An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 18 | SOUL MUSIC IN THE 1960s 463

were inescapable on black radio of the 1980s. His records were widely sampled

in hip-hop of the 1980s and 1990s; one fan’s website lists nearly two hundred

rap songs that sample a single Brown record, “Funky Drummer” (1970). And his

infl uence has proved international, extending to European synthpop, West Afri-

can Afro-beat, and Jamaican reggae.

SOUL MUSIC IN MEMPHIS AND DETROIT

Two record companies in particular refl ect another kind of black-white inter-

change: Stax and Motown. Owned by the white brother-and-sister team of Jim

Stewart and Estelle A xton, Stax Records in Memphis created soul hits with

black singers backed by Booker T. and the MG’s, a racially mixed house band

led by organist Booker T. Jones. In 1962 Stax released its fi rst record by Otis

Redding, a singer from Macon, Georgia, who soon became Stax’s best-selling

artist. (Redding’s records appeared on Stax’s sister label, Volt.) In 1965 Jerry

Wexler—of New York’s Atlantic Records, an indie label fast growing to major

status—traveled to Memphis with Wilson Pickett and other Atlantic artists and

recorded them with Stax’s Booker T. and the MG’s. The link with Wexler and

Atlantic allowed Stax to improve its distribution. Thus a Memphis fi rm’s com-

bination of black singers, Southern white ownership, national marketing net-

work, and mix of black and white studio musicians gave rise to some of the

1960s’ greatest soul music, a genre marketed as quintessentially black.

Meanwhile, Motown, a record company founded in Detroit in 1959 by black

songwriter Berry Gordy Jr., was becoming one of the most infl uential in the

history of popular music. Motown’s records, with performers drawn chiefl y

from Detroit’s black community, combined elements from rhythm and blues,

gospel, and rock and roll with the aim of attracting white listeners as well as

black. The Motown sound relied heavily on mainstream pop trappings, includ-

ing string sections. At the same time, the records boasted a vital rhythmic core,

supplied by a group of jazz-oriented, mostly black studio musicians nicknamed

“the Funk Brothers,” who, in varying combinations, played uncredited on nearly

every Motown record. Of the many members of the Funk Brothers, bassist James

Jamerson stands out as an inventive player whose complex, rhythmically active

bass lines enlivened virtually all of Motown’s hit records.

CD 3.22 Listening Guide 18.5 “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” JAMES BROWN

Listen & Refl ect

1. The fadeout ending suggests not that the song has reached a conclusion but that the
   music continues on, beyond our ability to hear it. In live performance, Brown and his band
   might stretch this song out for several more minutes. What features of the song encourage
   that kind of expansive, variable performance? What are some strategies that Brown and
   his musicians might use to create a longer performance?

Stax and Motown

172028_18_440-467_r3_sd.indd 463 23/01/13 11:02 AM