What was the first single released on Stax Records?
While Motown is widely considered the home of soul, the legendary Stax Records gave the Detroit label a run for their money. Influential in popularising the southern soul scene exploding in Memphis, its roster boasted Otis Redding, The Staple Sisters, Isaac Hayes, and Booker T & the MGs, among scores of classic funk and gospel artists. With their numerous ethnically mixed bands and internal team of black and white staff, Stax cut a bold creative and business practice in the face of the American South’s vicious Jim Crow laws.
Originally founded in 1957 as Satelite Records in Tennessee’s Brunswick, the banker and evening fiddler Jim Stewart relocated to 926 E McLemore Ave, establishing the renamed Stax in an old theatre hall.
It was a serious financial gamble. Stewart’s sister Estelle Axton mortgaged her family home to invest $2,500, affording the fledgling label to acquire a state-of-the-art Ampex 350 mono console tape recorder. Axton’s generous contribution inspired the change of the label name, Stax being a portmanteau of their two surnames.
Helping keep the label afloat, Axton ran the Stax record shop in the theatre foyer, generating a tidy supplemental cash flow and offering a revealing insight into which sounds and styles were up and coming. Evolving into a popular social spot for Memphis’ soul fans, the record store also drew people with their habit of playing the early cuts of their latest single before general release.
Stax went from strength to strength, rising to 1969’s “soul explosion” with the promotion of Al Bell to vice president. Overseeing 30 singles and 27 albums, the upsurge in interest led to 1972’s Wattstax benefit concert in Los Angeles, marking seven years since the 1965 riots that engulfed the black community in the Watts neighbourhood, documented in Mel Stuart’s award-winning 1974 feature.
Its winning creative expansions also brought financial hardships. Due to IRS investigations and a collapsed deal with CBS, Stax declared bankruptcy in 1975. Despite some buyouts, notably owned by Fantasy Records briefly in the late 1970s, Stax persisted as a strictly reissue project before another acquisition by Concord Records in 2004, reviving Stax’s life and bringing contemporary acts like Soulive and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats into their historic fold.
So, what was the first single released on Stax?
While promoting The Veltones’ ‘Fool in Love’ still as Satellite Records, Stewart met DJ and R&B singer Rufus Thomas, forming a close, creative friendship.
After the name change and move to the former Memphis movie theatre, Thomas brought along his daughter Carla to cut a single together in the summer of 1960 under the Rufus & Carla name, ‘Cause I Love You’ providing Stax with their first single and regional hit, piquing Atlantic Records’ interest for further distribution.
Not just continuing as a label, community leaders and former Stax employees launched the Soulsville Foundation in 1997, dedicated to providing music education and talent nurturing for working-class children in the area. With a hand in guiding the next generation of soul, Stax’s illustrious legacy looks set to loom for a long while yet.
