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Al Bell
Al Bell (born Alvertis Isbell; March 15, 1940) is an American record producer, songwriter, and record executive. He is best known as having been an executive and co-owner of Stax Records, based in Memphis, Tennessee, during the latter half of the label's 19-year existence. A former disc jockey in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas,Bowman, Rob (1997). Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records. New York: Schirmer Trade. Bell was vital to the careers of Stax's soul stars such as the Staple Singers and Isaac Hayes, the Emotions, the Dramatics, and Mel and Tim. Bell's promotional efforts drove the “Memphis sound” internationally and made Stax the second-largest African-American–owned business in the 1970s. In 2009, the BBC profiled Bell as "one of the icons of soul music" and "the driving force behind Stax Records". Following his career at Stax, Bell became president of Motown Records Group during its restructuring for sale to MCA and Boston Ventures Group. He later st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brinkley, Arkansas
Brinkley is the most populous city in Monroe County, Arkansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,700, down from 3,188 in 2010. Located within the Arkansas Delta, Brinkley was founded as a railroad town in 1872. The city has historically been a transportation and agricultural center in the region, more recently developing a reputation for outdoors recreation and the ivory-billed woodpecker. Birding has become important to the city and region following the purported discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in 2004, a species thought to be extinct 60 years earlier. Located halfway between Little Rock and Memphis, the city has used the slogan "We'll Meet You Half-Way" in some of its advertising campaigns. History In 1852, a land grant for the construction of rail lines was given to the Little Rock and Memphis Railroad Company, led by its president Robert Campbell Brinkley. Born in North Carolina, Brinkley lived in Memphis, where he served a public career o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Stewart (record Producer)
James Frank Stewart (July 29, 1930 – December 5, 2022) was an American record producer and executive who in 1957 co-founded, with his sister Estelle, Stax Records, one of the leading recording companies during soul and R&B music's heyday. The label also scored many hits on the Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart, and internationally, during this time. Life and career Stewart was born on July 29, 1930. Raised on a farm in Middleton, Tennessee, he moved to Memphis in 1948 after graduating from high school, then worked at Sears and the First National Bank before being drafted into the United States Army. After serving for two years, Stewart returned to his job as a bank clerk in Memphis in 1953. Stewart was a part-time fiddle player and joined a local country music group, the Canyon Cowboys. He worked days as a banker at Union Planters Bank. In 1957, Stewart launched his own record label, then called Satellite Records, which issued country music and rockabilly records. His sist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wattstax
''Wattstax'' was a benefit concert organized by Stax Records to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 1965 riots in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles. The concert took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on August 20, 1972. The concert's performers included all of Stax's prominent artists at the time. The genres of the songs performed included soul, gospel, R&B, blues, funk, and jazz. Months after the festival, Stax released a double LP of the concert's highlights, ''Wattstax: The Living Word''. The concert was filmed by David L. Wolper's film crew and was made into the 1973 film titled ''Wattstax''. The film was directed by Mel Stuart and nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Documentary Film in 1974. In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Festival production Development Stax Record's West Coast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaft (1971 Film)
''Shaft'' is a 1971 American crime action film directed by Gordon Parks and written by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black. It is an adaptation of Tidyman's novel of the same name and is the first entry in the ''Shaft'' film series. The plot revolves around a private detective named John Shaft who is hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from the Italian mobsters who kidnapped her. The film stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, alongside Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John and Lawrence Pressman. The film has themes of Black Power movement, race, masculinity, and sexuality. It was filmed in Harlem, Greenwich Village, and Times Square within the Manhattan borough of New York City. The ''Shaft'' soundtrack album, recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a success, winning him a Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a second Grammy (shared with Johnny Allen) for Best Instrumental Arrangement. The " Theme from ''Shaft''" won th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
''Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song'' is a 1971 American blaxploitation film written, co-produced, scored, edited, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles. His son Mario Van Peebles also appears in a small role, playing the title character as a young boy. The film tells the picaresque story of a poor black man fleeing from the white police authorities. Van Peebles began to develop the film after being offered a three-picture contract for Columbia Pictures. No studio would finance the film, so Van Peebles funded it himself, shooting it independently over 19 days, performing all of his own stunts and appearing in several sex scenes, some reportedly unsimulated. He received a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby to complete the project. The film's fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were unique features in American cinema at the time. The picture was censored in some markets, and received mixed reviews. However, it has left a lasting impression on American cinema. The musical score of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White People
White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as "White" in reference to their skin color predates this notion and is occasionally found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient or medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of a White or pan-European race. The term "White race" or "White people", defined by their light skin among other physical characteristics, entered the major European languages in the later seventeenth century, when the concept of a "unified White" achieve universal acceptance in Europe, in the context of racialized slavery and unequal social status in the European colonies. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept from pre-modern descriptions, which focused on physical complexion rather than race. Prior to the modern era, no Europe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estelle Axton
Estelle Axton (September 11, 1918 – February 24, 2004) was an American record executive and co-founder of Stax Records, along with her brother Jim Stewart. Biography Born in Middleton, Tennessee, Estelle Stewart grew up on a farm. She moved to Memphis as a school teacher, married Everett Axton, and was working in a bank when, in 1958, her brother Jim Stewart asked for help to develop Satellite Records, which he had set up to issue recordings of local country and rockabilly artists. She convinced her husband that they should remortgage their house and, in 1959, joined Satellite as an equal partner. The following year, Axton and Stewart turned the Capitol Theatre, in a black Memphis neighborhood, into a recording studio and record shop, and began making hit records with predominantly black artists. Satellite was forced to change its name in 1961 after it was discovered that a Los Angeles label already owned the title, and it changed its name to Stax, taking its name from Axt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I'll Take You There
"I'll Take You There" is a song written by Al Bell (using his real name Alvertis Isbell), and originally performed by soul/gospel family band the Staple Singers. The Staple Singers version, produced by Bell, was released on Stax Records in February 1972, and spent a total of 15 weeks on the charts and reached #1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It is ranked as the 19th biggest American hit of 1972. The song was also a significant chart hit in two later cover versions. A 1991 cover version by BeBe & CeCe Winans, with Mavis Staples featured as a guest artist, made it to #1 on the R&B chart, and also reached #90 on the Hot 100. In 1994, the British band General Public released a cover of "I'll Take You There" which peaked at #22 on the Hot 100. Rap trio Salt-N-Pepa sampled "I'll Take You There" in their 1991 hit "Let's Talk About Sex". Original Staple Singers version Included on the group's 1972 album '' Be Altitude: Respect Yourself'', "I'll Take You There" features lead singer M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Respect Yourself
"Respect Yourself" is a song by American R&B/gospel group the Staple Singers. Released in late 1971 from their album '' Be Altitude: Respect Yourself'', the song became a crossover hit. The Staple Singers' version peaked at No. 12 on the Hot 100, No. 2 on the Hot Soul Singles chart, and is one of the group's most recognizable hits. In 2002, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2010 it was ranked #468 on the ''Rolling Stone'' list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, moving down 4 spots from #464 in 2004. Writing and recording The song was written by Stax Records singer Luther Ingram and house songwriter Mack Rice. Ingram, who was frustrated with the state of the world at the time, told Rice "black folk need to learn to respect themselves." Rice liked the comment so much that he built a funk groove around it, prepared a demo record, and suggested to record producer Al Bell that the Staple Singers record it. The group agreed. Bell teamed the group ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hot Buttered Soul
''Hot Buttered Soul'' is the second studio album by American soul musician Isaac Hayes. Released in 1969, it is recognized as a landmark in soul music. Recorded with The Bar-Kays, the album features four lengthy tracks, including a 12-minute version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David cover " Walk On By" and an almost 19-minute long version of Jimmy Webb's " By the Time I Get to Phoenix"; both songs were edited significantly and released as a double A-side single in July 1969. Background Hayes' 1968 solo debut, '' Presenting Isaac Hayes'', had been a poor seller for the record label Stax Records, and Hayes was about to return to his behind-the-scenes role as a producer and songwriter, when the label suddenly lost its entire back catalog after splitting with Atlantic Records in May 1968. Stax executive Al Bell decided to release an almost-instant back catalog of 27 albums and 30 singles at once, and ordered all of Stax's artists to record new material, encouraging some of Stax's promi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Soul Children
The Soul Children was an American vocal group who recorded soul music for Stax Records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They had three top 10 hits on the U.S. ''Billboard'' R&B chart – "The Sweeter He Is" (1969), "Hearsay" (1972), and "I'll Be the Other Woman" (1973) – all of which crossed over to the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Career The group was formed in 1968 by Isaac Hayes and David Porter of Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, after Sam & Dave, one of the label's top acts, were forced to leave Stax and return to the Atlantic label following the termination of the Stax/Atlantic partnership. As leading songwriters and producers for the label, Hayes and Porter put together a vocal group with two male and two female singers, all of whom sang lead on some of the group's recordings. The original members were Norman West, John Colbert (a.k.a. J. Blackfoot), Anita Louis, and Shelbra Bennett. Colbert, who had been known from childhood as Blackfoot for his habit of walk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
