http://rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=14825&SearchText=willie+hall.
“I lost my sales position”: “Music Executive Denies Kickbacks,” Press Scimitar, August 24, 1973.
But Stax’s original star was back on top: You can’t go wrong with Rufus Thomas. “Walking the Dog” is one of my desert island discs. The early 1970s stuff produced by Tom Nixon has a fuller sound—the funky animal series, and the dances. From his pre-Sun Meteor records to his jam with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Rufus will do you right.
Rance Allen: Bob Mehr, “Gospel with Soul Flavor,” Commercial Appeal, February 25, 2011, p. 5.
“My fourth oldest brother”: Dave Hoekstra, “Staples’ Label Boss Takes You There in Retrospect,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 11, 2009.
“The music in there”: Bowman, Soulsville, p. 238.
“utilizing ex-FBI operatives”: “Stax Record Organization Opens Fight Against Record Piracy in Plan Utilizing FBI Methods and Ex-Agents,” press release, November 22, 1971.
Stax had become outsize: Good ideas continued to emerge. A promotion for “Theme from Shaft” made the sheet music available to marching bands, resulting in many halftime performances, several broadcast nationally—a perfect reminder of the song’s hipness—just in time for the gift-giving season. The response prompted Stax to release arrangements for “Knock on Wood,” “Who’s Making Love,” an MG’s song, and two tunes by Rufus Thomas. Mary Ann Lee, “How Halftime Became Showtime for ‘Shaft,’” Press Scimitar, December 10, 1971; “Shaft as Go, Go, Go,” Billboard, December 18, 1971, p. 38; “Stax Steps Up Sheet Music Pace Via Its Licensees,” Billboard, January 15, 1972, p. 66.
23. WATTSTAX
“There was a paranoia”: And a counterweight to the paranoia: “Someone gave Isaac a real roulette wheel, ball-bearing precision,” says Larry Nix. “So Isaac’s valet Benny Mabone started taking bets, and soon everyone’s coming in there and gambling. Randy Stewart was producing Inez Foxx, and he couldn’t get her in the studio. Benny got a cash box and he was making change. When it got too big it got called off, but it was hot for a while.”
A photo from the reception: There’s a photo of the newly-weds cutting the cake in the June 29, 1972, issue of Jet.
“He wanted most of his life to sing”: Heikki Suosalo, Soul Express #2, 2004, p. 33.
“Baylor took Luther to Muscle Shoals”: There’s a great extended Luther Ingram oral history in Soul Express by Heikki Suosalo; also see his piece on Johnny Baylor’s artist Tommy Tate. Luther Ingram is in Soul Express no. 2, 2004; Tommy Tate in Soul Express no. 3, 2001.
“the mastering room”: Mastering engineer Larry Nix says, “We got mastering equipment after we put a stereo system in Jim’s office. We set up some JBL speakers, turned on the radio, they were playing Motown. Right behind it came a Stax record, and ours just fell down. Everybody said, ‘Man, we’re getting our butt kicked.’ So we bought our own mastering equipment. It cost major money. But with that, you could start with nothing and have a pressed record the next day. Record the tape, we’d master it, Plastic Products would send their truck, press it on their overnight shift.”
“One day, Johnny Baylor”: Tim Whitsett told Soul Express that another Koko artist, Tommy Tate, “was scared to death of Baylor and called the FBI on himself to protect himself.”
“into the Broadway play arena”: press release, February 7, 1972.
Stax was undeterred: Press Scimitar, Feburary 15, 1972.
The scope quickly grew: For more on Wattstax and the Mafundi Institute, see “The State of Art in Watts,” by Anthony “Made” Hamilton:
http://www.forests.com/caaghist.html.
“We go and find”: Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje and Eddie S. Meadows, California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West, p. 184.
The morning kicked off: The night before Wattstax, Isaac performed in Philadelphia. “Isaac would get tied up with people after the show and miss a flight,” says Earlie Biles. “And when you had something to be filmed, you couldn’t afford to have a person not there. So I was charged with going to Philadelphia and getting him on a Learjet to Los Angeles. After the concert I made sure he stopped talking to people and got on the plane.”
“When we played”: The Mel Stuart quote comes from PBS’s website for the Wattstax documentary:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/wattstax/interview.php#.URFgzOhrWPc.
Also helpful with details was the article “Wattstax” by Richie Unterberger:
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=14218.
“I Am Somebody”: When I asked about his composition, Rev. Jackson told me, “Dr. King was killed April fourth, Robert Kennedy killed June the fifth, two heavy blows to our movement and to our sense of possibility. I was in Resurrection City, the March on Washington. I remembered a book by Dr. Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited. Dr. Thurman said that when we’re reduced to our irreducible essence, that we have nothing, no money, no clothes, just nakedness against the world, we’re still somebody. We’re still God’s children. And it just hit me like a bolt of lightning. I said to people, ‘Say “I am somebody.”’ And the Wattstax stage took it to another level, ’cause you had this hundred thousand people in this huge chant, which eventually became a movie. So, where there’s life, there’s hope. And where there’s hope, there’s infinite possibility.”
“It was almost like a doctor’s surgery queue”: “Wattstax” by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 1972. Accessed at
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=14535.
Their latest album, Do You See What I See: James Alexander thinks of the Bar-Kays’ Do You See What I See as a return to their Otis roots. It opens with the words “America! Do you see what I see?” and ends with a chant, “Young / got to learn / got to live with the old.” Stax is giving them a national stage and they’re taking it. The CD has bonus tracks of their Wattstax performance!
“His intro is superbly conceived”: John Abbey, Blues & Soul, September 1972.
David . . . delivered a set both intimate and grand: David Porter released four albums while at Stax. His first, Gritty, Groovy, and Getting It, features a beautiful remake of “Can’t See You When I Want To” with a gorgeous Dale Warren string arrangement. David, like Isaac, reinterpreted and extended pop hits and he used Isaac’s backup vocalists. His fourth album, a “rock/soul opera” titled Victim of the Joke, has become a cult classic, including a great take on Sarah Vaughn’s “The Masquerade Is Over.”
“After the Watts riots”: Billboard, February 19, 2011.
“An agreement has been reached”: Lance Wilson, “Wattstax: Giving Something Back to the Community,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1972.
Little Milton performing his hit: The Hi Rhythm Section told me that when Al Jackson started going back and forth between Hi and Stax in the early 1970s, he got the Hi section gigs at Stax. They’re on “Walking the Backstreets and Crying,” among other Little Milton tunes.
Johnnie Taylor in a swanky Hollywood club: In Wattstax, Johnnie Taylor performs in a red velvety club, and he’s owning the place, with the camera tight on him. Now all the audio from the evening is available on Live at the Summit Club.
Some versions of the Wattstax DVD includes outtakes; the Soul Children’s “Hearsay” is great to see—it’s one of my favorite song openings. The Wattstax concert has been issued in various ways, but go ahead and get the three-CD deluxe edition.
“interference”: Those sued were Isaac Hayes, Stax Films, Wolper Productions, Columbia Pictures, Stax Records, and East/Memphis Music.
“It is up to”: “CAB Calls for Boycott of Schools for 2 Days,” Commercial Appeal, April 26, 1972.
The response: “CAB Asks Widening of School Boycott,” Press Scimitar, April 28, 1972.
The resistance to: “Laws, Social Change Cut Shelby Segregation Rate,” Press Scimitar, November 12, 1981.
24. THE SPIRIT OF MEMPHIS
The Spirit of Memphis: In 1973, former Mad Lad John
Gary Williams released his solo album The Whole Damn World Is Going Crazy. What a story! In 1969, he’d come back from risking his life overseas for his country and was angry about the unchanged racial situation at home. He played a role in the local ambushing of a policeman, served several years jail time, and came out to release this beautiful album. His story is being explored by and retold with John Hubbell in a forthcoming multimedia project.
Another recently resuscitated obscurity is Lou Bond’s self-named album. Bond was a nylon-string guitarist who put out one record on Stax’s We Produce label. He had a gentle approach, with probing lyrics and shimmering production. It didn’t rock the world in 1974 but has since been sampled by Outkast and Mary J. Blige, and has been recently remastered and re-released by Light in the Attic Records. Rest in peace, Lou.
Lorraine Village: Working with the US Department of Housing in 1972, Isaac built the Lorraine Village on twenty acres, townhouses dotted with parks and sports facilities. In mid-April 1973, the Memphis Housing Authority asked him to be their spokesperson. Isaac said he could not be bought as a “figurehead . . . in a white-bankrolled entrepreneurial effort to redevelop Beale Street . . . Principles must come before principal. I could not be a ‘Judas’ to my people—millions of dollars in stocks or 30 pieces of silver, it’s all the same . . . Blacks are being pushed into the background, while others are capitalizing on the fruits of our culture and lifestyle. How could we accept the ‘crumbs’ of participation by one or two Blacks in a $100 million project to redevelop Beale Street which black people had no part in planning, designing, or approving?” See Commercial Appeal, September 2, 1972, and Billboard, September 9, 1972, p. 3.
“record sales rose”: Time, “Executives: Clive’s Fall,” June 11, 1973.
Columbia was loaning: The deal covered distribution of the Stax, Volt, and Enterprise labels. Stax’s Gospel Truth and Respect labels were outside the deal, allowing Stax to keep its toes in the indie distribution world. The Columbia deal would last three and a half years from the date Stax paid off the $6 million loan, or ten years (and a few weeks) from signing.
Stax was paid: Rob Bowman, liner notes to The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Vol. 3, p. 29. Further, Jack Anderson wrote, “If an album lists for $5.98, the record company sells it to the distributor for about $2.40. He sells it to the ‘rack jobber’ for $2.90, who sells it to the retailer for $3.05–3.10.” (Washington Post, April 27, 1974.) In the Stax-Columbia deal, there was no rack jobber; Columbia would sell directly to the distributor through its branches.
a tiff with the engineers: This anecdote comes from Bowman, Soulsville, p. 250.
“Now that [hijackers]”: Joe M. Dove, “Flights Become Tardy in Wake of Hijacking,” Commercial Appeal, November 15, 1972, section C, p. 25.
triple the industry standard: See note on Baylor’s payment, chapter 25.
a federal tax lien: Kay Pittman Black, “Probe by IRS of Stax Reported by Attorney,” Press Scimitar, June 19, 1973.
changing the reason: 646 F.2d 1158: A.J. Calhoun, Successor Trustee of Stax Records, Inc., plaintiff-appellee, v. Johnny Baylor and Koko Records, Inc., defendants-appellants.
RECORD YEAR: Billboard, January 20, 1973, p. 6.
“Black-oriented films”: Nat Freedland, Billboard, February 10, 1973, pp. 3, 12.
“Maine lobster for everybody”: Larry Nix elaborates: “Al Bell had some land out in the country. They had parking in town and a shuttle bus you could take out there. They had a playground and people to keep your kids. They had a ball diamond, a wooden dance floor with a jukebox, and lights to go on into the night. They flew lobster in from Maine, and had a guy cooking and serving these lobsters. They had two garbage cans full of spaghetti. Food, drinks, softball; it was a company picnic.”
“We were major contributors”: Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje and Eddie S. Meadows, California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West, p. 182.
annual salary: Bowman, Soulsville, p. 287.
finance officer later explained: “Witness Tells About Items in Stax Return,” Press Scimitar, July 19, 1976.
Clive’s personal expenses: Clive states that the billings were the work of Wynshaw. “Wynshaw had forged signatures, falsified invoices, and arranged kickbacks, a few of them involving aspects of my personal business . . . I had never intended to have CBS pay for my apartment renovation or, heaven knows, for my son’s bar mitzvah.” Clive Davis with Anthony DeCurtis, The Soundtrack of My Life, pp. 166–167. The numbers come from “Show Business: Payola Rock,” Time, January 18, 1973, and “Executives: Clive’s Fall,” Time, June 11, 1973.
“maintains an eighth-floor suite”: Kay Pittman Black, “Stax Probe Began After Cash Seized,” Press Scimitar, June 20, 1973.
“plush Stax apartment”: “He had the penthouse overlooking Central Park,” says Randy Stewart. “Seventeenth or eighteenth floor. He had two dangerous dogs, big German shepherds. When you’d sit down, they’d come lay and watch you. You could barely move. I used to walk them. I’d come back to the building, take ’em upstairs, as soon as they walked in the house, they’d make a U-turn and start growling at me. ‘I just walked your asses!’ They were dangerous dogs.”
“Johnny had those two stupid ass dogs,” says Mickey Gregory. “Their names were Boss and Mean. They were one million percent obedient. If he brought you into the apartment and introduce you to Boss and Mean, you were cool. If he said, ‘Have a seat,’ and he go into the back, them dogs are going to eat you up. Then he’d drag your ass out on the freight elevator—the doormen were scared of him too. He’d throw you out somewhere.”
“At one time Johnny had three apartments in Manhattan,” says Daryl Williams. “East Eighty-third and Third Avenue, one at Eighty-sixth and Lex, and Eighty-ninth and Madison was the penthouse.” Among his reputed neighbors was an ex-wife of Sugar Ray Robinson, Jeffrey Holder (the 7-Up Un-Cola man), and the president’s daughter Tricia Nixon.
“Today he owns”: B.J. Mason, “Isaac Hayes: New Wife, New Image, New Career,” Ebony, October 1973, vol. XXVIII, no. 12, pp. 173–180.
STAX EXPANDS: James Kingsley, Commercial Appeal, January 13, 1974.
ranked number five: Press Scimitar, May 30, 1974, citing Black Enterprise Magazine.
STAX ANNOUNCES PLANS: Commercial Appeal, February 3, 1974.
pro sports franchise: Woodrow Paige Jr., Commercial Appeal, March 6, 1974, p. 29.
bought a church: “Stax Records Planning Own Office Building,” Press Scimitar, May 4, 1973. Deanie was moving her department to Union Avenue. “They were going to throw away the steam table, the refrigerator, and all those things in the church kitchen,” she remembers. “I said, ‘Oh, no.’ And we donated them to a church on Parkway.”
Richard Pryor: Engineer William Brown laughs and says, “In my spare time, I used to edit all Richard Pryor’s cuss words together. When I got through, there was a whole roll of just profanity. One day at Stax I got mad. I put that tape over the intercom system, and I locked the editing room door. They wanted to kill me.”
25. A VEXATION OF THE SPIRIT
“The liability ledger”: The Turnaround, p. 101. “There were four or five major bond claims in the five-million-dollar range,” says Wynn Smith. “One of them was the Harwell bond claim, which involved Stax Records. There was another big one in the installment lending area, a big one in the investment division, and another big one in the bank itself involving the executive vice president and others.”
“$2 million worth of business”: Commercial Appeal, March 4, 1975, p. 26.
“I reacted”: Bowman, Soulsville, p. 319.
“From the beginning”: Commercial Appeal, February 10, 1976, one of a series of three retrospective pieces.
annual payroll: Bowman, Soulsville, p. 308.
Harvard Report: The complete Harvard Report is hard to find, but it’s heavily excerpted with good analysis in R&B, Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music, edited By Norman Kelley—specifically the essays by David Sanjek, “Tell
Me Something I Don’t Already Know: The Harvard Report on Soul Music Revisited,” and by Yvonne Bynoe, “Money, Power, and Respect: A Critique of the Business of Rap Music.”
more than six hundred thousand: Joseph Weiler, “Many Saw Portents of Stax’ End, But Disagree on the Cause,” Commercial Appeal, February 9, 1976.
South African stage play: Billboard, September 6, 1975.
One of the participants: “Former Bank Branch Manager Pleads Guilty in Embezzling,” Commercial Appeal, March 1, 1975, p. 1.
trial documents: 557 F.2d 84: Union Planters National Bank of Memphis, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Cbs, Inc., Stax Records, Inc., Alvertis Isbell, A/k/a Al Bell, and James F. Stewart, Defendants-appellees; found at
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/557/84/272819.
“We tried to reconstruct”: Joseph Weiler, “Many Saw Portents of Stax’ End, But Disagree on the Cause,” Commercial Appeal, February 9, 1976. One of Stax’s vice presidents says he could never get a budget defined for his division, although he made repeated efforts. He told the newspaper, “How can you run a business when you don’t know how much you are making or can spend?”
“Why was Stax paying”: Ibid. Testifying in court, Baylor based his windfall of payments on two oral novations, or promises. The lawsuit states: “One novation, made in late 1971 or early 1972, allegedly adjusted the rates for royalty payments to Baylor for sales of Stax records. The second novation, made in March or April 1972, allegedly provided for $1 million in promotional fees, fees to be paid above travel and other business expenses and independent of the number of records actually sold. The novations replaced an agreement typical of agreements in the record industry, putting in its place conditions that were by industry standards extraordinarily generous. Baylor was to receive royalties on seven-inch records (singles) of .22 to .26 per record and on twelve-inch records (LPs) of $1.62 to $1.85 per record, as compared to industry norms of .08 to .13 on singles and .30 to .60 on LPs. Baylor himself testified that a royalty rate of .25 per single would be ‘out of reality.’ Those rates applied, moreover, to returns and free goods as well as records sold, another feature unusual in the industry. The rates were to be retroactive to the first record Baylor sold for Stax, approximately three years earlier. Baylor’s flat $1 million promotional fee compares to industry norms of $60,000 to $70,000 per year. Baylor argues that his unique talents justified those extraordinary terms, but he conceded that nothing he has done before or after his association with Stax would indicate that he possesses unusual money-making talents. He took over full responsibility for Stax distribution in late 1971 and gave it up in late 1972, when CBS took over distribution rights.”
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