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Last Updated: May 30th, 2008 - 11:49:13 |
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| Isaac Hayes |
The rich legacy of Stax Records, which brought us Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers, comes to vivid life in “Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story,” premiering Wednesday at 9 p.m. on PBS.
As part of the “Great Performances” series, this mesmerizing two-hour special veers from the format of pure stage performance to tell the story of Stax as a “soul” movement at a time, from the late 1950s into the 1970s, when soul was a synonym for all things Black and good.
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| Al Bell |
Toiling in the shadow of Motown’s contemporary riffs and Detroit’s urban appeal, The Memphis-based Stax brought to the airwaves Southern notes drenched in emotion and sprinkled with plenty of church. Some of the rare video footage included in “Respect Yourself” shows Sam and Dave (“I’m a Soul Man”) on stage in a singing and dancing performance so frenzied that the pair easily put church shouters to shame. The Staple Singers, more closely related to the traditions of singing as ministry, offer social anthems such as “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself,” which gives this documentary its title. And, of course, there was soul personified, Otis Redding, who even today, 40 years after his death in an airplane crash, still moves listeners to tears with the joy and cry of his voice. Just as Motown proclaimed itself Hitsville, U.S.A., Stax proudly declared its headquarters to be Soulsville, U.S.A. Carrying on the company theme, Isaac Hayes’ 1969 breakthrough album was titled “Hot Buttered Soul.”
While many of us might be familiar with the accomplishments of these musical legends, “Respect Yourself” makes the case for how Stax Records was also a soul movement of empowerment for the African-American community. The label’s back-up band, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, which was also a popular act in its own right, was an integrated act at a time when its Black and White musicians could play together but not dine together in a rigidly segregated city and region. First, under the founders, the White brother-sister team of Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, and then, under the leadership of impresario Al Bell — Stax created jobs and opportunity when much of Black Memphis wrestled with grinding poverty and the type of job inequality that brought the Rev. Martin Luther King there in 1968 on behalf of striking Black sanitation workers. (King was assassinated at the city’s Lorraine Motel, which was also frequented by Stax stars.)
Bell’s effort to make Stax the record label of the people reached its culmination in 1972 when the label sponsored Wattstax, a Los Angeles concert that became a film and social phenomenon. The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s famous chant of “I am Somebody” at Wattstax echoes the “I am a Man” signs worn by sanitation workers in Memphis days before King’s death.
Even the label’s struggles, demise and rebirth recounted here are emblematic of the adversity and adversaries within the business community faced by businesses such as Stax. “Respect Yourself,” released to honor of this year’s 50th anniversary of the label, offers a colorful and in-depth look at one tiny place of culture that impacted the nation and world.
This review first appeared on www.BET.com. Please support us by ordering Esther Iverem's We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)at Amazon.com or at your favorite bookstore. Thanks!
© Copyright 2006 SeeingBlack.com
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