Jim Stewart founder of Stax Records has died
2022.12.07 04:10
Jim Stewart founder of Stax Records has died
Budrigannews.com – Jim Stewart, a white country fiddler, has passed away at the age of 92 in Memphis, Tennessee – where he started the R&B-soul label Stax Records in the 1950s in an in-law’s garage – where he launched stars like Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Sam & Dave.
At a time when strict racial segregation was in place in the Deep South, Stewart was widely regarded as a trailblazer for his efforts to help integrate American pop music. He passed away on Monday at a Memphis hospital.
Tim Sampson, a spokesperson for the Memphis-based Stax Museum of American Soul Music, confirmed his death to Reuters on Tuesday. According to Sampson, the Stewart family did not specify the cause of death.
The label released 800 singles and 300 albums between 1959 and 1975, including Hayes’ Oscar-winning soundtrack for the 1971 film “Shaft.”
Booker T. & the MG’s, the Staples Singers, the Emotions, the Soul Children, and the Staples Singers were on the talent roster. The Staples Singers served as a house band for Redding, Sam and Dave, and numerous other Stax artists.
At Stax, Redding recorded his signature song, “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay.” Additionally, Atlantic Records hired an outside producer to record Wilson Pickett’s breakthrough single, “In the Midnight Hour.”
The Stax label won eight Grammy Awards and released three No. 167 top-100 singles, a dozen top-10 hits, and one hit. In 2002, Stewart was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The label lived up to its “Soulsville, USA” moniker by providing a grittier alternative to Motown Records’ larger, assembly line hits machine throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.
“The greatest, funkiest soul label in the world, one of the most powerful outlets for Black expression, was started by a white hillbilly fiddler named Jim Stewart,” according to an appreciation of Stewart in the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper.
According to a biography that was released by the Stax Museum, Stewart spent his childhood in the farming town of Middleton in Tennessee. At the age of 18, he moved to Memphis to attend college. He later worked as a store clerk and a bank teller while performing with various country music bands after hours.
Stewart started recording country artists on a tape machine in the garage of his wife’s uncle in the middle of the 1950s, inspired by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips’ success with artists like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. In 1957, Stewart founded a label he called Satellite.
Estelle Axton, his sister, mortgaged her house a year later to assist Stewart in purchasing recording equipment and joined him in their studio venture, which they later remodeled into an old movie theater.
After scoring a regional R&B hit with the single “Cause I Love You” by Rufus Thomas and his then-teenage daughter Carla, Stewart switched his focus from country music to rhythm and blues. Stewart later recalled the label’s transformation as follows: It was similar to a blind man suddenly seeing.”
Stewart and Axton rebranded their label as STAX, combining the first two letters of their last names, after learning of a California-based label called Satellite Records following the release of their first million-seller.
Stax, renowned for its integrated staff and talent roster, produced hits and launched numerous artists’ careers over the next 15 years before going bankrupt in 1975.
The assets and master recordings of the label were auctioned off to film mogul Saul Zaentz’s Fantasy Records for $1.3 million. In 1989, a church that had purchased the property for $10 tore down the original studio.
Stax was acquired by Los Angeles-based Concord Music Group in 2004 as part of its purchase of Fantasy. Two years later, Concord Music Group announced that it was reactivating the long-dormant soul label and launching efforts to attract artists and rebuild its catalog. In 2004, Stewart’s sister died.
