Resurrecting an Old Soul

Back in the day, Stax Records was the South's answer to Detroit's Motown Records. The Memphis soul label's artists—a roster that included Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes—were less polished and their sound was grittier. But that didn't stop them from topping the charts and helping introduce civil-rights-era America to a more authentic slice of urban culture. Stax even generated an African-American answer to Woodstock: Wattstax, the 1972 festival held in the Watts ghetto of Los Angeles.

Now, 50 years after its birth and some 30 years after it went belly up, Stax is back. Concord Records has resurrected the label, and its first release by a major new artist in decades, Angie Stone's "The Art of Love and War," just hit stores. "I finally feel comfortable, like I'm in a place where people get it," says Stone, a throaty crooner who's been on at least five different record labels in the last seven years. Her old labels "all said they got it, but they always wanted to put a twist on the songs for sales. I wanted it raw, and Stax got that." Hayes, meanwhile, plans to release his first Stax album in ages next spring. "It sure feels good," he told NEWSWEEK at a recent reunion show in Memphis. "We're back together again."

It's a remarkable turnaround, considering the label's dilapidated studio was reduced to a pile of rubble in 1989. Now there's a Stax museum on the spot. "Look at the Stax catalog and you can basically chart the history of African-Americans at the time," says Lalah Hathaway, daughter of the late Stax artist Donny Hathaway and now a respected soul singer herself who's signed to … Stax. Where will the storied label go from here? Isaac Hayes has the answer: "Up, man. Up."

—Lorraine Ali

© 2007