Jim Stewart

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Jim Stewart (* 29. July 1930 in Middleton , Tennessee ) is a rhythm-and-blues - producer who primarily as a co-founder and label manager of Stax Records made a name.

Life

His career in the music scene began Stewart Country - Fiddler . When he was 18, he moved to Memphis , where he worked at Sears and made occasional appearances. After two years in the military, he returned to Memphis, joined the Canyon Cowboys and worked in a bank for his living.

In 1957 he founded his own label Satellite Records with his older sister Estelle Axton , which was based on the model of Sun Records . In the same year he released a self-written country song called Blue Roses . The single was a failure, as were all subsequent attempts.

In 1959 Stewart Chips hired Moman as an engineer and in 1960 he produced his first hit with Gee Whiz by Carla Thomas under the Satellite label . After the instrumental Last Night by the Mar-Keys was also successful in 1961 , it was found that there was already a record label called Satellite Records in California. As a result, Stewart and Axton renamed their label Stax Records. The name is made up of the first two letters of the surnames of Stewart and Axton. Stax moved into a former cinema on East McLemore Avenue in Memphis, in a predominantly African-American area. In the former checkout area, Estelle Axton opened a record shop that proved to be very useful for identifying current music trends.

Musicians from the surrounding area soon found themselves, including Booker T. Jones , Steve Cropper , Donald "Duck" Dunn and Al Jackson , from whom Stewart put together his own label (Booker T. & the MG's). The fact that two of the band members were white and two black was actually an absolute no-go at the time in strictly segregated Tennessee. But that never mattered inside the studio, outside it did. The Stax star William Bell once put it this way: "People who could play together couldn't dine together". Studio musicians at STAX were also Isaac Hayes , David Porter , Al Bell and the Memphis Horns at times . In 1962 Otis Redding signed his contract with Stax, where he stayed until his death in 1967.

In addition, Stewart entered into a contract with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records , which allowed Wexler to produce his Atlantic interpreters in the Stax studios. These included Sam & Dave and Wilson Pickett . Artists who made recordings for Stax themselves were, for example, Booker T. & the MG's , the Staple Singers , Eddie Floyd , Johnnie Taylor , William Bell , Rufus Thomas , Albert King , Mel & Tim , Jean Knight , The Emotions , The Soul Children and Richard Pryor . Their recordings were distributed worldwide by Atlantic.

In 1972 Stewart sold Stax to Al Bell. In 2002, Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Non-Performers category.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jim Cogan; William Clark, Temples of sound: inside the great recording studios , San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8118-3394-1 . See p. 65f.
personal data
SURNAME Stewart, Jim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American R&B producer, founder of Stax Records
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Middleton , Tennessee, USA