The Crossroad ( MUSIC )

[Biowatch]

Stax Records docuseries: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/other/hbo-s-must-watch-docuseries-about-stax-records-has-a-100-on-rotten-tomatoes/ar-BB1mWlAf

In 1957, two siblings named Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton founded a music business that would become one of the most important institutions to ever emerge from my hometown of Memphis. Using the first two letters of each of their last names, they named it Stax - a brand that evoked stacks of vinyl, eventually attracted artists like Otis Redding, and would come to be so integral to the city that visitors to this day are greeted with its music and iconography as they walk through the airport here.

Moreover, their record label is the subject of a new HBO original four-part docuseries - Stax: Soulsville USA, available to stream on Max - and which revisits an exciting and propulsive chapter in the history of soul music.

Operating from inside an old movie theater, the Stax facility on McLemore Ave. was a rare integrated space in Memphis at a time when simmering racial tensions would soon boil over and the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. would rip the city apart. Black artists at Stax, working side-by-side with white musicians, defied segregation and made music on their own terms - producing hits like (Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay, Soul Man, and the Oscar-winning theme from Shaft.