The Commercial Appeal from Memphis, Tennessee • 113

5 TIIE COMMERCIAL APPEAL MEMPHIS SUNDAY MORNING JULY 26 1970 Spotlight On Fate Luck Stewart Combined For Leaning back in a big chair In an office at either his studios or the administrative office that has more space than the original converted garage Mr Stewart says takes a lot of hard work and long hours I have anything else but time and had to put in the long And today Mr Stewart have to worry about playing the fiddle He keeps it on his desk as a memento The Converted Garage That Started Stax Racordi "Sitting By The Dock Of The In die early days of Stax Stewart and the band would vote on what records would be released Happily for Stewart he was outvoted on one of the biggest records in the early 1960s when Eddie Floyd recorded On really dig the record but to our word on the vote we released it It has become an international standard now" he smiled Into his stable of stars came the Bar-Kays with Sam and Dave with Johnny Making and other artists including William Bell Albert King Billy Eckstein Soul Children Southwest FOB Staple Singers The Emotions Ollie A the Nightingales Mad Lads Sid Selvidge Moloch Rev Jesse Jackson Rev Maceo Woods Jimmy Hughes Barbara Lewis the New Comers and the great songwriting-recording artists of Isaac Hayes and David Porter Today Stax Is the largest studio in Memphis snd has as its executive vice president Al Bell who was named by Bill Gavin of San Francisco as the top record executive of 1969 put together a good team One that works together and one that we are all proud said Mr Stewart who was born in Middleton Tenn and came to Memphis in 1948 to play in bands work as a stock clerk He received his degree in busi- ness and studied law at Memphis Law School at night before finally deciding to create the In 1968 he sold part of the company to Gulf Western for a reportedly 10 million dollars Negotiations are now underway for Mr Stewart to reacquire all his com- nback from by ing with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft for 1 1 licensing through it Polydor operation Mctro-Goldwyn-Mayer movies- and MGM Records will be the film connection STRAND THEATRE I For Complete Adult I Movie Information Dial 525-0934 3 FEATURES for ADULTS IlssOOm 4 MMIUS SA TNI 2 Color "BANE SANE TNI riMAU IXPlOMOfT 3 Cate 11 "moMMar EAem gs II PM HELD OVER ioiJZXx 3RD I IOS Papier I WEEK PHONE IS MSS I BRISTOL Mate MS ISM TSa At First Isa AM CrturfN yrisMU I Also At2i00-5i40 Millie Years Te a ALAN BATES OLIVER REED TDMEN HUNF- matkiiHiBE 9:10 total fulfiliirt By JAMES KINGSLEY Fate and lady luck have a way of working things out That is the philosophy of Jim Stewart president of the highly successful multi-million dollar Stax-Volt-Enter-prise-Respect Record complex just seems many of the things that happened tome especially in the recording industry just fell into the right place at the right said Mr Stewart smiling and looking across the vast office at the recording company that has the studios at 926 East Me-Lemore and administrative offices at 92 North Avalon In 1957 he was playing the fiddle in a small country band when one of the guys said: cut a They did but nothing happened and everyone drifted away from the field But not Mr Stewart who admits that first recording me to thinking and gave me the feeling I might could do something in the industry I didn't really know what I was doing or which direction to go at first" HE ESTABLISHED a small recording studio in a converted garage near National Cemetery don't even remember the address We have any sound equipment or anything else but a small building and a lot of Then in 1960 with $2500 his sister Mrs Estelle Ax-ton put together on a home mortgage they rented an abandoned theater building at East McLemore That proved to be the stroke of that put him into the big time was in the area close to where Rufus Thomas (WDIA Radio disk jockey) lived and 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 In what is referred to in the trades as a "studio happening in a jam session" they began to record Night" It became a big chart record and the small company known at that time as Satellite Records was on Its way took five days to complete The drummer was Terry Johnson who just began playing then Steve Cropper added some guitar Jackson threw in his and others followed While organizing Mr Stewart came up with the original staff band of Lewie Steinberg Al Jackson Jr drums Booker Jones organ and Cropper on guitar They worked around with a song Onions" that smelled real good on the charts and made them their first hit They have a name so they came up by using Booker and the MGs (The name was derived from the first name of Booker Jones and the Memphis Group) in 1962 Later on Steinberg had to leave the group and was replaced by Donald 'Duck' Dunn The group is still together today as one of the top instrumental groups Fate came into die picture when a youngster from Macon Ga was serving as a driver for Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers While they were recording the driver Otis Redding had completed a song Arms Are After the session he asked if he could put down his tune as a demonstration record They did and it was released by Mr Stewart on a new record label titled Volt Redding went onto great heights in the entertainment field before he was killed in a plane crash Even though he was recognized worldwide as a top artist he receive a gold record given when a single sales more than a million units until after his death with "HEADS A QUARTETGUARANTEED TO trumpet and the rest of the band then known as Mar-Keys Jerry Lee 'Smochie' Smith on organ and piano Gilbert Caple tenor saxophone Floyd Newman baritone saxophone Charles Ax-ton tenor saxophone and Lewie Steinberg electric bass just kept grooving" CHIPS MOMAN a guitarist from Georgia was working as producer and engineer he turned on the machines and let the tapes roll Wayne Jackson recalls: just happened Everything just fit together and we had a good reeling to the sung It was released as an instrumental and became a giant was released on Stewart's Satellite Record label but because there was another label on the West Coast by the same name they had to change labels in a hurry They came up with STAX taken from the first two letters of Stewart and Axton Then Rufus daughter Carla Thomas went to work on an instant smash because Stewart had worked out a distribution contract with Jerry Wexler's Atlantic Record Co It was a wedding that was profitable to all concerned recalls Mr Stewart who was holding down three jobs He was working at First National Bank playing the fiddle when the jobs came up and trying to organize the studio Following the two early hits by Miss Thomas and the Mar-Keys things began to jell William Bell recorded Miss Your Water" Mr Thomas introduced and followed it with The Marital bliss and can be yours foralifetime-ifyou AT 4 iO ELMS PRESLEY ATiise-siss-eao WAIT DISNEY 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