What Is Stax/Volt Music?

Definition: Like Motown, the music commonly known as "Stax/Volt" refers to a style created and harbored by one independent company -- just as Motown music is called "Tamla/Motown" in the UK, to represent the joint label it was issued on there, "Stax/Volt" refers to the music produced by Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton in Memphis during the '60s, and released on several different labels, those two being the most prominent. (Indie music companies of the day often formed a number of labels in order to ensure that radio stations, forbidden by new payola rules to play a lot of music from one imprint, would give all their songs equal exposure.)

The Stax empire was created by Stewart and Axton (hence the name) and run from an old converted movie theater in Memphis, ensuring that the sound these label(s) produced was remarkably consistent. The typical Stax/Volt single (sometimes not even issued on any of Stewart and Axton's labels, as the company also had a deal with Atlantic) was an upbeat version of "deep soul," that is, soul with a heavy gospel influence, an extremely emotional presentation, and very hard backbeat. The majority of Stax's output from their glory days of 1962-1970 was created by a group informally referred to as The Big Six -- guitarist and songwriter Steve Cropper, bassist "Duck" Dunn, drummer Al Jackson Jr., organist Booker T. Jones, and songwriter/producers David Porter and Isaac Hayes. The first four of these made up the core of Stax's "house band," Booker T. and the MGs; Cropper's squirrely, blues-based guitar leads are a major signifier of the label's sound. (Hayes would go on to be a star in his own right in the '70s with the theme from "Shaft.")

The Stax/Volt sound defined "hard" soul in its time, but as the Seventies wore on, R&B became sweeter and lighter in an attempt to cross over to pop radio, and the style fell from favor.

Also Known As: Deep Soul, Memphis Soul