Original subtitles

We have a record here that, uh... that is pretty.

So we'll just play a few bars and let...

...let you be the judge.

I want you to listen to the roots, to the soul.

♪ Sittin' in the mornin' sun ♪

♪ I'll be sittin' when the evening come ♪

♪ Watching the ships roll in ♪

♪ And then I watch 'em roll away again ♪

-♪ Oh... ♪ - As a kid,

my source of music was mostly through the radio.

♪ Watching the tide roll away ♪

Throughout my life, I sought to find

the kind of music with which I had grown up.

♪ Wastin' time ♪

That music was where I wanted to be.

I found it at Stax Records.

We were an integrated organization

created in Memphis, Tennessee.

-This is Otis Redding.

Hear the world's most popular sound,

the Memphis sound, in stereo.

There were all these things colliding.

Things just exploded.

It was just our time.

-What time is it? -Nation Time!

Oh! Oh!

Can you do that one more time?

I'm the son of a bad...

But because of its successes,

and what it represented,

those with the power, they wanted...

Stax Records to be erased.

Why?

-Well, let me... -In our perspective.

Let me try to say this in a diplomatic way.

-Say it in a truthful way. -Oh!

I've been quiet about it for a long time.

And...

in as much as I've told you all these other things

that are gonna get me in trouble, hell,

I might as well tell you the whole story.

♪ You get a line ♪

♪ And I'll get a pole, honey ♪

♪ Honey ♪

♪ You get a line ♪

♪ And I'll get a pole, babe ♪

-♪ Babe ♪ -♪ You get a line... ♪

I grew up on a farm

about 70 miles east of Memphis.

♪ Baby, mine ♪

But I wanted to be a fiddle player.

I was just a hillbilly from Tennessee...

...that liked country music.

In the '50s,

I immediately caught the train to Memphis,

a musical city.

I started working in a bank.

On nights and on weekends,

I was playing in a band,

and I decided I wanted to make a record.

I started with a song that I wrote

called "Blue Roses."

♪ I send blue roses ♪

♪ For the bride's bouquet ♪

You had a smash hit right out the gate?

Not at all.

- I like it. -You're the only one.

I just got the fever,

and I decided I want to start a record company.

You know, it needed some money to get started,

so I went to my sister, Estelle.

My brother,

he came to me and asked me if I would be interested in...

getting in a company and put out records.

He needed an investor,

and I wanted to get into something on my own.

I thought, well, maybe I can get a second mortgage on my house.

The only thing we had was this little...

two-bedroom, at that time, one-bath house in East Memphis.

But Mother was excited about it.

We bought an Ampex recorder

and a few microphones.

That was some top-notch equipment.

We found this dirt-cheap vacant building,

Capitol Theatre,

on McLemore.

So we set the studio up.

Eventually, our label was called Stax,

which was the first two letters of my brother's name, Stewart,

and A-X for "Axton."

And it made a pretty good logo.

In order to help pay some expenses,

Estelle set up a little record shop.

We called it the Satellite Record Shop.

I was working in a grocery store in South Memphis

and I see some White folks

that are opening up a place across the street...

...and I wasn't sure exactly what it was.

I was just riding along on McLemore Avenue.

"Oh, my God, it's a record shop."

Satellite Record Shop,

six blocks from my house.

And there's a friendly-looking woman there.

White woman. But, uh... you know, went in and...

big smile, with a cigarette.

Miss Axton.

Estelle Axton.

She said, "You can go in there and play

and listen to records for hours."

Estelle Axton had a kind of

acceptin' spirit about her.

She was open to kids in the neighborhood

coming over all the time.

Estelle Axton made a practice

of identifying kids

who she felt would be good salespeople.

That was my first job.

I didn't know any women who owned their own businesses.

She became a... a quasi-mentor.

I knew Estelle's son from high school.

We were in a band together.

So I went to Estelle, I said,

"Can I have a job at the record shop?"

-So she put me to work.

Miss Axton would tell us,

"Listen to this. Listen to these guys.

Listen to how great this record is."

That's where I first heard The Jazz Messengers.

That's where I first heard Ray Charles.

Mrs. Axton began to encourage dancing inside,

even dancing out on the sidewalk.

It was an anomaly,

especially in Memphis back then.

We must make it clear...

that we will not accept racial segregation

in any form.

Segregation is a cancer in the body politic

which must be removed

before our democratic health can be realized.

This is the campus

of the Memphis State University in Tennessee.

The first eight Negros arrived here

three years ago this autumn

to join more than 7,000 White students.

Memphis has...

a lot of niggers here in Memphis.

And if it... too many niggers take over,

it'll be an all-nigger school.

Well, if one of 'em happens to sit down

beside me in class,

and there's another seat vacant somewhere else,

well, I just get up and move to another seat

without saying anything.

As far as education was concerned,

-I wanted to intermingle. -But now you've come here,

you keep to yourself, do you? You keep to your Negro friends.

Well, mostly. Um...

I keep to myself.

Before the Satellite Record Shop,

I had zero interaction with White people.

But the normal racial tensions, I didn't think they were there.

So I was at ease. I was off guard.

So I continued to go back.

I started going over there just about every day.

And I found out there was a recording studio next door.

I had a vocal group called The Marquettes,

so I asked Miss Axton

if I could go and take a look in the studio.

There was a White guy there, Jim Stewart.

I said, "I heard you're gonna be making records.

Could I just maybe let you hear me sing?"

And Jim Stewart said, "We're not doing

the kind of music that you do.

We're doing country music."

I thought, "Wow, this is really odd."

Great Black music was all around the neighborhood.

They had no idea how much Black talent was outside of that door.

♪ Heartache seems to ♪

♪ Hang around... ♪

Because everything in the community I was a part of

was foreign to them.

- Rolling. - Rolling!

We made a few country records...

...that were bad.

♪ Oh, what I'd give ♪

♪ To know my destiny ♪

Nothing was happening.

I'm young, I'm loose, I'm full of juice.

I got the goose, so what's the use?

We're feeling gay though we ain't got a dollar.

Rufus is here, so hoot and holler!

Ha-ha!

My father was one of the most popular disc jockeys at WDIA,

the only Black radio station in Memphis.

When the opportune time comes,

I'll be ready, willing, and able.

How 'bout that, huh? Okay.

He was a singer.

♪ You ain't nothin' but a bear cat ♪

♪ Been scratchin' at my door ♪

He would perform on Beale Street.

♪ Been scratchin' at my door ♪

Now, my father never asked me to go anywhere with him.

But this particular day, "You wanna go down there?

I hear they're starting a new recording company."

Jim Stewart, the owner, was there.

Daddy played a home tape

of one of our songs

called "'Cause I Love You."

♪ Hey-hey, everything'll be all right ♪

♪ Hey-hey, everything'll be all right ♪

When I heard that record,

you know, it just...

the lights came on and...

I just knew I had to record that song.

Daddy said, "Well, who are you gonna get

to play on the record?"

Jim said, "Oh, I'll find somebody."

I was hanging out at the record shop

and I saw that Jim and Estelle were trying to find musicians

for a session for Rufus Thomas.

They don't know that this kid named David Porter

is gonna change their lives.

I knew a kid that could play different instruments.

I was sitting in algebra class

and David Porter got me out of class.

"Booker, go get your baritone sax,

and come on, bring it out to the car,"

and he threw it in the trunk and sped to McLemore Avenue.

We get to Satellite Record Shop

and I just walked right into my dream.

- Take one.

There was Rufus and Carla Thomas there

behind the microphone.

♪ I done hurt the very best girl of mine ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ I done hurt the very best girl of mine ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

They kinda needed a little hook

and somewhere outta my imagination,

the "bup-bup-bup-bup-ba-da-dow."

♪ Come on ♪

♪ Baby, come on ♪

♪ Baby, come on, now ♪

And then I was playing on a record.

My dream came true when I was 14 years old.

- ♪ Come on now ♪ - ♪ Oh, oh, yeah ♪

♪ Oh, oh, yeah ♪

♪ Come on, go home ♪

Everybody was eatin' it up.

Daddy said, "We got a hit record!"

I said, "Really? A hit record?"

- ♪ Baby ♪ - ♪ Baby ♪

We must've played that record 2,000 times

because we were just so excited about it.

♪ Hey ♪

♪ Everything'll be all right ♪

-Woo!

That was the end of country for me.

This one record changes everything

for everyone in the story.

Atlantic Records in New York City

hears about that record

from one of their distributors down South.

This is a big deal.

In the 1950s and early '60s,

Atlantic Records defined Black music.

If you were a mom-and-pop shop in Memphis,

like Stax Records,

you need a bigger fish,

somebody who's already got that kind of network built

to distribute you, to get your records played,

to get them into retail stores,

and to sell them.

Atlantic offered Rufus and Carla Thomas

a deal that gives Stax Records a national platform.

They gave us a thousand dollars.

That was the biggest thousand dollars

I ever saw in my life.

It was like, today,

somebody lay a million in your lap, you know?

'Cause we were struggling,

and we needed another hit.

It was my senior year in high school.

I wrote short stories.

I wrote prose. I wrote songs. I just wrote.

As the inspiration came, I would go to the piano

and sit down and play chords.

Jim Stewart asked me,

"Well, you think you might wanna cut something by yourself?"

One, two, three, four.

♪ Gee whiz ♪

♪ Look at his eyes ♪

♪ Gee whiz ♪

♪ How they hypnotize ♪

"Gee Whiz" I wrote in 20 minutes.

♪ He's got everything ♪

♪ A girl could want ♪

♪ Man, oh man ♪

♪ What a prize ♪

♪ Ooh-hoo ♪

After we recorded "Gee Whiz,"

Jerry Wexler at Atlantic wanted to meet her.

So he comes to Memphis.

You couldn't go to a restaurant with a Black person.

So Jerry says, "We'll have dinner in the hotel room."

Rufus and Carla show up,

but they told us a Black person could not enter the lobby.

I had to go ride up with Carla in the freight elevator.

I didn't know what to say.

I put her in this situation through no fault of her own.

And I've never been more embarrassed in my life.

I'm 17,

going up in a service elevator.

Back in the day,

I didn't think of that as scary.

That is what it was.

When I think about kids who had to come through mess

just to go to school...

but they went anyway.

And they're like...

They knew who they were.

♪ I hope our love will grow and grow ♪

I knew who I was.

♪ Oh ♪

I was a music person.

And I was chosen.

♪ I love that guy ♪

It's painful sometimes,

because everything when you're chosen,

it doesn't mean everything's gonna go perfectly.

♪ There are things we could do ♪

♪ I could say, "I love you" ♪

♪ But all I can say is ♪

♪ Gee whiz ♪

"Gee Whiz" took off pretty good...

...and I get this call from Jerry Wexler at Atlantic.

He said, "That's my record."

We had a pretty good argument.

I thought when I had signed the contract with Atlantic

I was just signing Rufus,

but unfortunately, it was Rufus and Carla both.

You know, I didn't know anything about contracts.

"Gee Whiz" went on to be number 4 in the nation...

but it was on Atlantic, not Stax.

I hated the business aspect of it.

That wasn't what it was about.

I wanted to go to the studio,

and just cut records and have fun.

But we needed to try to get a record on Stax.

So we opened the door.

Word got around in the neighborhood

and we started getting people coming in.

I was working at the record shop,

but me, I knew I wanted to be in the studio.

I wound up doing odd jobs like marking tapes,

sweeping the floor.

Estelle goes to Jim, says,

"You're gonna have to start paying Steve.

He's spending more time in the studio

than he is the record shop."

Finally, I got to play on some sessions.

Steve and I became friends.

Music just brought us together on a real level.

There was a feeling and a permission

for that magic to happen.

Nobody knew what was happening inside of those doors.

If that was known,

the fact that there were Blacks and Whites

making the music together,

that could have been a problem.

People's mindset being what it was,

it could've been. It was not.

Everybody knew that they had to be

on the same page to do the work,

so we were able to collectively

appreciate and respect each other in that environment.

There was no boss,

there was no person tellin' 'em,

"You play this. You play that."

They would come in and, among themselves,

they would work out patterns, and just jam.

We were in the studio on a Sunday afternoon,

just jamming on some blues.

And I'm trying to imitate Ray Charles.

I go in the control room and listen.

I say, "Hey man, this... this is great."

So I hit the record button.

He said, "Guys, come in and listen."

We said, "You recorded that?" He said, "Yeah."

Miss Axton thought it sounded kinda sassy

and she, you know, wanted to put it out as a record.

"What are we gonna do for the other side?"

I had started taking music theory.

What a scale was, and the steps

and how they correlated to numbers.

Sometimes, musicians would just call out the numbers:

1 chord, 4, 5, 3, minor 3,

and it was based, usually, on 12 bars.

And so forth, and that was a whole template.

What if, I started thinking,

the second chord didn't always go to the major?

What if it went...

-And then the 4 chord...

What about that?

That sounds kinda odd.

It sounds kinda cool, though.

Well...

♪ Oh yeah ♪

I said, "Holy crap."

It knocked everybody out.

I took it down to a DJ in WLOK

and he put it out on the air.

And then I went back to the record shop,

and Mrs. Axton says, "The phone is ringing off the wall."

People started calling the record shop, saying,

"I just heard a song on the radio, I wanna buy it."

She calls Jim, she said, "There's something going on.

You better get over to the studio.

We gotta come up with a title for the song

and a name for the band."

Estelle Axton said, "Call the song 'Green Onions.'"

And Al Jackson, my drummer,

he says, "Why don't we call the band

'Booker T. and the,' uh..."

looked outside the window,

and saw a little British car...

"'Booker T. and the M.G.'s'?"

So all of a sudden, we had a recording that we could put out

and a new group.

This record just was intoxicating.

I remember I would put my head

to our Hi-Fi system

and push on one ear,

trying to push the other ear deeper into that speaker.

My mom thought I was insane,

but I just wanted to somehow get closer to that music.

It took off.

Just, boom.

And it was on Stax.

It was by accident.

Had we not been in the studio, who knows?

It was the right time and the right place.

I've been eating green onions ever since.

Stax had developed this astonishing sound.

It's Black culture...

but it's being made

by an interracial group

with elements of White pop and country,

and creating this new fusion.

Once you have "Green Onions,"

Stax starts getting a reputation as being this place

where great R&B records can be made.

One day, I was hanging out there at Stax

and a car pulled up from Georgia,

and an energetic, big young man got out

and started unloading amplifiers and suitcases

for a session.

We worked five or six hours.

One of those sessions, you work and you try

and it just doesn't come together.

The musicians were exhausted.

One more. Horn squeak. Seven.

And the manager says,

"Well, we gotta listen to another singer."

I thought he was a roadie.

He had been sitting out in the lobby all afternoon

patiently, hoping that we'd have time to listen to him.

I said, "Okay, we'll try."

♪ These arms of mine ♪

♪ They are lonely ♪

♪ Lonely and feeling blue ♪

♪ These arms of mine ♪

♪ They are yearning ♪

♪ Yearning from wanting you ♪

♪ And if you... ♪

His name was Otis Redding.

♪ Would let them hold you ♪

My hair stood up on my arm, I promise you.

Goosebumps.

♪ These arms of mine ♪

♪ They... ♪

Just took me to my home and my heart and my place.

♪ Burning from wanting... ♪

I will never forget that moment.

♪ Come on, come on, baby ♪

We released the record on our label.

♪ Just be my little woman ♪

♪ Just be my lover ♪

♪ Oh, I need me somebody... ♪

The record did not sell.

It never made it in any of the major markets.

But I loved his voice.

When you listen to him sing,

he was pouring his heart out, heart and soul.

So we brought him back in for another session.

Otis would come in the door with a whole...

song in his mind...

♪ Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa ♪

...and tell all of us what he wanted.

♪ I keep singing them sad, sad songs, y'all ♪

♪ Sad songs is all I know ♪

♪ I keep singing them sad, sad songs, y'all ♪

Next thing you know, he would pick up

his little guitar and start thumping on it,

and Duck would pick up his bass.

And then Otis would indicate to Al

the rhythm he wanted.

Next thing you know, we'd be into a song.

♪ Any old time ♪

♪ It got to your heart, put you in a groove ♪

♪ And when you sing... ♪

And when he had the rhythm section,

he'd come back to where the horns were.

He'd come over there and sing to us.

♪ Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa ♪

♪ Your turn ♪

♪ Our turn ♪

♪ Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa ♪

Otis developed the Stax horns.

It became a key ingredient in the Stax sound.

But it was limited in terms of how far they could go.

Rhythm and blues, that was our genre.

But it was difficult to get airplay,

so it was difficult to reach the masses.

If you don't get your records played,

nobody hears 'em, if they don't hear 'em,

they can't decide they like 'em enough to buy them.

You must get radio play.

with that number three song...

Being under the wing of Atlantic Records,

we were dependent on their promotion men.

But they never pushed anything.

I used to get in the car with a trunk load of records

and go around, uh, you know, Jackson

and Tupelo and Little Rock

and get these guys playing the records

and try to stir up some... some action.

Estelle was always on to me

about, "We need our own promotions person."

She said, "Atlantic is not doing the job that we need."

Special dedication from me

to all of my wonderful listeners out there.

I heard this guy on the radio.

Your faith in me.

That's all I need, good gracious, in life.

He had this persona in his voice.

He was amazing.

This is your six-feet-four bundle of joy...

212 pounds of Mrs. Bell's baby boy,

the women's pet, the boys' threat,

the playboy's pride and joy,

the baby boy,

Al Bell, y'all.

Bing!

So I went to the radio station

and introduced myself to him and...

And we developed a relationship.

...we just started talking about Stax.

And he had an armful of records. He said, "I like your voice.

I like the music you're playing."

David wanted me to go by Stax and meet the people in there.

♪ Please... ♪

I was excited about it because, as a disc jockey,

I had heard, in radio,

many artists sing.

I'd never heard an artist sing with the passion and feeling

that Otis Redding had.

And of all of the records that I had been playing,

I never heard a sound and felt a feel

like I could feel in that music that came from Stax.

♪ I love you, baby ♪

♪ For more than words can say ♪

I just fell in love with it.

♪ Yes, I do ♪

When I got to Stax,

and I see all of these Black guys

and a bunch of White guys,

said, "You gotta be kidding me. This is who these guys are?"

'Cause I hadn't seen them before.

Blew my mind.

Immediately, I could sense

that there was a close-knit family dynamic there,

and I found it inspiring.

After that, Jim Stewart started calling me.

He would talk to me about music

and he would take, if they're going in and doing a session

that he was excited about, he'd make a dub on it

and tell me to listen to it.

And Jim Stewart started taking my advice.

Al was a DJ but he was more.

I saw a creativity beyond other disc jockeys.

So I called Al and, uh, ask him

would he be interested in doing promotion for us?

He said, "These disc jockeys out here respect you.

And we believe that if you came here,

that it will aid us in getting this music played

on these other stations."

So in 1965,

I became national radio promotion director.

I was 25 years of age.

He seemed to take to us quickly

and he just fit right in.

Jim was one of those guys that didn't like to sit down

and have meetings with people. He just didn't like it.

Al didn't mind tackling that job at all.

Al Bell, his focus was on growth,

exposure, airplay.

Once arriving at Stax,

I realized the challenges

in getting that music played in the marketplace.

I started to think how

Black people moved from the South

up the Mississippi River.

As I thought about the migratory patterns of us as a people...

I knew you had people leaving Mississippi

going to Chicago.

Go to Detroit. I knew Detroit was Alabama-bound.

People would leave Arkansas going to Southern California.

Also, people were going to New York City, Harlem,

from Alabama.

I realized my focus should be on those people

outside the South.

Al Bell understood,

"If I can break records in the whole Midwest,

once I get the Midwest and I got some power,

maybe then I can get New York, Boston, Philly,

maybe eventually the West Coast."

I had my concept but I needed a record.

One day, Jerry Wexler called me

and said he had this group called Sam & Dave,

and he wanted a different sound for them.

Jerry was enamored with the sound,

that new sound, that freshness,

and recognized the potential at Stax Records.

Jerry Wexler said, "You're gonna be going to Memphis."

Well, I knew Memphis was known for the Blues and all that.

Ehh...

I got out of the car in front of Stax Records,

and Jim Stewart, the owner, introduced himself,

and he said, "Let me take you next door to Satellite

and meet my sister, Estelle."

This is a White woman embracing two Black guys,

which that was a no-no down there. You know?

And then, we were introduced to David Porter.

Big ol' toothy grin.

Had on a sweater,

alpaca sweater,

hot as it is in Memphis.

I shoulda known this boy--

something was wrong with him then.

And then, coming down the street was a guy

with a pink shirt,

chartreuse pants, white belt,

pink socks, and white shoes.

And I'm going...

"Who...

Who is that?"

And he said... "Hey. Isaac Hayes."

And Jim said,

"Dave and Isaac Hayes are gonna be your producers."

"My what?"

David and Isaac,

they were in the studio countless hours,

Isaac banging on that big ol' baby grand black piano.

They were determined to make their mark.

We wrote a bunch of flops at first.

But we just kept trudging on, you know? Relentlessly.

- Oh yeah!

We're rolling tape.

♪ Don't know what you mean to me ♪

Yeah!

Isaac and I both were grounded in the church.

-♪ Singing that kind of song ♪ -Talk to 'em, brother!

We totally implemented that with Sam & Dave.

-Sam?

I sat there in the control room...

♪ Let me hear you say ♪

...and when I heard, "You don't know like I know

what that woman has done for me..."

♪ Wanna say, you don't know like I know ♪

♪ What that woman has done for me ♪

...and I said, "This is a hit record, here.

Get this record ready for me now

so I can get it to the disc jockeys."

"Get this record ready, Jim. I got to have this right away."

He said, "Wait. It's after Thanksgiving,

we're coming into Christmas." Said, "No, no, Jim.

Get me this record."

I got in my car and hit the road.

Then I started working with the record to create word of mouth.

On Christmas Day,

on the Black program radio stations at that time,

from sign on to sign off,

they were playing one Christmas carol just over and over.

I said, what I need to do is go and talk to the disc jockeys

who worked on Christmas Day...

...and tell them, "What you do is

play one, two, three, four Christmas songs,

then Sam & Dave.

Then one, two, three, four, Sam & Dave."

I got most of these disc jockeys to play our song.

And we broke "You Don't Know Like I Know" by Sam & Dave

out on Christmas Day.

♪ You don't know like I know ♪

♪ What that woman has done for me ♪

♪ In the morning she's my water ♪

♪ In the evening she's my cup of tea, now ♪

♪ And as long as I live, yeah, now ♪

♪ Wherever trouble lies ♪

♪ I go to her, and like a miracle ♪

♪ Everything just is all right ♪

♪ Hey, hey, now ♪

♪ You don't know like I know ♪

♪ What that woman has done for me ♪

Whoa. We got a hit record.

And then we did "Hold On I'm Coming."

Another hit record.

Paul Troy asking you to "hold on," baby,

'cause I'm coming through with more music at 10:20.

Sam & Dave, boss revival.

♪ Don't you ever be sad ♪

♪ Lean on me when times are bad ♪

♪ When the day comes ♪

♪ And you're down ♪

♪ In a river of trouble ♪

♪ And about to drown ♪

♪ Hold on ♪

♪ 'Cause I'm coming ♪

♪ Hold on ♪

♪ I'm coming ♪

♪ I'm on my way ♪

♪ Your lover ♪

♪ And if you get cold, I would be your cover ♪

-♪ Don't have to worry ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪

-♪ 'Cause I'm here ♪ -♪ Tell them about it ♪

-♪ Don't need to suffer ♪ -♪ Early in the mornin' ♪

-♪ 'Cause I'm here ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪

We all stumbled upon that together.

♪ I'm coming ♪

♪ Hold on ♪

♪ I'm coming ♪

We only knew that it worked when it worked.

♪ I'm coming ♪

♪ Hold on ♪

♪ I'm coming ♪

Lookie here!

Sam & Dave got hot as a firecracker...

...which created more excitement for Otis Redding.

Hi! This is Otis Redding,

the big O!

Listen to the Memphis sound.

Stax was beginning to blow up

on Black radio stations.

But generally speaking,

we still couldn't get White radio stations

to play our music.

♪ People say I'm the life of the party ♪

♪ 'Cause I tell a joke or two... ♪

The majority of the radio stations across America

were playing the kind of music that was sophisticated,

more polished,

like what you hear in Detroit,

Motown, or New York.

♪ ...since my breakup with you ♪

Watch this! Hey!

♪ I'm depending on you ♪

Stax had a 'Bama sound.

Like Alabama.

♪ On you ♪

In other words, gritty, rural, Southern.

We were being told that,

"You have to come up with crossover music."

But Stax had created a phenomenal

African American recorded music art form.

♪ This is our last chance ♪

That's what was distinct about it.

Changing the sound would destroy that art form.

And we weren't gonna do that. No way.

All of a sudden,

letters started coming in to Stax

from the UK,

talking about hearing Stax music on pirate radio.

I said, "What is pirate radio?"

Two, five, nine, ready to blow yo' mind

on Radio Caroline!

Your all day, on and off station.

The BBC only played an hour of pop music a day,

so the British people were being

basically strangled for new music.

But if you broadcast outside

of the territorial limits of England,

then, of course, you were not breaking English law.

So Radio Caroline came along and they said,

"We're going to play anything we want, 24 hours a day."

They would play all the music the kids wanted,

The Who, Motown, James Brown, Rolling Stones,

and I came in and I added Stax to the mix.

We're gonna cause a big sensation across the nation.

Walking along, singing a song.

Soul souvenir number one today on midday spin.

From Mr. Otis Redding,

it's called "Respect,"

♪ What you want ♪

♪ Honey, you've got it ♪

What he's saying!

Stax is blowing up in Europe.

You got to be kidding me.

Jerry Wexler, Jim Stewart, and Al Bell

decided that they wanted to test the popularity

of Stax music,

and the only way to do it was to take it there.

We were just like a bunch of kids on a school trip.

We were taking pictures of each other

and taking Super 8 videos

of everything that moved, and...

and when the plane touched down,

it was like, "Christmas is here."

These country bumpkins, they didn't have a clue.

They had never traveled internationally,

and their expectation of what would happen

and what to wear, it was hilarious.

I can remember not believing that my career

had taken me to land in... in England.

There was a club called The Bag of Nails,

and we had a pre-show, me and Booker.

We were kind of like practicing.

And I went over to the organ.

I said, "Booker."

I said, "Who is that over there at the table?"

He said, "My God, that's Paul McCartney."

It was so cute.

He's just so cute,

and was just enjoying himself.

The night we did

the first concert there in London,

I've never been so...

I've never been so nervous

and whatever else in all of my life,

and I've been out before people before.

But I gotta tell you, that was a nervous moment for me,

seeing all of these White people.

The crowds were...

hundreds of times larger than I thought they would be.

We never got a reception like that in the States.

We were just showered with so much love.

I had never said I wanted to be a star.

But being on stage is magic.

So when I hear the music,

and I see the smiles, and I see the people,

I remember,

I shut my eyes,

and I kept singing and singing and singing.

When I opened my eyes,

the people had gotten out of their chairs.

They were so close to me,

and I just kept saying, "Thank you so much.

Thank you so..."

It was like, when I got off, I went, "Wow.

That was good."

They come from the north, they come from the south,

they come from all over! It's Sam & Dave!

We hit the stage.

I... I went into a zone.

Zoop!

I'd do anything to get that crowd

to enjoy and to...

to do a show with me.

♪ You don't know like I know ♪

♪ What that woman has done for me ♪

♪ Now, in the morning she's my water ♪

♪ And in the evening she's my cup of tea, now ♪

♪ Listen, just as long as I live, oh ♪

♪ Wherever troubles lie, oh ♪

♪ I go to her, and like a miracle ♪

♪ Everything is all right ♪

I didn't know what Sam & Dave looked like on stage.

But I had the best seat in the house.

♪ Has done for me ♪

I couldn't keep my eyes off of 'em.

♪ Baby ♪

-♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ Oh yeah ♪

♪ I wanna thank all my friends ♪

♪ Oh yeah ♪

-♪ For being so kind ♪ -♪ Mm-hm ♪

♪ Now Dave and I are going back in our dressing room ♪

♪ Tell 'em about it, Sammy ♪

♪ And finish our bottle of wine ♪

♪ Oh yeah ♪

♪ I wonder, can you do that for me this evening? ♪

♪ If you know what I'm talking about ♪

♪ Do me a favor before I go ♪

♪ Do me a favor... ♪

As a little boy...

I wanted to be like the minister that I saw at my church.

♪ Will you do me a favor? ♪

♪ Do me a favor ♪

And I would take that and use that.

Running up and down, and "Ha!"

You're sweating, and preaching. Oh...

-♪ Stand on up ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪

-♪ Stand on up ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪

-♪ Stand on up ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪

♪ Stand on up ♪

-♪ Just hold on ♪ -♪ Stand on up ♪

-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Stand on up ♪

-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Have a good time ♪

-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Have a good time ♪

♪ Got to hold on ♪

-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪

-♪ Hold on ♪ -♪ Hold on ♪

♪ Hold on ♪

Coming out of a segregated America,

the continent of Europe was, really, another world for us.

There were no colored water fountains,

and we were treated at the hotel

just like the rest of the guests.

It's the first time that we really felt accepted...

and the first time we felt free.

Right now we're gonna do... a song that we love to do.

This song, it'll rock you.

Oh my!

♪ Oh, she may be weary ♪

♪ Young girls, they do get wearied ♪

♪ Wearing that same old shaggy dress ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ But when she gets weary ♪

♪ Try a little tenderness ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Oh my, now, now ♪

Uh!

We were a small company

down in Memphis, Tennessee...

reaching another level

that we had not known existed.

Music was coming from where we came from.

Rural people with rural roots...

even though we were worlds apart socially.

♪ Try a little tenderness, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

At each performance,

I keep seeing all of these White people

jumping up and down, singing the songs.

I see these people don't have a problem with our music.

♪ Got to try, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na ♪

Said, "That's it."

♪ Got to try, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na ♪

"I'm going after White America."

♪ Try a little tenderness ♪

♪ Yeah, watch her groove ♪

♪ You got to know what to do, man ♪

♪ Take this advice, you gotta ♪

-♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na ♪

♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na ♪

♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na ♪

-♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na ♪ -Get it!

Everybody, we gon' sang and dance this evening!

I want all you good dancers

to come on and sang and dance with me this evening.

Yeah! You know, the Indians had a thing!

Yeah, it was a hip thing!

They was sangin' and dancin'!

They did a thing something like this.

Yeah, you sound so astorperious this evening!

Good God.

You know, the Watusi Africans can sang and dance.

Yeah, the Africans,

all the Africans have gotta dance!

They sang and dance, but you know what?

We the Bar-Kays.

We gon' show you how to do our thing.

We'll sock it to you! Here we go! Good God!

♪ Everybody, come on, and sang and dance ♪

♪ Everybody, come on, and sang and dance ♪

-Ow! Ow! Ow!

Good God! Wait just a doggone minute!

Wait a minute! Let's slow this thing up.

Look here. I want all the girls to come on

and sang and dance with me this evening.

Come on, girls. Yeah!

Oh, you sound so sexy.

Lord have mercy! Come on fellas, do your thing!

Good God!

The Bar-Kays gon' do their thing. Good God!

♪ Everybody, come on, and sang and dance ♪

♪ Everybody, come on, and sang and dance ♪

-Ow! Ow! Ow!

Oh, shook me!

Good God! I'm gon' sock it to yo' fanny!

Yeah, look here.

I want all the girls one more time to do your thing.

-Come on, girls! Yeah! -♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na ♪

-You sound so good! -♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na ♪

I want all the boys to do your thing.

-♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na ♪ -Yeah! Little louder now!

The Bar-Kays got two horn players,

Ben and Harvey.

They gon' sock it to your fanny this evening.

Go on and get it, Harvey. Sock it to 'em!

-Get it on!

Little bit louder now!