PBS shows A Lot of R-E-S-P-E-C-T to Soul Music Pioneers Stax Records

* * * * (out of 5)


The term soul gets thrown around a lot, but what are its origins? Well soul music was the blending of the "devil's" rhythm and blues with "Jesus' " gospel music. In the early 1950s, Ray Charles might have been the first, biggest name in soul music history. But no company put out better, grittier soul music than the small Memphis record company called Stax. Named after its two white founders brother Jim Stewart (ST) and sister Estelle Axton (AX), Stax was a breeding ground for white hot, R&B talent from the late '50s through the early 1970s.

Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story is a PBS documentary that tells how this converted movie theatre and record store became such a huge part of music history.

In its early days, sometimes the names weren't big, but the songs always were, including classics like: Try A Little Tenderness, the Theme Song to Shaft, Soul Man, and Knock on Wood. Soul Man was written in response to the various race-based riots that were taking place around the country during the civil rights struggles. According to composer Isaac Hayes (Chef from South Park), any shopkeeper that wrote "soul" on his storefront was not burned down at the time. It was similar to when the Jews painted lamb's blood over the doors so the angel of death would pass over their homes.

That's quite a strong genesis for a song, one that we associate more with two silly white guys from Saturday Night Live. Whether it's appropriate for white people to be singing soul music, at least The Blues Brothers had the good taste to sing songs by writers who were struggling for money. Isaac Hayes, for one, suffered through that kind of thing because he did stupid things like blowing his money on custom-made Cadillacs.

I'd say most of The Blues Brothers catalog consists of Stax Records, as was the soundtrack for the great Irish musical, The Commitments. In fact, two of the members of the Blues Brothers band were Stax Records' bandmates, Steve Cropper and Donald 'Duck' Dunn.

But bigger than Soul Man's Sam and Dave and bigger than even the best "house Band" in history the half black/half white Booker T. and the MGs (which stands for simply Memphis Group), the biggest star has to be Otis Redding. A driver and roadie for a smaller band that tried out for Stax, Redding the driver begged the owners to give him a tryout. To shut him up they did and the rest is history. His hits included: I've Been Loving You Too Long, Dock of the Bay and the rougher, tougher, original version of Respect.

This documentary is now available on DVD Amazon.com: Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story: DVD: Various Artists and is told through oral history with many of the main protagonists still alive. Like how they competed against Detroit's Motown, which was known as Hitsville USA. One foolish, former Motown exec actually laughs at the notion that Otis Redding could have ever worked for Motown. When you see and hear Motown, the phrase, "are they black enough?" comes to mind. Down in Memphis, they called themselves Soulsville USA and they were plenty black. Black enough that different groups worked to put them out of business. Among them, their longtime distributor Atlantic Records. And eventually, the government and the banks. Who's to blame, is never made clear, but no one went to jail, so you have to believe that Stax was partly innocent.

The first hour flies by with all the filmed recordings of these classic groups playing live, but as the music becomes less interesting in the second hour, so does the program. If the show does nothing else, it shows rare footage of the live Otis Redding which is such a treat. Merely 26 when he died crashing his own plane, I'd only seen him in the movie Monterey Pop before this, but his live version of Respect just kills.


The Freditor