Respect Yourself

by Robert Gordon

  There were many labels around the South and across the country that would have been shocked at Stax’s spurning of Atlantic. All the small producers in garages and storefronts across America were trying to get their music heard, to make the kind of alliance that Stax had fallen into with Atlantic, and they’d have put up with jerks, conceit, and pomposity to do it. One such producer was Rick Hall and his FAME Studio, 150 miles southeast of Memphis in the even more remote town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. “Pickett did have a corrosive personality with a lot of people,” says Wexler. “So I had discovered this new way of making records and now Stax barred the door. But Joe Galkin [the Atlantic promotions man who’d told Wexler about Rufus and Carla and who’d found Otis] told me about FAME and Rick Hall. Wilson Pickett was the first artist I brought to Muscle Shoals. The records we made there, which Chips Moman had a lot to do with, are the gutbucket, finest, swinging, cooking tracks of any records that I ever made. ‘Land of 1,000 Dances,’ ‘Mustang Sally,’ ‘Soul Dance Number Three’—those are my platonic ideal of great R&B tracks.”

  It was a windfall for FAME, but the whole experience of recording Atlantic’s artists had proved beneficial for Stax as well. “When Wilson Pickett was placed on our doorstep,” says Al Bell, “it became clear to me that these people in New York that I respected and held in high esteem—the great Atlantic Records—thought enough of us that if they sent someone like Wilson Pickett to Memphis to get this gritty, gutsy, raw sound and feel that was coming out of Stax, that there had to be something very important and profound about what we were doing. To me, it validated Stax and its sound.”

  12. Unusual Success

  1966

  Jim Stewart had never taken a producer’s credit for his work at Stax. There wasn’t much room on a single to designate a producer, and when albums came out, his credit read, SUPERVISION: JIM STEWART. Many times he had produced, and many times he’d stayed out of the way, knowing when these talented kids didn’t need his input. He usually engineered the recording, and if things moved in a direction he didn’t like, he’d make it known. Part of Stax’s success was based on everyone contributing ideas. “There was a lot of creativity in those days,” says Jim. “Total involvement from everybody. There was no greed factor, and no limits to the input that we gave.”

  Early in 1966, Isaac Hayes and David Porter were working on material for an upcoming Sam and Dave session. Isaac and David had become Stax’s custodians of Sam and Dave, writing and producing nearly all of their material. The two sets of partners fed off each other, the ideas between the four providing inspiration and vigor.

  Sam and Dave weren’t harmonizers, they were combatants, each vocal line a thrust and parry, goosing the other to reach further, jump higher, and dance harder. In the studio, David coached the vocalists while Isaac arranged the band. David pushed them higher in their registers—it was a harder reach, and he liked hearing that extra effort in their voices. “There was not a musical chart there,” says Sam, who had previously worked with bands that read their parts off charts written before the session. “Isaac would voice that stuff with the piano. ‘This is what I want the horns to do, this is what Sam and Dave’s gonna do—’ He would voice everything. I would go, ‘God, this guy!’—’cause I’m not accustomed to seeing that.”

  L–R: Jim Stewart (partial), Duck Dunn (shorts), Gene “Bowlegs” Miller (seated), Andrew Love, Floyd Newman, Wayne Jackson, Eddie Floyd’s back, Al Jackson (drums, rear), unidentified background, Isaac Hayes (piano), Mildred Pratcher Steve Cropper. (Promotional photo by API Photographers/Earlie Biles Collection)

  “Sometimes David and I would sleep all night under the piano,” says Isaac, “and we’d be awakened the next morning by the secretary. ‘What are you doing here?’” There were other places Isaac preferred to sleep, and this night, working late in preparation for Sam and Dave, Isaac, a ladies’ man, had a date waiting—at home, for him. But he and David were committed to their responsibilities and knew that most songs are not born without labor, and ideas have to be nurtured until the heart is revealed and the body can be built around it. It was late, no one else was in the building, and David, pacing the studio, retired for a bathroom respite. He walked up the sloped floor, went through the old theater doors, and was sitting on the toilet, listening to Isaac noodle on the piano. Inspiration can be elusive, the ideas being—as the term indicates—breathed into a person. And as Isaac moved his hands on the black and whites, David’s ears perked up. He could hear form taking shape.

  “I finally struck a groove,” says Isaac, “and it’s taking David forever! I said, ‘David! C’mon man, I got something.’”

  David had heard Isaac’s progress, but he had his own business to finish. He hollered back from the stall, “Hold on, I’m coming.”

  Isaac continued with the chords, but in a moment his concentration was broken by a commotion from the back of the room. “That’s it! That’s it!” David ran in yelling, one hand holding his pants halfway up, the other one waving wildly. “Hold on, I’m coming! That’s it!” It would be the chorus, and title, to Sam and Dave’s breakout song.

  They developed a basic structure, and Isaac had a horn riff he’d put on tape a couple weeks earlier, an idea too good not to have on hand. He’d called together the horn section so he wouldn’t forget it. He pulled the tape and it fit their new song, heroic like the cavalry’s arrival. At the next day’s session, they built the parts quickly. For the rhythm David referenced the funky hit out of New Orleans, Lee Dorsey’s “Get Out of My Life Woman.” That proved a good starting point for Al Jackson. Isaac’s horn part became a central riff. Steve dug into his James Brown trick bag for a funky guitar part, and the result was a surefire hit that shot up the R&B charts all the way to the number-one position. Penned as a love song, this piece transcends romance and becomes a cultural message with civil rights overtones, urging unity among African-Americans, reminding that help is always nearby—and on the way:

  Don’t you ever, be sad

  Lean on me, when times are bad

  When the day comes, and you’re down

  In a river of trouble, and about to drown

  Hold on, I’m coming

  Hold on, I’m coming

  “That was the chemistry,” says Sam. “Sam and Dave, Hayes and Porter. Just like the chemistry between Berry Gordy and Motown and between Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. Hayes—I believed in whatever he said. His mouth, to me, was a bible.”

  “Isaac would be playing piano,” says Duck, “and David would be behind the [sound] screen, almost like a band director. He’d tell them which line to sing when. David was great with that.”

  Listening to a Sam and Dave playback in the control room. The Altec Voice of the Theater mono speaker is to the right. L–R: Sam Moore, Isaac Hayes, Andrew Love, Wayne Jackson, Dave Prater, Jim Stewart, Steve Cropper. (Promotional photo by API Photographers/Earlie Biles Collection)

  “When it came to laying down the vocals,” David Porter told the Smithsonian Institution, “I’m on one side of the mike, Sam and Dave are on the other, and I’d direct them, like a choir. One hand: you hold it, you do the ad-lib. Take the hand up: you do the ad-lib up high. Take the hand down: ad-lib lower. Laying down the vocals was orchestrated and developed at the mike.”

  “Porter was tough—oh, he was tough,” says Sam. “He wanted hit records. And I’m lazy, I’m the first to admit that I’m very lazy. I don’t want to sing all up in the ceiling—I visualize being Frank Sinatra, or Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke. And he would change keys on me. He challenged me a lot.” Sam got sound advice from Jim Stewart as well. “‘You’re trying to compete with Motown,’ he told me. ‘Stop. Motown’s vision is pop. You are raw soul. Let’s concentrate on that.’”

  Sam, with some exceptions, did not like the songs they were being given at Stax—even after they started hitting. He still heard himself as a crooner and balladeer. And when he was feeling down about the material, he’d voice his concerns where everyone at Stax went to dis
burden themselves: the Satellite Record Shop counter. “Estelle—it was her money that started the company, and she always stood up behind the counter at Satellite. I’d say, ‘Miz Axton, I don’t like that song.’ She’d say, ‘Sam, you and Dave stick with it son, that’s a good song.’ I’d go back in the studio, I’d focus on what she’d say. Goddogit if it didn’t work out like she said.”

  “Hold On” was released mid-March, 1966, and it was the kind of powerful, catchy, and exciting song that made Al Bell’s promotion job both more exciting and more difficult—giving him that many new disc jockeys to reach out to. Three weeks later, it hit the R&B charts, where it would stay for twenty weeks, working its way to number one in mid-June; it peaked at number twenty-one on the pop charts at the same time, a song of the summer. They got better TV appearances, broke into wider—and wealthier—audiences. Sam and Dave were becoming mainstream artists.

  This expanded fan base—the dreamed-of crossover success—was further evidenced by sales of their first album recorded at Stax. Where most of the market had been singles so far, Al Bell saw not only the growing commercial trend toward albums, but also the higher profitability in their sale; they were more expensive to create and produce, but their higher price allowed a significant profit margin. Riding on the back of their hit single, their album Hold On I’m Coming proved to be the breakthrough for Stax’s album sales. In all the company’s years through 1965, they’d released only eight albums—on the Stax and Volt labels combined. After Al Bell arrived, in 1966 alone they released eleven albums, and Sam and Dave’s Hold On went to number one on the R&B album sales chart.

  Estelle Axton outside the Satellite Record Shop. (Stax Museum of American Soul Music/Photograph by Jonas Bernholm)

  Albums were good business, as Al would demonstrate over the years to come. “The albums were generating more revenue than the singles,” he explains. “There were times when we’d sell a hundred thousand albums, and at the end of the year, that adds up to serious cash flow. If they were retailing at $6.98, then our wholesale was three and a half dollars or so per unit. So one hundred thousand units is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We were generating cash. We had obligations with writers, producers, and publishers, and our fixed costs, and general administrative expenses. But we had the gross revenue coming in, because we had hit records.”

  Beyond his promotional abilities, Al was becoming a dynamic personality within the company. When the MG’s became frustrated with Jim, Al would step in; Jim’s stoic pursuit for perfection drove even his most loyal employees to irritation. Sam and Dave leaned on Al in the same way. “Jim recorded almost all of our hits, but Jim and I had our differences,” says Sam. “I had a big mouth. Jim had no personality. He depended on Steve Cropper. I’m saying, ‘Steve Cropper’s mouth ain’t no damn prayer book.’ I was called on the carpet to keep my mouth shut. And Al became the man between Jim and myself. Al Bell became a spiritual adviser. One time we were supposed to perform in Atlanta for the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers. I was upset with Jim Stewart and Al talked to me, said, ‘You can be upset, but don’t take it out on the people in Atlanta.’ Stax did a good job promoting. And over the years, Jim and I turned out to be good friends. His sister—there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”

  The family feeling still dominated, but in the solidifying hierarchy, there was no place for Packy. In the wake of the “Hole in the Wall” success, the Magnificent Montague, the LA DJ and promoter, matched Packy with Johnny Keyes, a vocalist, conga player, songwriter, and laid-back African-American hipster from Chicago. They formed a band and a deep friendship, and the Packers toured behind the single, ultimately winding down in Memphis. There, any friend of Packy’s was instantly adored by Estelle, so Johnny found himself with a job at the record store, and a new mentor—Estelle—who was paying for an apartment he shared with Packy near Stax. “Packy would go home every now and then, but he preferred to stay in South Memphis with black people,” Johnny says. “She didn’t fight it. And she believed in me and my talent. She’d say, ‘Johnny, when you write something, look through a magazine and you’ll come across some phrases you might be able to use.’ She said, ‘I’ve found that records sell when you ask a question. Will you still love me tomorrow?’ I said, ‘Ahh.’”

  Johnny Keyes, who became Packy Axton’s best friend. (University of Memphis Libraries/Special Collections)

  Johnny wrote songs for Stax’s East/Memphis publishing. He and Packy cowrote “Double Up” with Estelle’s employee Homer Banks, and it had an appeal to Sam and Dave who, in a recording frenzy, were working on their second album of 1966; they wanted to call it Double Dynamite, so Johnny’s song had thematic appeal. “Miz Axton had told us, ‘If you give them that tune without getting publishing, I’m through with both of you,” says Johnny. “She said, ‘I’ll stop paying your rent, I won’t back you in anything you do, you’ll no longer be able to borrow money from my cash register.’ She said all bets would be off. David Porter said, ‘We’re gonna cut it and we’ll start rehearsing the tune.’ I told him we needed to have half of the publishing and he said he’d talk to Jim Stewart.

  “So Sam and Dave are rehearsing ‘Double Up,’ I’m elated. David comes back and said, ‘We don’t split publishing.’ I said, ‘Yes you do, East Publishing splits with Otis’s publishing company, Redwal.’ He said, ‘No publishing, but we’ll make it a single from the album.’ That would have boosted our money as writers. But then I could hear Miz Axton’s voice in my ear—‘All bets are off if you don’t get the publishing.’ I held my ground. All of a sudden they said, ‘Stop rehearsing the song, the deal is off.’” Sam and Dave had to abandon the song, but Estelle didn’t leave Johnny in a lurch. She had him teach the song to Clarence “C.L. Blast” Lewis, a solid Memphis soul singer. She booked time at Ardent Studios, an up-and-coming facility in town (they’d installed the same recording console as Stax, with an eye toward getting their overflow work). C.L.’s “Double Up” came out on Stax and didn’t chart, but Keyes and Axton still had their rent paid.

  Though Stax had all these records on the charts, they were still a provincial company. Songs may have been played in the Northeast, Midwest, and down South, but the Stax personnel recorded them in Memphis, mailed them out from Memphis, and read about them while they sat in their Memphis office. So when the phone rang in the spring of 1966 and the crackly voice on the other end said it was England calling, they wondered if it was a joke. Their credulity was further tested when the caller identified himself as Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles. He’d gotten their phone number from Jerry Wexler. The Beatles would be touring the US that year and, as their December 1965 album Rubber Soul indicated, they were grooving to the sounds of sweet southern soul. (The song “Drive My Car” lifted the bass line from Otis’s “Respect.” “That’s my one la-di-da,” says the ever-humble Duck Dunn.) The Beatles were at new heights of popularity, and bursting creatively, working toward their Sgt. Pepper breakthrough the following year.

  In March of 1966, the Beatles’ manager was in Memphis, surveying the landscape, with Estelle as his host. She placed him in the luxury downtown hotel, the Rivermont, and suggested the Beatles could stay there too; touring politicos were often put up there. (Elvis, meanwhile, offered Graceland.) Estelle’s son-in-law worked for the Memphis police, and his responsibilities included traffic detail, so she assured Epstein that the Beatles would have no trouble moving through town. A plan was developing.

  “One day Miz Axton came to us,” says Johnny Keyes, “and she said, ‘Don’t spread this around, but the Beatles are coming to Memphis.’ Everybody told somebody, ‘The Beatles are coming, don’t tell anybody.’ And soon everybody knew.” Johnny remembers girls coming into the record shop, and hysterical, offering money for information, trying to buy the dress the secretary would wear when the Beatles came through the door. “It was wild, man,” he says. “Nobody knew, but everybody did.”

  “They wanted to record at Stax so bad,�
�� says Don Nix, who later befriended George Harrison. “They had the whole thing all laid out, were gonna land a helicopter on the roof. But word leaked out.”

  On the front page of the March 31 morning newspaper, just below the article KLANSMAN CHIEF TO GIVE SELF UP, is the headline BEATLES TO RECORD HERE. In the article, Brian Epstein’s visit is acknowledged, and Estelle announces their April 9 arrival, explaining they were drawn by the sounds of Otis, Carla, Rufus, the MG’s, and others. She confirms an album and a single are planned—Jim will produce, Steve will arrange, and Tom Dowd will come down from Atlantic to supervise. The Beatles, yes, but the newspaper realized that readers may not be familiar with the studio that has drawn their attention. So the article ends with an explanation for the general public who, familiar with the Beatles, may not know this world-renowned studio in their hometown: that “has had unusual success with Negro artists.”

  Once fans had official confirmation of where to be on what day, the Beatles had to cancel; Beatlemania was still in full swing. The album Revolver would be recorded in London, and its songs are full of soul possibility. The horns and vocal style on “Got to Get You into My Life” are the most obvious paean to the American soul sound, but the dark funk of “Taxman” and the bright punch of “Good Day Sunshine” would also have been right at home in Memphis.