This course, part 1 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the days before rock (pre-1955) to the end of the 1960s. This course covers the music of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Rock emerged in the mid 1950s as a blending of mainstream pop, rhythm and blues, and country and western--styles that previously had remained relatively separate. This new style became the music of the emerging youth culture and was often associated with teen rebellion. We will follow the story of how this rowdy first wave of rock and roll (1955-59) was tamed in the early 60s but came roaring back with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and then went psychedelic by the end of the decade.
Soulsville, USA: Stax and Southern Soul (7:25)
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History of Rock, Part One
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Motown Pop and Southern Soul (1960-69)
Berry Gordy and the rise and first flourishing of Motown. Atlantic, Stax, and southern soul (Memphis, Muscle Shoals, New York). Parallels between Motown and Stax. James Brown and the roots of funk.
Conoce a los instructores
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
Having now discussed the the role of Motown in black pop of the mid 1960's.
Let's now turn our attention to Soulsville, USA Stax and Southern Soul.
In order to start our discussion, let's take a look at what was happening with
Atlantic Records. Atlantic Records is one of the most
important labels that we talk about as we talk about the history of, of rock music.
Of course, they're there at the very beginning, even before rock and roll with
releasing records in R&B, they're very important in the first wave of rock and
roll, that period between 60 and 64. There very, very, important there with
Ben E King, The Drifters, a lot of those kinds of a records.
and so Atlantic Records, it's, it's important how the morph.
And we're going to talk about what happens with them here in this period in
the 60's. And then of course as you get into the
late 60's and early 70's, they become one of the labels that signs a lot of the
really big rock and roll acts. Led Zeppelin, yes, a lot of those groups
signed to Atlantic Records. But for now, what's happening at the,
Atlantic Records is they're starting to make the transition from sweet soul to
southern soul. Sweet soul, you'll remember is that style
characterized again, like Ben E King, The Drifters, acts like that.
That's a very kind of elegant, restrained, kind of smooth blending of
rhythm and blues music with, with strings and sometimes Latin beats, that kind of
thing. Southern soul, however is a lot more of
an enthusiastic kind of music. It's a little bit more unbuttoned its
gospel influences are right there on the surface.
and so it's seen as maybe a more spontaneous and raw, although the
recordings are oftentimes quite refined most of a raw kind of form.
Wexler starts to head in this direction, when he produces an artist named Solomon
Burke. he's working also with Bert Berns.
We've talked about Bert Berns a couple of times at, at, at Atlantic there having a
number two R&B hit in 63 with, If You Need Me, that's Solomon Burke.
also a, a number one R&B hit in 1965 with, Got To Get You Off My Mind.
but one thing that, that Jerry Wexler, one of the guys responsible for Atlantic
at this time. Starts to find out is that in order, in,
in, in addition to producing his own artists for Atlantic they can have pretty
good success if they find R&B hits that have been regional hits and licensed
them. We've talked about this idea of licensing
hits nationally. So, Atlantic could re-brand a song, buy
the licensing rights off of off one of these smaller labels, and, really make
make, something that had been a regional hit, into a national hit.
And so they sort of looking, Wex has started looking for these kinds of
things, looking for these, these, these re-releases as another possible way of a,
of, of bringing out a hit records with Atlantic Records.
and he starts to get into a relationship With Stax Records from Memphis.
Now Stax was formed in 1960 by Jim Stewart, and his sister Estelle Axton.
So, you've got the Stewart is the ST part of it, and the Axton is the AX part of
it. Put ST and AX together you get Stax.
based as I said in Memphis Tennessee. They came to be licensed and then
distributed, a, by Atlantic Records. At that time that meant a very close
business relationship with Jerry Wexler. But also with Tom Dowd, the legendary
recording engineer of, of Atlantic Records, who actually came down to Stax
Studios in Memphis, and help them kind of upgrade or rewire some of their recording
gear. Because Dowd was very concerned about the
quality of Atlantic Records and even if they, if they were going to be using the
Stax Studio a lot more now. Because they were developing a closer
relationship, he wanted to be sure that the equipment was up to, up to his
standard. So, when we talk about Stax, we're, our
story usually starts with the actual Stax label and the actual Stax Studio.
But then as the story begins to unfold a little bit more, you'll see that it, it
starts to become more inclusive, as well, to include other studios in other parts
of the south, even in New York City, as part of a general southern soul.
Whether the records were actually recorded in the south, are not, it's kind
of a stylistic thing. So, people often refer to this as Stax,
you know sometimes people refer to the label Volt.
Stack, and Volt was kind of a subsidiary label of Stax.
The Stax, Volt, refers to a whole sort of style, more specifically it refers to
just the artists that were on those labels.
So, what particularly interests me is not only the music of southern soul, and
something that we want to talk about here, but also the parallels between
Motown and Stax. Because a lot of times, the way Motown
and Stax are set up is somehow like they're polar opposites from each other,
and we talked about this in the introductory video.
You know, Motown is this, is, is characterized sometimes as selling out as
blackness for a white audience. And Stax is seen as more authentic,
because it stays, stays closer to its black routes, gospel, more kind of
unbuttoned kind of approach. But what's amazing to me is, for all that
difference people usually find in it, how similar the two labels were in the way
that they, the way that they acted. first of all it turns out that there were
there was actually devoted songwriters and producers at Stax, although not in a
same kind of organized way that Berry Gordy had done.
We had Issac Hayes and David Porter working together as songwriters and
producers for the act, Sam and Dave. and we also have Steve Cropper, the
guitarist in the studio band, working really closely with Otis Redding.
So, there is a sense in which you've got some people writing songs and other
people doing performing. You know the biggest parallel, of course,
is the studio band. We talked about the Funk Brothers with
regard to Motown. But, with regard to the Stax Studio, that
is the specific Stax Studio in Memphis. We're talking about Booker T, and the
M.G.s, and these guys all of four of them kind of legends in the history of, of
black pop music. Booker T Jones, on the organ, Steve
Cropper on the guitar, Duck Dunn on the bass, and Al Jackson Jr, on the drums.
Booker T, and the M.G.s had instrumental hits on their own, Green Onions is maybe
the most, the most famous of that. And they were the backing band Working
with a lot of these Stax groups when they came into the studio.
And this was even a looser and more cooperative situation than the one that
we saw in Motown. where you know a lot of times they would
not only be working to tune out with the artist, but they would be sort of writing
as they went in a kind of very cooperative kind of environment.
Remembering that still at some place like Atlantic the norm was to have people come
in with charts all written out and the musicians would read the charts just like
they did for all intents and purposes, back in the Big Band days, back in the
40's and into the 1950's. Also, when we talk about Stax we have to
talk about the use of horns. There aren't, the Stax horns don't appear
on all of the records. But they appear in enough of them that
this sort of, horn band thing that people talk about from the 1960's.
that was so influential something that Paul McCartney was thinking about when
the Beatles did Got to Get You Into My life, this sort of like, tight rhythmic
thing happening with the hip horns. this is, sort of, this part of this Stax
sign, It's the Stax horn, that people often refer to as being responsible for
part of that sound. let's turn our attention now to some of
the performers at Stax, and we'll deal with that in the next video.
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