|
Stax Records
Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in September 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. Stax was influential in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music. Stax also released gospel, funk, and blues recordings. The label was founded by two siblings, business partners Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, whose last names formed the basis of the label's name (Stewart + Axton = "Stax"). It featured several popular ethnically integrated bands (including the label's house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s) and a racially integrated team of staff and artists unprecedented in that time of racial strife and tension in Memphis and the South. According to ethnomusicologist Rob Bowman, the label's use of "one studio, one equipment set-up, the same set of musicians and a small group of songwriters led to a readily identifiable sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Stewart (music)
James Frank Stewart (July 29, 1930 – December 5, 2022) was an American record producer and executive who in 1957 co-founded Stax Records with his sister Estelle Axton. Stax was 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gospel Music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music vary according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often performed in a call-and-response fashion, heavily influenced by ancestral African music. Most of the churches relied on hand–clapping and foot–stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done ''a cappella''.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "The changing nature of gospel music: A southern case study." ''African American Review'' 29.2 (1995): 185. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. October 5, 201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the publishing division, Sony Music Publishing. Founded in 1929 as American Record Corporation, it was acquired by the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1938 and renamed Columbia Recording Corporation. In 1966, the company was reorganized to become CBS Records. Sony bought the company in 1988 and renamed it SME in 1991. In 2004, Sony and Bertelsmann established a 50–50 joint venture known as Sony BMG to handle the operations of Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), but Sony bought out Bertelsmann's stake four years later and reverted to using the 1991 company name. This buyout led to labels formerly under BMG ownership, including Arista, Jive, LaFace and J Records into former BMG and currently Sony's co-flagship record label ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of United States cities by population, 26th-most populous city in the United States and the largest U.S. city on the Canada–United States border. The Metro Detroit area, home to 4.3 million people, is the second-largest in the Midwestern United States, Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area and the 14th-largest in the United States. The county seat, seat of Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County, Detroit is a significant cultural center known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive and industrial background. In 1701, Kingdom of France, Royal French explorers Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and Alphonse de Tonty founded Fort Pontc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motown Records
Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. Founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, it was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''motor'' and ''town'', has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered. Motown played a vital role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned label that achieved crossover (music), crossover success with white audiences. In the 1960s, Motown and its main subsidiary labels (including Gordy, Soul) were the most prominent exponents of what became known as the #Motown sound, Motown sound, a style of soul music with a mainstream pop music, pop-influenced sound and appeal. Motown was the most successful soul music label, with a net worth of $61 million in 1988. Between 1960 and 1969, Motown had 79 songs reach the top-ten of the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100. In March 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 with Jim Stewart 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 Gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Nicknamed the " King of Soul", Redding's style of singing drew inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the genre. His vocal style influenced many other soul artists of the 1960s. Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, and his family soon moved to Macon. He dropped out of high school at age 15 to support his family, working with Little Richard's backing band, the Upsetters, and performing in talent shows at Macon's historic Douglass Theatre. In 1958, Redding joined Johnny Jenkins's band, the Pinetoppers, with whom he toured the Southern states as a singer and driver. An unscheduled appearance at a Stax Records recording session led to a contract and Redding's first hit single, " These Arms of Mine", in 1962. Stax released Reddi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was starting to become more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Country Music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is primarily focused on singing Narrative, stories about Working class in the United States, working-class and blue-collar worker, blue-collar American life. Country music is known for its ballads and dance tunes (i.e., "Honky-tonk#Music, honky-tonk music") with simple form, folk lyrics, and harmonies generally accompanied by instruments such as banjos, fiddles, harmonicas, and many types of guitar (including acoustic guitar, acoustic, electric guitar, electric, steel guitar, steel, and resonator guitar, resonator guitars). Though it is primarily rooted in various forms of American folk music, such as old-time music and Appalachian music, many other traditions, including African-American, Music of Mexico, Mexican, Music of Ireland, Irish, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rob Bowman (music Writer)
Rob Bowman (born 21 June 1956) is a Canadian Grammy Award-winning professor of ethnomusicology and a music writer. Formerly the director of York University's Graduate Program in Ethnomusicology and Musicology in Toronto, he has written many liner notes, studies and books on popular music. He has been nominated six times for Grammy Awards. Early life and education Bowman was born and grew up in Toronto. He earned an Honours B.A. in musicology in 1978 at York University, and in 1982 completed an M.F.A. in ethnomusicology, also at York. In 1983 he began his PhD studies at the University of Memphis, completing these in 1993."Rob Bowman" ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', by Durrell Bowman, 29 March 2009 Career Bowman began writing for a music magazine in Toronto in 1971 at age 15.[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investigate the act of music-making through various immersive, observational, and analytical approaches. This discipline emerged from comparative musicology, initially focusing on non-Western music, but later expanded to embrace the study of all different music. The practice of ethnomusicology relies on direct engagement and performance, as well as academic work. Fieldwork takes place among those who make the music, engaging local languages and culture as well as music. Ethnomusicologists can become participant observers, learning to perform the music they are studying. Fieldworkers also collect recordings and contextual data. Definition Ethnomusicology combines perspectives from folklore, psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, compara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
