Stax Records Museum

Soul is the music people understand. Sure it's basic and it's simple. But it's something else 'cause, 'cause, 'cause it's honest, that's it. Its honest...It sticks its neck out and says it straight from the heart. Sure there's a lot of different music you can get off on but soul is more than that. It takes you somewhere else.

-The Commitments

This weekend I visited Memphis. "Long distance information, get me Memphis, Tennessee." That one. It was a quick weekend trip, and you can see the pictures on flickr.

Despite the brevity, I was able to visit an absolute gem, the incredible American Museum of Soul Music, at the site of the former Stax Records headquarters and recording studio. You know, Soulsville USA. Carl Perkins once wrote, "Nashville had country music, but Memphis had the soul." And in Memphis, the home of soul was Stax Records. Home of Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Rufus Thomas, the Staples Singers, Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, Albert King, the Bar-Kays, Booker T and the MG's. Where Motown was polite, suburban, and white-friendly, Stax was the real thing. Grittier, funkier, more passionate, less house-broken. Although it came to be one of the two premier American soul labels in the 1960s, it was founded by two whites, one of whom was a woman, which was quite unusual for those days. Stax was fully integrated from its beginnings in the late 1950s. As Steve Cropper says in the introductory video, "color never walked through the doors at Stax." Stax Records created music that people will know long after the ridiculous tripe now passing for soul is long-forgotten. "These Arms of Mine," "Hold on, I'm Coming," "Respect," "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," "Try A Little Tenderness," "Green Onions," "Shaft," "Soul Finger," "Respect Yourself,"...a list that goes on and on.

The museum is a replica of the original Stax studios, which were torn down in 1989. Among the interesting displays are a recreation of the original sound and mixing board, with original 8-track console and tape editing machine. The museum also recreates the old studio, which was originally in a converted movie theatre that retained its slanted floor. Other highlights include numerous photos and stage costumes, a dance floor with continuously showing "Soul Train" shows from the early 1970s, and Isaac Hayes' 1972 custom Cadillac Eldorado. This thing was fine-24 carat gold exterior trim, distressed blue paint and crushed blue velvet seats, white shag carpeting, sun-roof, wet bar, television, gold hub caps. Elvis' fleet had nothing on this baby.

This museum really entertains, and contains lots of "artifacts," much like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hopefully, any of you intersted in either soul music or music in the 1960s will find time to visit this outstanding museum.