Happy 90th birthday today to Stax Records co-founder James Stewart. The former part-time fiddle player launched his own record label in 1957, then called Satellite Records, which issued country music and rockabilly records. In 1959, the label moved into the former Capitol Theatre in Memphis with the help of Stewart’s sister Estelle Atxon.. (The label’s name ‘STAX’ is a combination of STewart and AXton). Assembling one of the greatest house bands in history, STAX and its Volt subsidiary would spend the next fifteen years defining the sound of American music. Steve Cropper, Booker T. Jones, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Floyd Newman, Isaac Hayes, and Al Jackson and other musical assassins would help develop “The Stax Sound.” Check out the definitive documentary on Stax – Respect Yourself The Story of Stax Records..
