Jackson, Bettye Crutcher, Homer Banks, probably late 1960s. (Photograph by Wayne E. Moore/Courtesy Bettye Crutcher Collection)
Sam and Dave session, probably 1967. Wayne Jackson foreground, Dave Prater (left) and Sam Moore, with Isaac Hayes at the piano. (Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
L–R: Jesse Jackson, Isaac Hayes, Al Bell. (Earlie Biles Collection)
An industry convention, probably 1971 or 1972. L–R: Al Bell (lower left), Leroy Little, Mack Guy, Dino Woodard, John Arnold, WMBM disc jockey Butterball (lower right), unknown. (Earlie Biles Collection)
Willie Hall, drummer for both the Bar-Kays and Isaac Hayes. (Earlie Biles Collection)
Isaac Hayes (left) and Stax artist John KaSandra. (Earlie Biles Collection)
Estelle Axton, in the Fretone offices. (University of Memphis Libraries/Special Collections)
Isaac Hayes’s office at Stax. (Earlie Biles Collection)
Isaac Hayes and the Cadillac that Stax gave him. (Deanie Parker Collection)
A Note on the Author
Grammy Award–winning writer Robert Gordon is the author of six books and producer/director of seven feature documentaries. He has focused on the American South—its music, art, and politics—to create an insider’s portrait of his home that is both nuanced and ribald. Gordon’s first book, It Came from Memphis, careens through the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, riding shotgun with the weirdoes, winos, and midget wrestlers who percolated the early forces of rock ’n’ roll. Elvis was a marginal figure in that book, but was the focus of The King on the Road and The Elvis Treasures, both of which were created in cooperation with the estate of Elvis Presley. Gordon also wrote the definitive biography of blues great Muddy Waters, Can’t Be Satisfied. His films include Stranded in Canton, a collaboration with photographer William Eggleston; Johnny Cash’s America, which examines ideas of justice, penance, and faith—spiritual and national—through the life of Johnny Cash; and Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story, the companion film to this book. Gordon’s work has been shown on PBS’s American Masters and Great Performances series, A&E, BBC, Channel Four, and many global networks. His writing has appeared in most major magazines and newspapers. Four of his documentaries have received Grammy Award nominations, and he won a Grammy as a writer for his essay in the 2010 boxed set Keep An Eye on the Sky, about the band Big Star. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife and two daughters.
By the Same Author
Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University–Library of Congress
Coahoma County Study, 1941–1942
Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters
The Elvis Treasures
The King on the Road: Elvis Live on Tour 1954 to 1977
It Came from Memphis
DOCUMENTARIES
Very Extremely Dangerous
Johnny Cash’s America
Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story
Stranded in Canton
The Road to Memphis
Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan: Cowboy Jack
Clement’s Home Movies
Muddy Waters Can’t Be Satisfied
Copyright © 2013 by Robert Gordon
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. For information address Bloomsbury Press, 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.
“I’ll Take You There”
Words and Music by Alvertis Isbell
Copyright © 1972 IRVING MUSIC, INC.
Copyright Renewed
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
“Hold On I’m Comin’”
Words and Music by Isaac Hayes and David Porter
Copyright © 1966 IRVING MUSIC, INC. and PRONTO MUSIC
Copyright Renewed
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
“I Like the Things About Me (That I Once Despised)”
Words and Music by Roebuck “Pops” Staples, Martha Stubbs
Copyright © 1972, Pops Staples Music, Inc.
Copyright Renewed. All Rights Reserved
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher would be glad to hear from them.
All photos in this book are copyright protected and used by permission.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicati
on Data
Gordon, Robert, 1961– author.
Respect yourself : Stax Records and the soul explosion / Robert Gordon. —First U.S. edition.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN 978-1-60819-417-9
1. Stax Records—History. 2. Memphis (Tenn.)—History. I. Title.
ML3792.S78G67 2013
384—dc23
2013014533
First U.S. Edition 2013
This electronic edition published in November 2013
Designed by Lawrence Kim
To find out more about our authors and their books please visit www.bloomsbury.com where you will find extracts, author interviews and details of forthcoming events, and to be the first to hear about latest releases and special offers, sign up for our newsletters here.