Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story
If you weren't watching BBC4 last night, you missed a cracker - 'Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story'. This music has long been among my favourite, and although maybe less high-profile than Motown, was more edgy, more sweaty, and ran closer alongside the struggles of working-class black Americans.
It's founding act was Booker T and the MGs, in which black musicians like Booker T Jones played alongside white musicians like Steve Cropper in a 1960s in which segregation was not yet fully illegal and was still rampant. Subsequent stars included Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers.
You can not tell the Stax story without telling of the civil rights movement, the sanitation workers' strike and the death of Martin Luther King in Memphis, the home city of Stax.
Here for your delectation is a summary of what you missed (if, indeed, you missed it):
It's founding act was Booker T and the MGs, in which black musicians like Booker T Jones played alongside white musicians like Steve Cropper in a 1960s in which segregation was not yet fully illegal and was still rampant. Subsequent stars included Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers.
You can not tell the Stax story without telling of the civil rights movement, the sanitation workers' strike and the death of Martin Luther King in Memphis, the home city of Stax.
Here for your delectation is a summary of what you missed (if, indeed, you missed it):
posted by Janine at 6:16 pm
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