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Mike Stax Biography & Facts

Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. Stax was influential in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music. Stax also released gospel, funk, and blues recordings. Renowned for its output of blues music, the label was founded by two siblings and business partners, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton (STewart/AXton = Stax). It featured several popular ethnically integrated bands (including the label's house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s) and a racially integrated team of staff and artists unprecedented in that time of racial strife and tension in Memphis and the South. According to ethnomusicologist Rob Bowman, the label's use of "one studio, one equipment set-up, the same set of musicians and a small group of songwriters led to a readily identifiable sound. It was a sound based in black gospel, blues, country, and earlier forms of rhythm and blues (R&B). It became known as southern soul music." Following the death of Stax's biggest star, Otis Redding, in 1967, and the severance of the label's distribution deal with Atlantic Records in 1968, Stax continued primarily under the supervision of a new co-owner, Al Bell. Over the next five years, Bell expanded the label's operations significantly, in order to compete with Stax's main rival, Motown Records in Detroit. During the mid-1970s, a number of factors, including a problematic distribution deal with CBS Records, caused the label to slide into insolvency, resulting in its forced closure in late 1975. In 1977, Fantasy Records acquired the post-1968 Stax catalogue and selected pre-1968 recordings. Beginning in 1978, Stax (now owned by Fantasy) began signing new acts and issuing new material, as well as reissuing previously recorded Stax material. However, by the early 1980s, no new material was being issued on the label, and for the next two decades, Stax was strictly a reissue label. After Concord Records acquired Fantasy in 2004, the Stax label was reactivated, and is today used to issue both the 1968–1975 catalog material and new recordings by current R&B and soul performers. Atlantic Records continues to hold the rights to the vast majority of the 1959–1968 Stax material. History 1957–1960: early years as Satellite Records Stax Records, originally named Satellite Records, was founded in Memphis in 1957 by Jim Stewart, initially operating in a garage. Satellite's early releases were country music, rockabilly records or straight pop numbers, reflecting the tastes of Stewart (a country fiddle player) at the time. In 1958, Stewart's sister Estelle Axton began her financial interest in the company. Taking a considerable financial risk, she mortgaged her family home to invest $2500 (US$26,401 in 2023 dollars) in the company, enabling Satellite to purchase an Ampex 350 mono console tape recorder. The company set up a small recording studio in a converted garage near National Cemetery in Brunswick, Tennessee, in 1959. In 1970, Stewart recalled this portion of the label's origins, and remarked, "I don't even remember the address. We didn't have any sound equipment or anything else but a small building and a lot of desire." Around this time, Stewart was introduced to rhythm and blues music by staff producer Chips Moman. In the summer of that year, Satellite released its first record by a rhythm and blues act, "Fool in Love", by the Veltones, which was soon picked up for national distribution by Mercury Records. However, Satellite remained primarily a country and pop label for the next year or so. While promoting "Fool in Love", Stewart met with Memphis disc jockey and R&B singer Rufus Thomas, and both parties were impressed by the other. Around the same time, and at the urging of Chips Moman, Stewart moved the company back to Memphis and into an old movie theater, the former Capitol Theatre, at 926 East McLemore Avenue in South Memphis; Stewart recalled that he chose the building because "it was in the area close to where Rufus Thomas (WDIA Radio disk jockey) lived [alongside] several of the other musicians and writers that are still working with the studio today. They drifted in and we got locked in on the rhythm and blues field." In the summer of 1960, Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla were the first artists to make a recording in this new facility; the record, "Cause I Love You" (credited to Rufus & Carla), became a substantial regional hit and was picked up for national distribution by Atlantic Records on its Atco subsidiary. It went on to sell between thirty and forty thousand copies, becoming Satellite's biggest hit to that time. 1961: name change to Stax and beginning of partnership with Atlantic With the success of "Cause I Love You", Stewart made a distribution deal giving Atlantic first choice on releasing Satellite recordings. From this point on, Stewart focused more and more on recording and promoting rhythm and blues acts. Not having really known anything about the R&B genre prior to having recorded acts such as the Veltones and Rufus & Carla, Stewart likened the situation to that of "a blind man who suddenly gained his sight." From 1961 on, virtually all of the output of Satellite Records (and its successor labels Stax and Volt) would be in the R&B/southern soul style. As part of the deal with Atlantic, Satellite agreed to continue recording Carla Thomas but allowed her recordings to be released on the Atlantic label. Her first hit, "Gee Whiz", was originally issued as Satellite 104, but it was quickly reissued as Atlantic 2086, becoming a hit in early 1961. Her recordings would continue to be issued on Atlantic through mid-1965, though much of her work was recorded in the studios at Satellite (later Stax) or in Nashville under the supervision of the Stax staff. In June 1961, Satellite signed a local instrumental band, the Royal Spades. Changing their name to the Mar-Keys, the band recorded and issued the single "Last Night", which shot to #3 on the US pop charts and #2 on the R&B charts. "Last Night" was the first single to be nationally distributed on the Satellite label; previous Atlantic issues of Satellite material were issued nationally on the Atlantic or Atco label. This led to a complaint from another company named Satellite Records, which had been in operation in California for some years but was previously unaware of the Memphis-based Satellite label. Accordingly, in September 1961, Satellite permanently changed its name to "Stax Records", a portmanteau of the names of the two owners of the company: Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton. 1962–1964: Stax and Volt in ascendancy By 1962, the pieces were in place that allowed Stax to turn from a successful regional label into (alongside Motown and Atlantic) a national R&B powerhouse. Throughout the rest of the 1960s, the lab.... Discover the Mike Stax popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mike Stax books.