RESPECT YOURSELF > The Stax Records Story

If Detroit’s Motown Records defined soul-pop crossover music in the 1960s and early 1970s, Memphis’ Stax label was as close as any one company came to defining Southern soul. Its story is so multi-layered and complicated that even this two-hour documentary, broadcast on PBS a few months prior to its release on DVD in late 2007, can’t quite cover all the important bases.

Label: CONCORD
[Rating:4]

If Detroit’s Motown Records defined soul-pop crossover music in the 1960s and early 1970s, Memphis’ Stax label was as close as any one company came to defining Southern soul. Its story is so multi-layered and complicated that even this two-hour documentary, broadcast on PBS a few months prior to its release on DVD in late 2007, can’t quite cover all the important bases. Still, through both vintage footage and an impressive host of interviews conducted specifically for this project, it does convey many of the essential innovations that made Stax such an important force in soul music during its heyday. Few independent labels of the 20th century could boast a roster with such heavyweight artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas and the Staple Singers, or songwriters as talented as Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Just as crucially, few would have had the bold vision to make the music happen by fostering an atmosphere in which black and white musicians and businesspeople worked together so closely at a time when segregation still largely ruled the region. The tangled business wrangles and racial tensions that sank the company in the mid-1970s are painful for the protagonists to recount, even decades later. But the amazing live performance clips of the company’s leading acts-taken from a stunning assortment of rare sources-are just as joyous as the story’s end is tragic.

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