TeachRock

The growth of Soul’s popularity in the 1950s and 1960s provided new opportunities for musicians and producers entrepreneurs across the nation. Soon, record labels sprung up across the country, each gradually creating a signature sound and cementing their position in American Music History.

In Memphis, Tennessee, Sam Phillips launched Sun Records in 1952. Known for it’s diversity of musical acts ranging from Rock and Roll, Blues, and Gospel, the label also helped bring the sound of Rhythms and Blues to listeners across the country. Around a decade later, business partners Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton created Stax Records, further building Memphis’ reputation as the Southern capital of Soul Music.

But Memphis had competition – nearby in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, producer, songwriter, and musician Rick Hall launched Fame Studios in 1960. By the mid 60s, the studio became not just a hotbed for Rhythm and Blues records, but became one of the most in-demand recording studios in the world. A year earlier in Detroit, producer Barry Gordy founded Tamla records in 1959. A year later, he incorporated the company as the better known Mo-Town records which produced #1 hits that defined the decade.

As Rhythm and Blues and Soul became more popular across the country, many of these labels expanded their operations West to Los Angeles to gain access to the opportunities Hollywood and other media conglomerate had to offer. Southern Soul’s take over of the West Coast was perhaps best exemplified in Wattstax, a massive concert and festival at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1972. The resulting documentary film of the concert, 1973’s Wattstax. which would be nominated for a Golden Globe for best documentary film the following year.

The success and influence of each of these labels was do to a group effort between producers, stars, and musicians. Behind stars like Elvis, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, The Jackson 5, were producers, but also bands and studio musicians such as the legendary Funk Brothers, The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and Booker and Booker T. & the M.G.’s.

This unit examines how these group efforts from people across the country defined American Soul music in the 1960s and into the 1970s.

View More