Johnny only carried a gun because he would use it. “Johnny and I were able to go out and meet the head of the gang that was challenging the artists,” Dino Woodard states. “We let them know that, hey, they cannot bother the artists because it disturbed the mentality of the mind. They cannot work. They cannot record properly. We let them know that there wasn’t gonna be any more robberies.” Dino slips into quiet reflection: “A lot of people are not thinking about death, even though they are hollering and challenging people. We let them know that even though they did have guns, we were ready to die for our rights, for Stax artists, and the protection of Al Bell. Stax was accumulating jobs for African-American people and we wasn’t gonna have the challenge from them. Boom. When we faced them, they could see that we was serious. It’s do or die.”
“Johnny had a rather clear-cut and well-defined conversation with the thugs,” says Al, “and I think they clearly understood, for after that discussion, we ceased to have problems from them.”
With the street problem swept away—a trifle to Baylor, really—Johnny Baylor looked around and liked what he saw. One of his sidelines was a record label, Koko, a nod to his favorite boxing moment—the KO, or knockout. Among the few artists he represented was the handsome and mellifluous vocalist Luther Ingram, who would later deliver one of the great love songs of the 1970s, “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Wanna Be Right).” There was legitimate business he could have with Stax beyond the continued security issues in which he could assist.
“Johnny Baylor was a very smart guy,” says Rev. Jesse Jackson. “Very streetwise, very savvy. A lot of the kind of street elements that you have to deal with in the record business—Baylor was fit for the task and was loyal. He made a big contribution to the Stax development.” Baylor took a suite in a Memphis Holiday Inn, but kept his apartment in New York City.
With the immediate environment cleaned up, a few records out, and the business engines firing, the Stax executives could turn their eyes to the farther horizon. “Our contract had run out with Atlantic Records and so it was up for sale to somebody or we’d have to go independent,” says Estelle. “We didn’t think we could handle it independently. It takes a lot of money to be independent.” Atlantic had carried a lot of the financial risk—floating the pressing-plant fees, for example, or waiting for the slow payments from distributors. Independent labels could be easily caught short of cash, finding themselves suddenly vulnerable to takeover. “You have to think about your competitors out there,” Estelle continues. “They’re going to swallow you up if they can.”
“I had a rude awakening at that point in the record business,” says Jim. “I decided, ‘What the hell have I been working for all these years?’ I had made no money up to that point, putting everything back into the company. I might as well get something out of it. We were looking for capital gains, basically.”
After they’d decided not to be sold with Atlantic to Warner Bros., Stax sought a new patron. They’d engaged in discussions with a variety of larger labels and companies, but nothing had developed. “We needed money to operate,” says Al Bell. “And I had a dear friend who really became our angel, a gentleman by the name of Clarence Avant. He was a master salesperson, but more importantly, he was respected throughout the big-business world, particularly in the entertainment world. I spoke to him about our situation, and Clarence knew Charlie Bluhdorn at Gulf & Western. So Clarence took this little company that had no master tape catalog, this little company that had lost its flagship artist, this little company that no one believed could be raised from the dead, and sold that company to Gulf & Western for us.”
Gulf & Western Industries, which began in Michigan manufacturing automobile parts, had become one of the earliest and largest conglomerates of the new business era. By the late 1960s, its holdings included the Kayser-Roth clothing manufacturers (owners of the Miss Universe pageant), New Jersey Zinc, sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic, a financial services company, and Consolidated Cigars. At the time of the Stax purchase, G&W was also negotiating with Armour & Co., one of America’s largest meatpackers, and Allis & Chambers, an international leader in industrial manufacturing. “Their gross sales in 1967,” says Jim, “were equivalent to that of the entire recording industry, in excess of seven hundred million dollars.” In 1967, G&W purchased the Paramount Pictures movie studio, which itself was a mini-empire; among its holdings were Famous Music, one of the oldest music publishing companies, and Dot Records, a label that was home to Pat Boone, a giant in 1950s pop music.
PARAMOUNT TO BUY THE STAX COMPLEX was the May 1968 headline in Billboard, and the article explained, “Jim Stewart . . . will continue to helm the Stax/Volt companies reporting directly to Arnold D. Burk, Paramount Pictures vice-president in charge of music operations . . . Burk added that no changes in the distribution setup of Stax is contemplated and that Stax would continue to be handled mostly by independent distributors.” Paramount recognized that Stax had, during its tenure with Atlantic, created a successful, working apparatus that was best not disturbed; Gulf & Western would provide the operating capital for Stax to continue doing what it did best. “Gulf & Western were trying to expand their record division,” Jim confirms. “We were selling our stock, but we were going to maintain the company’s operations.” Jim anticipated a barely perceptible change. “There was no transition,” he says. “I just picked up the phone and said to the distributor, ‘You won’t be paying Atlantic next month, you’ll be paying us.’” Stax in Memphis would report to Paramount in California; Paramount to Gulf & Western in New York City.
Gulf & Western gave Stax over $4 million. Less than a quarter of that was cash; some was common stock in Gulf & Western, and lots of it was in convertible debentures that could be redeemed only after a specified period of time. These debentures were issued to Stax, and the value and the return on the debentures were based on Stax’s net revenues; in other words, the better Stax did as a company, the more money it received. The company’s attorney Seymour Rosenberg did not learn of the deal until after its conclusion, and he was not impressed: “In essence, Gulf & Western bought Stax with Stax’s own money. They paid them out of profits. If there wasn’t any profits there wouldn’t have been any payment.”
The Gulf & Western sale restored a stability to Stax, relieving them of the financial pressures that came with the loss of their catalog, and the loss of hitmakers Otis Redding and Sam and Dave. “Gulf & Western were a very large company and we thought they would give us the visibility that we needed,” says Jim. “Like the kid that leaves home, we didn’t have that big Atlantic machine to protect us. And we didn’t have the capital to be on our own. Under that sale, we became more or less a division of Paramount Pictures. Paramount—we’re talking big time.”
Not that Stax was small potatoes, and Paramount quickly capitalized on its latest acquisition, hiring Booker T. Jones to score an upcoming film, Up Tight. The film by Jules Dassin, who’d made the provocative movie Never on Sunday, was an updated version of a 1935 John Ford film, The Informer, a story of betrayal and emotional disintegration. Dassin changed the setting from Dublin and the Irish Republican Army to Cleveland, Ohio, and an African-American gang. Preceding the “blaxploitation” genre by several years, Up Tight was a serious movie on a low budget, and Booker, twenty-three years old, gave it his all. He began post-production work in Hollywood, then moved with the production to Paris, France (witnessing there the May 1968 uprisings). In the City of Light, looking at the River Seine, he came up with a melody. Far from his usual location, he could easily stretch out. The MG’s joined him there to record the soundtrack. “DJs liked the records to be two minutes and thirty seconds,” Booker says. “And ‘Time Is Tight’ is double that. We were starting to disregard radio’s restrictions. But Bob Dylan was doing that too, and some others.” Paris was good for inspiration, but the recording facility was not up to the MG’s standards. After laying down the movie’s soundtrack, the band returned to Stax to re-record the soundtrack a
lbum. “Time Is Tight” became one of their most enduring hits, reaching the top ten of both the pop and R&B charts. The song moves in fuguelike parts—a slow, melancholy meditation on the organ, a choogling guitar section that is funky and danceable, then back to the melancholia, as if someone has broken from a fever dream of exuberance to realize, alas, the euphoria and intensity at that temperature could not endure.
Others around Stax could see that this alliance with the movie studio might prove fruitful; both Carla Thomas and William Bell began taking acting lessons. Eddie Floyd, perhaps with an eye toward Gulf & Western’s origins, took up drag racing.
While there were portents of change at Stax with this new relationship, the nation’s racial relationships seemed immalleable. Racism still held sway in 1968. Though President Johnson had passed the Civil Rights Act four years earlier and one could point to concrete changes all about—bus seating, bathrooms, water fountains, and dining rooms were open to anyone anywhere (by law and, slowly but increasingly, by custom)—it was also easy to see how little had changed. The Memphis Police Department reviewed the sanitation strike when it was over and determined that Memphis had been the object of “outside provocation.” They ignored the facts and instead suggested that AFSCME had riled up the workers and instigated the strike. The department’s response was to buy more helicopters, mace, and riot helmets.
The civil rights movement lurched forward with its leader gone. Rev. Ralph Abernathy took charge of the SCLC, and a month after Dr. King’s assassination, thousands of impoverished blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and others began a march from diverse places in the South to Washington, actualizing Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign. The intention was to widen the movement’s base, breaking beyond race issues to economics, but unity proved elusive. Though thousands converged and built a camp on the National Mall, their effort was undermined by infighting and disagreement. Living conditions were difficult, and morale was hit hard when Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 6. Less than three weeks later, police routed the encampment with tear gas, and the protestors departed, their goals unfulfilled.
When Stax artists discuss race, nearly all call Stax an “oasis”—the same word recurs in interview after interview. Did those social problems not exist, or did the continued success serve to mask them? “Things changed because of King’s assassination,” Steve says. “I can tell you that prior to that, there was never ever any color that came through the doors. Didn’t happen. And after that, it was never the same.”
It never was the same, but everyone had always seen color. The beauty was that till then, no one had cared. The anger that followed the assassination made people care. With the veil of innocence lifted, race emerged in ways it hadn’t before. Al Jackson suddenly gave Duck the cold treatment. “It was tense,” says Duck. “I turned around to Al and said, ‘Al, I got to get this off my chest.’ I said, ‘You won’t talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong?’ And he told me another musician accused me of being racist. I said, ‘Al, if that’s the truth, God strike me dead today.’ And he looked at me. He called me Dundy Dunn Dunn. He says, ‘Dundy Dunn Dunn, what more can I ask?’” Duck shakes his head. “The n-word. I didn’t allow that word in my house. I worked with Booker and Al and I couldn’t handle that word. And I think I even changed my mother and my father about that. I really do.”
After Dr. King’s murder, there was conflicting opinion among civil rights groups about how best to proceed. The failure of the Poor People’s Campaign heightened those tensions. “Nonviolence has died with King’s death,” Eldridge Cleaver, a Black Panther activist, declared. The armed revolution seemed to be at hand. In the summer of 1968, at the annual meeting of the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers (NATRA), activism was everywhere. NATRA’s convention drew a racially mixed crowd including record company presidents, promotions men, songwriters, and others associated with music, but the organization was established as a forum for African-American broadcasters, and that remained its core. The 1968 theme was “The New Breed’s New Image Creates Self Determination and Pride,” which meant, according to Executive Secretary Del Shields, “this loosely is our translation of Black Power and Soul Power.”
Trouble was brewing well before the group convened in mid-August. A month prior, a venue change was announced in Jet, one of the nation’s leading magazines directed at a black audience. According to the magazine, the “plush Marco Polo Hotel reportedly made a ‘last-minute’ demand that the National Assn. of TV and Radio Announcers (NATRA) post a $25,000 bond in advance of the group’s annual convention . . . to cover property damages and unpaid accounts that might accrue during the predominantly Negro group’s affair . . . A $10,000 offer to Marco Polo was rejected.” The event relocated and NATRA stated its intention “to file suit . . . charging the establishment with rank discrimination.”
The president of NATRA, E. Rodney Jones, a prominent DJ in Chicago, told Billboard that the group planned to address “the nation’s problems on a sociological level. Many who expect to attend are hopeful that even more deejays will lend their efforts to easing tensions.” By the time the convention rolled around, a subset of the more radical-minded activists had formed, calling themselves the Fair Play Committee. Two of its members were Johnny Baylor and Dino Woodard. Exactly what happened at the Miami convention is disputed—various reports indicate Marshall Sehorn, the white partner of black New Orleans producer and musician Allen Toussaint, was pistol-whipped; or that Phil Walden, Otis’s white manager, received death threats; or that Jerry Wexler was accused of stealing from Aretha Franklin and his effigy was hung in the hotel lobby. The pernicious mood extended onto, and emanated from, the dais, where speakers riled and goaded the crowd.
“There was a changing racial climate throughout the country,” says Jim. “But nobody ever came to me and said, ‘Get out of the record business or we’ll blow you away.’ Nobody threatened me. Al was like a buffer. They couldn’t destroy Stax without destroying one of their own. I never had any confrontations.”
Jerry Wexler was not so lucky. “That infamous convention in Miami was a big turning point,” he says. “A certain element thought that it was gonna be their time to actually take possession of the record companies and the radio stations. And the emcee was whipping them up. ‘It’s your time, boys. Go and grab it.’ I’m sitting there to receive an award for Aretha Franklin when King Curtis got me and said, ‘You’re out of here right now.’ He said somebody was coming after me—a part of this irredentist movement, they were gonna off me. It was one of those moments when the surge of Black Power infected the whole record business.” Southern soul wasn’t over, but it was a time for new sounds, and under new authority.
At Stax, the front door—long the symbol of the studio’s connection to the neighborhood, and through which had walked, uninvited, several of its biggest stars—was locked. A twelve-foot cyclone fence was installed around the parking lot, and a guard was stationed at the back gate to monitor who entered, preventing that uninvited future star from popping in to announce him or herself. The open-door policy was effectively terminated.
A short eight years earlier, Wayne Jackson and some other kids were pulling seats out of the theater. Now a company stood there. “The family feeling that we had,” says Wayne, “that fraternity of young guys who couldn’t even conceive of a job that much fun, and Otis Redding and all that we did—suddenly was gone. There were people with guns in the house. That really put a cold towel on the party. It wasn’t any fun to go there. They put the big fences up and a guard: Fort Stax.”
17. A Step off the Curb
1968
Having instigated the successful sale, Al Bell was wielding new power in the company, and he took a deep breath, still clearing the path toward the soul explosion. One hurdle he’d always faced was the perception of Stax as too southern—what the DJs called ’Bama music, short for Alabama. “Many African-Americans looked down their nose at blues as too raw and rural,” says Al. They heard
that influence in Stax and he heard that said as a criticism of Stax. “So there came a time of diversification that I started looking for what I called cross-fertilization—a merger between Stax, with this raw, gritty, gutsy soul, and Motown and its contemporary, sophisticated, polished soul. When I was a DJ on the radio, I played Stax, and I played Motown—so why shouldn’t we have a company here that reflects the sum total of black music? The idea wasn’t to lose the centerpiece but to broaden the music that’s considered black music. In my mind, I needed to deal with somebody in Detroit.” Through a Detroit disc jockey with Memphis roots, Al was introduced to Don Davis, a guitarist who’d played at Motown before breaking away with his own studio, United, and record label. Al first brought Davis to Memphis in 1967 to produce Carla Thomas, who wanted to establish herself as a cabaret singer. Carla had begun performing as an innocent, sexy teenager; her photo shoots toyed with a coquettish appeal. She’d since had soul hits, matched Otis Redding in gritty duets, and blossomed into a college-educated, beautiful woman. But Carla wanted to be a voice; she had a pop sensibility and, like Dionne Warwick, she wanted to make believers of the adult cabaret and ballad crowd.
Respect Yourself Page 24
