Respect Yourself

by Robert Gordon

17. A STEP OFF THE CURB

  Detroit disc jockey: His name was Wash Allan.

  “I knew Johnnie could be in that arena”: Johnnie Taylor’s career began long before Stax and ended long after. His Stax Profiles collection includes earlier gospel work and later disco hits, with his Stax hits.

  within six weeks of its release: Showtime, Press Scimitar, March 31, 1972, p. 12.

  18. THE INSPIRER

  “I had a decision to make”: Respect Yourself documentary.

  Redistribution of Earn-Out Agreement: What a document! So many Stax documents were lost after the bankruptcy, and several are hinted at here. Some specifics:

  Estelle gets “$490,000 to be paid at the rate of ninety percent of the first debentures used under said agreement until the total amount is reached, including the debentures to which these parties [Jim and Al] are already entitled for the year 1968–1969.”

  She waives all right title and interest in any other debentures.

  First parties [Jim and Al] waive their right to receive any debentures until total amount in part 1 is paid in full.

  This agreement is intended by all parties [as] the final dissolution . . . to the “STAX-VOLT PARTNERSHIP.”

  The document is painful to study. There are six signatures, in six different pens. It’s the dissolution of more than a business partnership. And though the siblings continued to see each other, they’d committed to a legal separation that is a lifelong scar at best, a festering wound at worst. At the same time, there’s an unbridled excitement to the moment. This union of six individuals sets Al at the starting gate, ready to roar. This document is on display at the Stax Museum in Memphis.

  19. THE SOUL EXPLOSION

  “Hit records are the number one thing”: Stax Fax #1.

  “This is a corporate change”: “Stax—Many Changes,” Billboard, May 22, 1971, pp. M12, M14.

  Rick Hall and the guys in Muscle Shoals: Stax developed a working relationship with Rick Hall’s FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals. Hear their southern story on The Fame Studios Story 1961–73, a three-CD retrospective. Also a single-disc compilation, The Muscle Shoals Sound. And finally there’s a documentary, Muscle Shoals, that promises to be a thrill.

  Al’s visionary soul explosion could be made a reality: A few of my favorite spins from the soul explosion: The first two tracks on Steve Cropper’s solo album, “Crop Dustin’” and “Land of 1000 Dances.” William Bell’s version of “Born Under a Bad Sign,” produced by Booker—the two wrote the song for Albert King. “Double Or Nothing” is attributed to the Mar-Keys, but it sounds to me like a great Booker T. and the MG’s jam. Otis had suggested the Staple Singers as backup vocals on “Dock of the Bay,” but after the crash, there wasn’t time; they released their own version on Soul Folk in Action.

  The new era hits a great note on Margie Joseph’s “One More Chance,” a song from New Orleans. Don Nix brought Sid Selvidge to Stax, recording his debut on Enterprise, Portrait; listen to the track “Amelia Earhart.” Recently, the Stax kids were performing at the museum, and I heard the opening piano tinkling of Isaac’s “Hypersyllabolic . . .” That’s no easy parlor trick, and they performed the song masterfully.

  “The lavender carpeting”: Steve Leigh from

  http://www.sl-prokeys.com/stax/stax-story.htm.

  “Offices and walls could—and they did—just spring up or disappear overnight. That’s how things could happen at Stax. On Friday an office—on Monday, a complete editing room.”

  “the Stax seal of approval”: Though Cropper may be accurate on the wider scale of what’s to come, the second and third Stax singles boxes are full of good-quality songs. There’s a lot of material, and it’s not a unified sound like much of the Atlantic era, but Stax continued to release quality music—alongside, granted, some lesser material.

  doorbell: From Steve Leigh,

  http://www.sl-prokeys.com/stax/stax-story.htm.

  “Janis Joplin was there”: In 1968, Janis Joplin made her first appearance after leaving Big Brother and the Holding Company. (See Rythm Oil, Stanley Booth.) She performed in Memphis at the second annual “Yuletide Thing” event sponsored by Stax-Volt Records. She would kick off her August 1969 Woodstock set with a Stax rouser from Eddie Floyd, “Raise Your Hand.”

  “Because of my background”: Reprint of article from Record World in Stax Fax #4. In that issue, too, they note Stax celebrating its tenth anniversary; interesting they date it from 1959.

  “We’re trying to carry a freedom message”: Stax Fax #4.

  Epps could excite: Gregory Jaynes, “Epps Rallies 800 with ‘War’ Talk,” Commercial Appeal, April 15, 1969.

  “further demands which could not be met”: Press Scimitar, May 23, 1969.

  “spread the misery”: Press Scimitar, May 23, 1969. “There are citizens out there who think I’m a rascal and disruptive,” Epps said. “The people we represent live lives that are totally disrupted because they don’t have enough money and their children go to school with no shoes and go hungry during the day because they don’t have lunch money. Our trips [to white shopping centers] are not an attempt just to be impudent, brazen or vulgar in our actions, but our way of asking, ‘Help us—share the comfort in which you live with us.’”

  a settlement was reached: “Contract Ratified with a Big Cheer,” Press Scimitar, June 25, 1969.

  a one-hour TV concert: When making the Respect Yourself documentary, we searched for a copy of the “Gettin’ It All Together” TV show. None was found. You know where one is? Write me care of this publisher, pally. I’m dying to see it.

  “Raymond Jackson brought me over to see Joe Harwell”:

  http://www.sl-prokeys.com/stax/stax-story.htm.

  Artists performed: Commercial Appeal, May 26, 1969.

  the staggering twenty-eight: Along with the MG’s, there was Eddie Floyd’s You’ve Got to Have Eddie, Johnnie Taylor’s The Johnnie Taylor Philosophy Continues, William Bell’s Bound to Happen, Carla Thomas’s Memphis Queen, and the Mad Lads’ Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Lads. Steve Cropper made his solo debut with the great With a Little Help from My Friends, and he collaborated with Albert King and Pops Staples to create Jammed Together. Pops joined his family on an album while Mavis Staples had her self-titled solo debut. Two gospel-turned-secular groups released their debut albums, the Emotions and also Ollie and the Nightingales. Gospel influences were evident on the Soul Children’s debut. Albert King contributed his second Stax full-length album, Years Gone By. The Mar-Keys chimed in with Damifiknow! Through Don Davis, they licensed records by Detroit artists J.J. Barnes, Darrell Banks, and Steve Mancha. The newly formed Hip subsidiary label made a couple forays into the rock market with debuts by the Goodees, a Memphis girl group, and by the Southwest F.O.B. (from which later emerged the pop duo England Dan and John Ford Coley). Al presented jazz great Maynard Ferguson on the Enterprise label, where he was also placing Isaac’s genre-shifting debut.

  Don Nix, who’d been spending time in California, imported some West Coast hip with Delaney and Bonnie (Delaney was from Mississippi). While touring with the Mar-Keys, Don Nix met Leon Russell in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1965, they went to California and Don settled there a while (Duck often came to visit). Don brought Delaney and Bonnie to Stax in 1969, his first album production. After that he did more producing for Stax and for Leon’s label, Shelter Records. “I had a production contract and a writer’s contract with Stax,” Don says. “Jim said, ‘You go and write, and you go and you produce Jeff Beck, whoever you want to, ’cause that looks good for Stax.’ And so he let me produce anybody I wanted to.”

  “May I Have Your Ticket, Please”: The sales meeting’s production notebook indicates Stax had big ideas for this album, but perhaps they were too vague to act on: “We are experimenting with this album . . . The album should be a hot underground item; also, if it comes through, it will open the door to establishing Rufus as a comedian . . . Rufus has a very strong following on college campuses across this country and in this album we are attem
pting to capture him definitely as they know him.”

  SAFEE: Commercial Appeal, May 19, 1969.

  20. A POT OF NECKBONES

  Isaac was unlike anything else in popular music: The Isaac Hayes compilation Can You Dig It? is a great two-CD overview and includes some video. Don’t take anything less than the eighteen-minute “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” the way it was meant to be heard. My favorite part is the extended wind down, with Ben Cauley hitting exuberant high notes with clarity and so much feeling.

  Isaac established the market: The Beatles had made everyone want to do originals, and Isaac was swinging the trend the other way. “Luther Vandross always said Isaac gave him the courage to take somebody else’s song and make it his,” says James Alexander. “When Isaac did ‘Walk on By,’ you forgot about Dionne Warwick’s version. Dionne did ‘A House Is Not a Home,’ but when Luther Vandross did it, you forgot about hers. Isaac was the innovator who gave a lot of artists the courage to not do an original song.”

  “physique like a Mandingo Daddy”: Jet, February 4, 1971, pp. 56–61.

  “It’s true that we are getting apart”: John Abbey, “Isaac Hayes,” Blues & Soul, 1970.

  Stax sold ten million singles: The leading sellers were “Soul Limbo” (700,000), “Hang ’Em High” (800,000), and “Time Is Tight” (800,000), all by the MG’s; Eddie Floyd’s “I Never Found a Girl” (500,000) and “Bring It on Home” (800,000); Johnnie Taylor’s “Who’s Making Love” (two million) and “Testify” (500,000); William Bell’s “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” (500,000); and the Emotions’ “So I Can Love You” (420,000). They’d also sold $750,000 in eight-tracks, and the Hot Buttered Soul album had shipped 100,000 copies within a couple months of its release.

  “Soul magazine was a struggling publication”: Bowman, Soulsville, p. 200.

  “The answers that the board”: David Vincent, “Threat of Negro Boycotts Looms as NAACP Bolts School Meeting,” Commercial Appeal, October 16, 1969.

  NEW COALITION OF NEGRO GROUPS: Commercial Appeal, October 17, 1969.

  “weary of existing”: “‘Crisis-Weary’ Organizations Urge Equitable Settlements,” Commercial Appeal, November 13, 1969.

  “bad wisdom along with bad timing”: The quote is from Councilman J.O. Patterson, Commercial Appeal, November 19, 1969.

  Cropper had to give up: The terms of Cropper’s departure come from Bowman, Soulsville, p. 213.

  paid it off in five months: Michael Lollar, “Bell Didn’t Participate in Fraud, Witness Says,” Commercial Appeal, July 29, 1976.

  “The bank, says Joe Harwell”: Ibid.

  “From that point forward”: “Al Bell Denies Wrongdoing in Bank Loans,” Press Scimitar July 28, 1976.

  21. SHAFT

  “I try to express myself”: John Abbey, “Issac Hayes,” Blues & Soul, 1970.

  “Many theater owners”: “Stax—Many Changes,” Billboard, May 22, 1971, pp. M12, M14.

  “When I play rhythm”: Michael Ross, “Skip Pitts,” Guitar Player, June 2011, pp. 52–55.

  “When Shaft pops up”: From the “making of” documentary that comes with the Shaft DVD. It includes a few snippets of Isaac and the Bar-Kays working up the tracks.

  “A major film with a black director”: “Black Tracks Cue New Sales Mart,” Billboard, July 24, 1971, pp. 1, 10.

  four days of rampaging: “Black, White Leaders Press Efforts to Curb Violence Across City,” Commercial Appeal, October 22, 1971, p. 1.

  “These officers are riding the streets”: “Feelings Run Strong—and So Do the Words,” Commercial Appeal, October 22, 1971.

  “A miracle has happened in Memphis”: “Racial Protests Ease After an Afternoon and Evening of Vandalism in City,” Press Scimitar, October 27, 1971. “Adam Oliphant, a Stax Record Co. executive took pencil and paper in hand and for 10 minutes scratched notes on violence locations as dictated by [police Chief] Lux. He then dispatched black officials and rock music stars to the various areas to pass out the free tickets to the benefit show in an attempt to draw blacks off the streets.”

  all were acquitted: Jim Shearin, The Commercial Appeal:

  http://www.commercialappeal.com/photos/2010/jun/30/175511.

  They were tried on murder and assault charges.

  whipped up dissent: Press Scimitar, June 28, 1971.

  pass a constitutional amendment: “3-Flank Attack on Busing Listed,” Commercial Appeal, May 18, 1971.

  “reprehensible”: Brown Alan Flynn, “Busing Foes Get Support from Loeb and Chandler,” Press Scimitar, May 18, 1971.

  “would guarantee the rights”: Kay Pittman Black, “Opponents of Busing Meet with Brock,” Press Scimitar, May 28, 1971.

  Big Star: For more on Big Star, see my It Came from Memphis, and also my liner notes to their box set Keep an Eye on the Sky. The band released two great albums that coincided with the Columbia distribution debacle’s beginning and its end. “We didn’t have any problem getting our record on the radio,” bandleader Alex Chilton told me. “The problem was getting them into stores.” Also look for the documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.

  “my hands stayed clean”: “One big-time guy in New York, when I left out of there,” says James Douglass, “he tried to convince me to steal the masters, said he’d press them up and sell them all over New York. ‘C’mon,’ he said to me, ‘think about your kids.’”

  “furnished wholesale lots”: Jack Anderson, “New Disc Jockey Payola Uncovered,” Washington Post, March 31, 1972, p. D15.

  DISC JOCKEY PLAY-FOR-DRUGS OUTLINED: Jack Anderson, “Disc Jockey Play-for-Drugs Outlined,” Washington Post, April 21, 1972, p. D19. Anderson reports, “Record representatives . . . deal mainly in marijuana, although insiders have repeatedly told us cocaine is the ‘with it’ drug this year in show biz.” Other Anderson reporting in 1972: “Disc jockeys and program directors across the country are provided with free vacations, prostitutes, cash and cars as payoffs for song plugging. Some big-time disc jockeys have run up thousands of dollars in bills at Las Vegas pleasure houses, all on the expense accounts of record companies . . . The stakes run into the hundreds of millions . . . The more audacious record promoters have simply bribed the record pluggers with cash or with new cars.”

  22. BALANCE SHEETS AND BALANCING ACTS

  “It got kind of rough around there”: Willie Hall says, “I became a coproducer with Mr. Baylor, but I had to go through an ass-whooping too. One night we were recording and Johnny came in. You wouldn’t see Koko until midnight, the pimp’s way. He was kind of full, if you know what I mean. It was James Alexander, Michael Toles, and myself. Johnny said, ‘All right, motherfuckers, it’s time for a whooping.’ There was only one exit and he was standing in it. Michael Toles tried to leave. Johnny punched him. Johnny, beatings were his business. Michael started crying. I’m sitting at the drums, thinking, Oh, God, how am I gonna get out of here? James Alexander was next. James rolled up in a ball behind his guitar and tried to get past Koko, but Koko tapped him too. James played it off but I knew he was hurt. Koko came to me. ‘Hall, you ain’t going nowhere.’ I thought, He is my friend, I know I’m going to get hurt. So I put my dukes up, man, I took a swing at him. He hit me hard. What saved me, I started laughing. He’d hit me, I’d laugh. I can feel those punches today, in my chest, my arm, my back.”

  Helen Washington: Helen Washington was David Porter’s niece. After about twenty arrests, she was serving time in the Tennessee State Woman’s Prison for five counts of larceny; since childhood, she’d been doing cheap cons with an older counterpart, and was finally sent to the big house for using phony credit cards. Inside, she’d duly reformed, earning “trusty” status and could leave the premises to speak in high schools. Isaac wrote the warden suggesting he could give her gainful employment. The twenty-eight-year-old was granted early release and was assigned to Randy Stewart’s team, hawking photographs to fans. “One day she came to me and said, ‘I’m tired of concessions, I want to be a dancer onstage,’” says Randy. “She wanted
to shave her head like Isaac. I thought, Wow, great idea! We went to the men’s bathroom in Stax, I shaved all the hair off her head and took her into Isaac. He said, ‘That’s a great idea.’”

  She was such a compelling figure that Ebony magazine quickly put her on the cover. Their profile begins, “She floats on stage as if on invisible wings. Her sylph-like figure, supple, flowing, enchanting, is incongruously topped by a head as hairless as a cueball, a head that glistens brightly in the glare of the spotlight . . . In the kneeling position of a supplicant, she faces the wings, eagerly anticipating his coming! The MC, in a circus barker’s voice, exhorts: ‘And no-o-owww, lay-dees and gennlemene-e-ennn, the one you have been waiting for . . . Eye-sa-ac . . . Ha-ay-ees!’ . . .

  “Hayes, an incredible figure seemingly straight out of Aladdin’s magic lamp, strides on stage, dressed—or, better, adorned—by a maxi-cape with attached hood. He bows, helps Helen to her feet . . . and kisses her full on the lips as he permits his cape to fall into her arms. In burgundy tights, his naked upper torso gleaming like waxed mahogany and also draped with golden chains, he bows again and she kisses the top of his head.” (Ebony, May 1972, p. 134.)

  Randy Stewart: “Then he’d throw that cape off and stand up in those tights—you could see everything! I told him, ‘You’re going to jail man.’ He said, ‘The women like that.’ He’d kick that cape off, she’d catch it, he’d hit that organ and it was showtime, boy!”

  She also told Ebony, “My manager is Johnny Baylor. He’s been very good to me since I’ve been out. There are still some cases against me in court, and he’s getting them straightened out. He knows a lot about the law, but sometimes he’s so tired working day and night, he will sit up in court and go to sleep.”

  “payola king of New York”: Hit Men, Dannen.

  “800,000 pirated copies”: Roger St. Pierre, Record Collector, January 1972. Some record labels even pirated themselves, selling albums through nontraditional routes to avoid having to pay royalties to artists and music publishers; the rise of cassette-tape sales also made pirating easier.