Original subtitles

Is it at once getting much better

and still hopeless?

I don't want

to be given anything by you.

♪ In the beginning ♪

♪ You really loved me ♪

♪ I was too blind ♪

♪ I couldn't see ♪

When Dr. King was killed, I thought my world had ended.

♪ But now you've left me ♪

I couldn't produce or create or do anything for a long time.

♪ Oh, how I cried ♪

We had two great losses.

Otis Redding and The Bar-Kays, and we had Martin Luther King.

♪ Till your well runs dry... ♪

It brings reality into focus.

The reality of living together in this divided city.

What-what do I say?

You know, what can I say?

We were just totally, totally devastated.

And not only that,

our masters, they had been taken from us.

♪ I miss my water ♪

We didn't know what was going to happen with our career

or with our music.

We had been screwed without a kiss.

♪ You don't miss your... ♪

That's what it really amounted to.

We had nothing.

We closed down for several days.

We went through a...

a period of-of-of depression, I guess, is the word.

The whole company.

The attitude in the industry

was Stax is dead. It's over.

I mean, how could you think of it any other way?

Those in New York, they look down.

They think we're dumb bunnies, if you will,

and they tried to keep us "in our place."

I didn't accept that though.

I couldn't.

And I got to thinking, well, wait a minute.

I came to Stax Records

because of that sound that comes out of Stax.

And it was that sound that's behind our top artists,

Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas,

William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Otis Redding.

♪ This is my lover's prayer... ♪

I realized we no longer have our catalog...

...but we still had our people.

I knew what Stax really was.

It was a product of creative and rare people,

and great, authentic music art.

We weren't with Atlantic anymore,

but we can rebuild Stax.

I started talking to Jim and Estelle

about becoming an independent recorded music business.

We didn't think we could handle it,

independently.

Even though we had made a lot of money,

it takes a lot of money to be independent.

You step out there alone.

Risky business.

Jim said, "Well,

find somebody to make a deal with us."

I got with a friend of mine named Clarence Avant.

Clarence was a major broker in the recorded music industry.

I convinced him that there was a future here.

Then I said, "Clarence, I need a deal."

He said, "I think maybe we can get something done

at Gulf+Western."

Estelle, myself, and Al thought

Gulf+Western would give us distribution

and the visibility that we needed.

So we went to New York.

Clarence made the appointment

with the Chairman of the Board of Gulf+Western,

Charlie Bluhdorn.

Clarence explained what had happened with us,

and told him what we needed was an opportunity and a chance.

Charlie Bluhdorn was saying, "I don't know.

It seems as though the Stax period

is over in the marketplace."

And Clarence Avant got up and said,

"Charlie Bluhdorn, I wouldn't bring this to you

unless it meant money to you,

and I know you wanna make money."

He was screaming.

He sold it. He literally sold it.

And Bluhdorn said, "Okay, Clarence."

So we made the deal.

Gulf+Western gave us the money that we needed,

but now we needed to find something

that we can release in this marketplace.

Al came to me and said,

"I want you to go to the tape library,

find something good."

Atlantic didn't own anything that hadn't been released.

We could take that music and work with that.

And we came up with a track of Booker T. & the M.G.'s,

but it needed some work.

I said, "Well, this song sounds kind of jumpy, islandy.

Why don't we put a marimba on it?"

I took the marimba and just played this melody on it,

played through the whole song.

So we put it down, mixed it,

took it to Al Bell, said, "Here's your song."

I said, "Oh, that limbo is happening in New York,

Philadelphia, Boston.

And this has that limbo feel on it with this marimba."

I said, "We're gonna call it 'Soul Limbo.'"

We released it in the marketplace...

and that record took off.

"Soul Limbo" gave me a bit more confidence...

but it was just one song.

We needed a lot more.

So I sat down with a legal pad,

and I started writing the names of all of the artists.

Booker T. & the M.G.'s,

Albert King, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas.

I started creating concepts like "boy meets girl."

That's where I could take all of our male artists

and combine them with our female artists,

and that would give me another album.

Then I thought about, okay, guitars only.

That will make noise in the marketplace.

And I kept coming up with albums like that.

Al called a meeting.

He said, "We need to build back the Stax catalog

and then flood the market with product.

Let's work hard to make it happen quickly."

He wanted all of this product,

more product out of one company

than all of the companies producing rhythm and blues

in the United States collectively.

The soul explosion.

Al Bell didn't share all the particulars.

He just generated the excitement.

He was a master at generating enthusiasm.

And even though there was division in my band,

everybody just went to work like crazy.

"We're doing this."

Hold on. Take two.

One, two...

We had "no time to lose."

Al Bell was the drum major.

We were all in.

We went to the studio around the clock

in a very short period of time.

I'm talking about... three months.

When I came to Stax, it was starting all over.

But personally, I couldn't have been at a better place

at a better time.

I started as a trainee engineer.

It was just an unbelievable opportunity.

'Course I was thrown in the fire.

As a guitarist, they needed songs,

and I was able to start songwriting.

It was sink or swim.

I was a writer,

and being the only female was not an easy task.

You know, we're talking about the sexist '60s here.

Some guys didn't feel like women could do what they could do,

'cause this is an all-male environment.

So Al Bell gave me this great big opportunity.

Good idea. Take one.

We went on a 24-hour,

seven-day-a-week production basis.

Instead of four or five songs,

I'm working on four or five albums

with 10 to 12 songs on each one of them.

It was like a nine-to-nine situation.

I'd go home to take a shower and that'd be about it.

It was just more than you could handle.

I mean, it was just wearing us out.

Steve Cropper said, "Al, you're working the musicians to death."

I said, "No, I'm not, Steven.

I'm working them to life.

We gotta get this done

if we're gonna survive out here in this music business.

I'm talking about working them to life."

I like me on a minor third, and you men with the seventh.

Two, three...

Al Bell approached me

and said, "I gotta produce a lot of albums."

I said, "Can I do an album too?"

He said, "Sure!" I said, "However I want to?"

"Yes! You got carte blanche."

It was a lot in me wanted to break out.

I was a songwriter, I was a producer, an arranger.

But I had aspirations of being a singer.

I was like a sponge.

I had soaked up a lot of different influences.

Blues, jazz, pop, classical.

But at that time at Stax,

I didn't have a chance to express it.

-Rolling. Number one.

Every day around lunchtime,

Isaac would come down the hall.

We were all going to lunch.

And he had a tape up there

that, uh, he would get you to put on,

and they were these old ballads, like, uh,

" for Sentimental Reasons."

You know, it was...

Boy, and it was taking our lunch time.

I'll just take my time on this thing now.

One, two...

And he had this creamy voice

that just...

♪ Ohh, yeah ♪

He was honing his craft.

♪ Mm-hm ♪

He'd sing those songs.

He was getting the voice thing together.

One, two, three, four.

Isaac was looking for a different sound.

After the plane crash, the people at Stax asked us,

"What do y'all want to do about continuing The Bar-Kays?"

I'm looking to my left and I don't see no Jimmie King.

I'm looking to my right

and I don't see no Phalon Jones,

my best friend.

Only two people left. Just myself and Ben Cauley,

the one survivor.

It was an eerie feeling.

But I said, "We got to carry on."

At 18 years old, I debuted a new Bar-Kays band.

When I became a member of the Bar-Kays

as a drummer,

there was Harvey Henderson on saxophone,

Ben Cauley, James Alexander, and Michael Toles.

And they got another white kid to play organ,

Ronnie Gorden.

I saw a great drive

to make a monument to that tragedy.

We didn't really know what we was doing,

but what attracted Isaac to us

was the fearlessness.

He would sit at the piano,

and he'd work all the different parts out.

He was creative enough and open enough

to just let you go.

If your idea was something nice, he'd go along with it.

That gave me a lot of freedom.

♪ Now tell me, what I say ♪

He knew he wanted to do

something different from the ordinary,

so all the stuff we did, it was a lot of trial and error.

Once we locked into a groove he would say,

"That's it, let's record it."

It was just, like, an amazing way to create music.

I was a background vocalist in Detroit.

I sang with Aretha Franklin, George Clinton,

so many Motown artists.

1969, some songs from Isaac Hayes came up.

One song was "Walk On By."

Dionne Warwick had recorded this song first.

♪ If you see me walking down the street ♪

♪ And I start to cry each time we meet ♪

♪ Walk on by ♪

♪ Foolish pride ♪

I listened to it at home.

I was like, shoot, I'm gonna have to turn myself

into a music note.

♪ You gave me ♪

♪ I didn't ask you for it ♪

♪ But you gave me ♪

♪ When you said goodbye ♪

I'm like, damn.

So I smoke me a joint.

Turned me right into a music note.

I called my sister Diane Davis, and Rose Edwards.

That was the first time we heard it.

Oh, I loved it.

Oh, my gosh.

Isaac's music was almost symphonic.

Diane, Rose, and I singing together,

we could just sound like one person.

We had one hell of a blend.

♪ All that I have left, so let me hide ♪

♪ The tears and the sadness ♪

♪ You gave me ♪

♪ When you said good... ♪

♪ Oh, when you said good... ♪

♪ Bye ♪

♪ Walk on ♪

Isaac was very pleased.

♪ Walk on by ♪

That's it. That's perfect. Beautiful.

We had those musicians in there every day,

hour after hour after hour,

and we created 28 albums.

The idea was simply to establish

massive presence in the marketplace.

But a lot of people thought this was craziness.

The cost of manufacturing that number of records.

But beyond the cost, how do you promote 28 albums?

When we were working with Atlantic,

I would always attend sales meetings

when they would bring in all of the distributors.

And I marveled at how Jerry Wexler would stand up

behind a stereo player...

and play songs from all of Atlantic's new releases.

He would inspire those distributors.

Afterwards, Jerry Wexler would talk about,

"Ah, I just raised a million and a half dollars."

I said, "I'm gonna do the same thing.

But I'm gonna do it in Memphis."

The rest of the show,

continuing the rest of the Stax Soul Explosion.

I brought media to Memphis.

We had Record World and Billboard,

Rolling Stone.

We needed a new label.

So I got the graphic design person at Paramount Pictures,

and he said "Al, what is Stax really?"

I said, "It's about good music.

It's about making people feel good.

That's what Stax--" He said, "I got it."

Next thing I knew,

he'd come with that finger snap.

Bam! Stax.

My mind was on one thing:

causing these distributors to come in here, feel good,

and take this pen, and write down that order.

That was the only thing on my mind.

Thank you! Thank you so very much.

For most people in the music industry,

this is people in a backwaters town like Memphis

who have no idea what they're doing.

People thought, "This is not going to work."

And you're swingin' with the Queen

on this beautiful Monday morning!

♪ Ahh, oh, hear me now ♪

♪ All you fellas gather 'round me ♪

♪ And let me give you some good advice ♪

♪ What I'm gonna... gonna ask you now ♪

♪ You'd better think about it twice ♪

♪ While you're lyin' cheating on your woman ♪

♪ There is something you never even thought of ♪

♪ Now tell me, who's making love to your old lady ♪

♪ While you were out making love ♪

♪ Hear me now ♪

♪ Now, who's making love to your old lady ♪

♪ While you were out making love ♪

I wrote "Who's Making Love."

A song about reaping what you sow.

When it came out,

women were buying this song off the rack

like it was golden.

♪ Thinking that a woman... ♪

They wanted to go home and play this for that fella

that was going out cheating, you know what I mean?

♪ Fellas, let me ask you somethin' ♪

You better think about this 'cause this could be you.

♪ Never even dreamed of ♪

♪ Now tell me who's making love ♪

-♪ To your old lady ♪

♪ While you were out making love ♪

I've had so many men who would say,

"Woman, you had me going back home,

turning around so many times."

He'd say, "Every time I would hear this song on the radio,

I want to go home and check on my wife."

♪ I'm not trying to run your life ♪

♪ 'Cause it's up to you ♪

♪ Oh, you ♪

♪ Oh, oh, you, you, and you ♪

It just shot up the charts.

♪ I ask this question, I used to be... ♪

Within six weeks, it had sold its first million.

♪ My old lady ♪

♪ While I was out making love ♪

"Who's Making Love"

was the biggest selling Stax single

up to that date.

It sold two million copies before all was said and done.

You're listening to WLIB FM.

Here's another two for the price of one.

-Isaac Hayes.

I was with some friends

when I heard Hot Buttered Soul on the radio.

I had completely forgot about the recording.

Radio's still playing three-minute singles.

Outta nowhere, they're playing this amazingly long song

of Isaac's on the radio.

♪ If you see me walking down the street ♪

♪ And I start to cry ♪

♪ Each time we meet ♪

♪ Then walk on by ♪

♪ Walk on by ♪

You know, I would go out on stage,

and I was sorta nervous.

"Oh, God." So I put the shades on...

♪ Just let me hide the tears and the sadness... ♪

...And it became like a security blanket.

♪ You put the hurt on me, you socked it to me, mama ♪

♪ When you said goodbye ♪

People said I had started a different trend,

big large orchestrations, big sound.

♪ Oh, mama ♪

All that mattered was that I had

the opportunity to express myself.

♪ Walk ♪

Hot Buttered Soul exploded.

Top of the charts on the R&B market,

adult contemporary, easy listening,

jazz, and pop.

♪ Said I'm beggin' you, I'm beggin you to walk on by ♪

Gutted as they were, demoralized as they were,

they rebuilt this company...

and made it a bigger company than it ever was before.

♪ Smoke ain't makin' me cry, no, no, no ♪

♪ It's the hurt you put on me, yeah ♪

We were an old business,

and yet we were a new business.

Things changed,

and they were changing very fast.

Success forced us to have accountants,

lawyers, more secretaries,

more offices, more promotion guys.

We were growing,

and it was not that same warm family,

every time you go to the studio

you sit around and everybody just having a good time.

Al Bell's decisions to expand

have great consequences as to record sales,

but terrible consequences in terms of morale.

It got too big.

It got too big,

and I had not as much voice

as I would liked to have.

The company became corporate.

Mass production, assembly-line-type feeling.

That whole concept was so foreign to me,

I just never accepted it.

It was a pain that added to other pain for me.

I didn't wanna leave. I had to leave.

I had been Jim's liaison

between him and the musicians.

One, two, three.

And all of a sudden one day,

they got everybody else making decisions.

He felt that he was kind of cast aside.

Which is not the case.

Very difficult for me to leave Stax.

But I knew I had to go.

I had to get rid of my record shop.

They wanted the space for their studios,

and, uh...

I don't know. I...

I don't think they wanted me around anyway.

My sister Estelle,

she and Al had their problems,

and she didn't feel like she had enough, you know, input.

Al Bell, there's just so many things

that he disagreed on.

She'd say, "We need this kind of music.

We don't need any more of that kind of music.

We're not controlling our thing

and what our thing should be about."

I think that may have been the case with Mrs. Axton.

Couldn't sit and do nothing.

I went back in the office.

I even went in the mail room.

But I decided, well, I'll never have any influence

in the future.

Had to try to keep peace, you know.

In the end, I made the decision

to ask that my sister step down.

Al became vice president of the company,

and he became an equal shareholder.

Never, in her whole life,

have I ever seen her so emotionally broken.

It broke her heart.

It was difficult for the Stax family.

She provided the maternal support for the organization

from the beginning.

And then she just boxed up her things

and walked out the door.

When these people left the company,

there were discomforts and feelings

amongst the creative people.

And I must tell you,

I don't mean it in a rude,

cold, or insensitive manner,

but we had to continue pursuing our business objectives.

I had to look forward.

Nation time, it's nation time.

Get up, Diana Ross. Get up, Jimmie Brown.

It's nation time, build it.

Get up, muffet dragger. Get up, Rastus, for real.

It's nation time!

♪ It's nation time! ♪

♪ Get up, come along, come on ♪

♪ And get up and get down tonight ♪

The world was changing.

♪ And get down, get up... ♪

The problem now is fundamentally economic.

The solution is fundamentally economic.

The goal is fundamentally economic.

There was a growing sense of Black awareness.

Stax wanted to address what was happening nationally.

We're one of the few completely Black-oriented companies

in America today.

Eighty-five to 90% of our artists are Black.

Our personnel, the same way.

We're researching Black

because that's where our product is directed.

And we're supported Black.

Remember, we're talking about

Black consciousness.

We got to build and keep that dollar in the community.

Do you understand?

We needed someone to help paint the picture,

to put the package together.

I met a guy in advertising,

Mr. Larry Shaw.

Dad was, at the time, with an ad agency in Chicago.

His ads were speaking to Black people.

Speaking in our language.

Hey, aren't you Frederick Douglass?

Are you gonna go out into the world

with your hair looking like that?

Well, Mr. Douglass, you know, times have changed.

We wear the natural now.

You call that a natural? That's a mess.

It was uplifting and culturally relevant.

Man, ain't nobody gonna believe this!

Very unapologetic.

"This is who we are."

It was just a manifestation of being Black in America.

He understood all of the things

that we faced as a people,

and things that could be done to improve our conditions.

I needed him.

Larry came to Stax Records.

He was ready for us, and we were ready for him.

We were not apologizing for who we were.

You could see it in the fabric

of everything we were doing at Stax.

♪ I know a place ♪

♪ Uh ♪

♪ Ain't nobody cryin' ♪

♪ Ain't nobody worried ♪

♪ No ♪

♪ Ain't no smilin' faces ♪

♪ Mm-mm, no, no ♪

♪ Lyin' to the races ♪

♪ Help me, now ♪

♪ I'll take you there ♪

When I showed up at Lincoln University,

a Black college in Pennsylvania,

my classmates acted like

I had just come off the Underground Railroad.

They'd go, "Where you from, brother?"

I said "Memphis." They'd go, "Tennessee?"

It was only basically three things

that they knew about Memphis:

Dr. King's assassination,

Elvis,

and they knew about Stax.

You would bring your girlfriend over to the dorm room,

and the universal signal for your roommate

that work was going on inside the room

was Isaac on the stereo.

If you had the misfortune of hearing Isaac

coming up under the door,

find somewhere else to sleep.

By my junior year,

you couldn't go in a dorm room,

not one...

if they had anything on the wall, it was Isaac.

When Isaac Hayes walked on the stage,

just set 'em on fire.

People went crazy.

I grew up really poor.

And my grandparents raised me.

I can remember segregation

and sitting in the back of the bus,

sitting in the crow's nest in the movie.

Colored and white fountains.

I had to live with that.

Didn't like it.

I started wearing these chains.

What once represented bondage and captivity to a Black man,

it represents strength.

I wore it with pride.

And it meant something to Black people.

Ladies and gentlemen...

The name, Black Moses, just caught on like wildfire.

Look at that.

-Look at that.

Is this the start of a Black Moses movement or what?

It thrust me out in the national spotlight.

There was a meeting at MGM and they were talking about,

why not aim a movie to the Black consumer market

with a Black director, leading actor,

editor, a Black composer,

and my name was brought up.

Isaac and Gordon Parks and Al Bell

came in the studio to introduce the band to the project.

We watched the opening footage of Shaft

on this little Moviola machine.

"All right, all y'all gather around me."

So all our heads were pushed to look at that little screen.

Now the sequence we saw this morning, Times Square,

panned in off the skyscrapers

along 42nd Street, over the marquees.

And when Shaft pops up out of that subway,

that's when this should really come on.

When Isaac said, "Hey man, we're gonna start playing right here."

He said, "Clarence," he said, "Watch Roundtree's feet."

He said, "I want you to give me some 16ths to that tempo."

So I'd start watching, and I...

"Shaft," I mean, it just was amazing.

That's all I can say.

-Yeah, that's what I wanted.

And the 16ths was perfect

for what was needed there.

That was great for that Shaft walk.

-Uh-huh. -Isaac Hayes, genius.

Shaft.

Hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt.

Rated R.

If you want to see Shaft,

ask your momma.

We advertised on Black radio,

on Top 40 radio, on mainstream radio,

in the newspapers,

and we blew up in the marketplace,

-I gotta tell you. -Shaft!

After we had won a Grammy, I wanted to ensure

that Isaac got the creative recognition that he deserved.

I said, "What we gotta do is,

we gotta figure out a way

to ensure that Isaac Hayes gets an Oscar nomination."

I mean, that's the ultimate.

But my friend Quincy Jones told me,

"Al, you're gonna have a problem

because those guys that make those nominations, Al,

they're long-haired white guys.

I don't know how you're gonna do it,

but you're gonna have to do something

to cause those guys that make the decisions

to even consider 'Shaft.'"

Shaft is a bad mother...

Shut yo' mouth.

I said, "Let's figure out

what we have to do to appeal to white people."

I took it on as a challenge.

The first thing we did was determine the names

of all those people that would be making that decision

and check what radio stations did they listen to.

We went in and bought time on all of those radio stations,

heavy rotation.

And then we got Sammy Davis Jr. to record "Shaft."

♪ Yeah, he's bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad ♪

♪ Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad ♪

♪ Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad ♪

So we had people talking about it in the industry.

But I kept hearing, "It's Black, it's Black, it's Black."

So we needed to do something unique

to try to put a white perspective on "Shaft."

We found out Pasadena City College marching band

plays on the Rose Bowl.

So all of a sudden now, "Shaft" isn't so Black.

And it worked.

So we get a nomination. Fabulous.

And I ask for Isaac Hayes to perform on Oscar Awards.

And they said, "No, we don't...

we don't have any available time."

I said, "Listen, if we can't work out an arrangement

to get Isaac Hayes on there live, performing,

I'm gonna come and go downstairs in front of your building,

call a press conference,

and tell these people in the press

that y'all are racist."

They said, "Al, you wouldn't do that, would you?"

I said, uh, "Yeah, I'll do that

unless we can work out some kind of understanding

on getting Isaac Hayes."

"Al, we don't have the budget."

I said, "We'll pay for everything

that has to be paid for."

"If you'll pay for it, Al, we'll do it."

Live,

the 44th Annual Academy Awards presentation.

Isaac came down, playing his organ

with smoke coming up all around him.

♪ Who's the Black private dick ♪

♪ That's a sex machine to all the chicks? ♪

-♪ Shaft! ♪ -♪ You're damn right ♪

And the winner is...

Isaac Hayes, "Theme From Shaft."

♪ Who is the man that would risk his neck ♪

♪ For his brother man? ♪

♪ Shaft! ♪

♪ Can you dig it? ♪

I would like to thank the Academy.

And I would like to thank the Stax organization

for encouraging me to score a motion picture.

Most of all,

I would like to thank a lady who's here with me tonight

because years ago, her path and her prayers

kept my feet on the path of righteousness,

and that's my grandmother, and...

this is a thrill for me.

And also, a few days is her 80th birthday, and I...

this is her present from me.

-Thank you.

Isaac is the first Black songwriter

to ever win an Academy Award,

and it takes him to a level of superstardom

that probably no other Black artist had at that moment.

I told Isaac, "I'm gonna advertise in the newspapers,

I'm gonna advertise on radio and television

that Isaac Hayes is coming

to give the Oscar back to the people."

Can you imagine the impact and effect it had?

Oh my goodness, you should see the kids

when they would see Isaac pull up.

Oh man, they would go... come running.

They would be at the fence looking at the car.

And nobody had ever seen anything like it before.

When I moved to Memphis and was writing my book,

I met a gentleman who worked as a fireman.

He told me how, as a kid,

his mom would walk him to school

and they would go by Stax every day.

His mother made a point of it, that this was who you could be.

These were Black people,

Black people from our neighborhood.

This was success.

Again, I thank the city of Memphis,

and I'm proud to represent the city of Memphis,

Black and white.

And we should take it upon ourselves

to be the model city which we say we are.

If there be more,

I shall go out and try to spread the goodwill

and the good word

through the universal language of music.

-♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

♪ Mm-mm, yeah ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

♪ Yeah, respect yourself ♪

♪ You, you, you, you respect yourself ♪

♪ Di-di-di-di ♪

♪ If you don't respect yourself ♪

♪ Ain't nobody gonna give a good cahoot ♪

-♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na ♪ -♪ Respect yourself ♪

♪ Na-na-na-na-na ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

♪ Di-di-di-di ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

-♪ Na-na-na-na-na ♪ -♪ You, respect yourself ♪

♪ Di-di-di-di ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

♪ Na-na-na-na-na ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

♪ Di-di-di-di ♪

♪ Respect yourself ♪

-♪ Na-na-na-na-na ♪ -♪ I mean, respect yourself ♪