In 1957 Jim Stewart set up a company that he named Satellite Records, in a former garage in Memphis. Jim was a fan of Country music and was probably inspired by what Sam Phillips had achieved at Sun Records. He played fiddle and was attracted by the Rockabilly sound that Elvis Presley and others had developed in Memphis and Nashville.
The following year, Jim’s sister Estelle Axton joined the company, investing $2,500, which she had raised via a remortgaging of her home. This enabled the company to relocate to Brunswick, Tennessee, in 1959 and to purchase an Ampex 350 mono tape recorder to use in the new studio, which they set up in a former grocery store. They hired Chips Moman as producer and engineer. Chips had come to Memphis after working on the West Coast, first as a guitarist and then as an engineer. He successfully persuaded Jim and Estelle to widen the musical scope of their business, by recording some R&B artists. Their first R&B single, “Fool in Love” by the Veltones, was released by Satellite Records in the summer of 1959. It was distributed nationally by Mercury Records. The main output continued, however, to be Country and Pop in style.
Jim Stewart was conscious of the need to advertise the “Fool In Love” single on local radio, so he turned to the Memphis station WLOK, where a young Al Bell was working.
In 1960, at the suggestion of Chips Moman, they moved back to Memphis, to the old, abandoned Capitol Theatre on McLemore Avenue. They rented the building for around one hundred dollars a month and converted it into a recording studio and record shop. Estelle ran the record shop, which generated income to help pay the rent, arriving there in the evenings after working at her bank job during the day.
WDIA disc jockey Rufus Thomas had met Jim Stewart, while the latter was promoting the Veltones’ single on local radio. Now, Rufus and his daughter Carla Thomas came to the new studio to record the first song at the venue, another R&B track called “Cause I Love You”, released in May 1960. It sold well locally and was picked up by Atlantic Records for distribution nationally, on the Atco label. It soon became Satellite’s most successful issue so far, with sales of over thirty thousand copies. Jim and Estelle were beginning to think that Chips Moman was on to something!
Stax Museum and Satellite Record Shop
Photo: Victor Chapa, Denton, USA 2009 (Wikimedia Commons)
In 1961 Satellite Records became Stax Records (to avoid a clash with another Satellite Records), combining the first two letters of each of the owner’s last name (ST and AX) to form the new name. It seemed to bring them luck! During the next fourteen years, the hits from the studios at the corner of McLemore and College just kept on coming. The names of the major artists who recorded at Stax Records make up an impressive list.
The music of Booker T & the MGs, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, the Mar-Keys, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, William Bell, the Bar-Kays, Albert King, Wilson Pickett, Isaac Hayes, Judy Clay and Arthur Conley should feature in every Soul fan’s collection.
Stax Records set an example of how an integrated business could develop and grow into a very prosperous operation. It was to have a remarkable influence on other white and black recording companies. By the end of the 1960s Memphis studios had gross earnings of over 30 million dollars. According to “Soulsville USA; The Story of Stax Records”, in 1973 Memphis was the fourth largest recording and entertainment centre in the world, in terms of revenue and creative output. Stax also became one of the first record labels to develop into a multi-media company with production activities in movies, soundtrack albums, major music festivals and tours.
The Stax Recording Studios historic marker
Photo: Bill Spicer (with permission)
Stax founder Jim Stewart was largely responsible for the creation of the Memphis Sound. He set Stax up, brought in the musicians and led the sound engineering. He recorded whole performances live in a single take and yet achieved good separation of the various voices and instruments. It didn’t take long for Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton to build Stax into a record company that attracted world-wide attention during the nineteen sixties and seventies.
