When Something Is Wrong With My Baby, Sam and Dave (1967)

"Even now he can describe a set of red suits worn by Sam and Dave the way some kids would lovingly remember a set of electric trains ... "Vented sides ... pegged pants ... matching patent leather boots." -- Gerri Hirshey, on Michael Jackson in Nowhere to Run

Back in the day, the Jackson Five opened for a lot of blockbuster soul performers and, from his position in the wings at venues like the Apollo Theater, Michael Jackson studied the minutiae of their acts as though his life depended on it.

In addition to learning how to dress for maximum effect, from Sam and Dave Jackson could have learned many things, not the least of which was how to all but surrender to the performance and wring every last bit of soul out of a song. And the Sultans of Sweat, as they were known, were the epitome of soul. "Unless my body reaches a certain temperature, starts to liquefy, I just don't feel right," Sam Moore told Hirshey.

Moore and Dave Prater met in Miami at a time when Jackie Wilson was influencing black singers reared in the gospel tradition to take their electrifying voices and use them in secular (and for the times, often shocking) ways. Sam, who was the son of a church deacon, was emceeing at a small club when Dave, then working as a short-order cook and baker's assistant, introduced himself during a break and the two quickly realized that their voices as a unit were gritty and pleasing all at once. (Sadly, the harmony that their voices achieved was limited to their voices alone; for various reasons they grew to despise each other, not speaking for years or looking at each other on stage.)

A rare Sam and Dave ballad, When Something's Wrong With My Baby showcased the duo's emotion-charged, gospel-infused talents like no other song that Isaac Hayes and David Porter wrote for them. Via Stax' partnership with Atlantic Records, which had signed them, Jerry Wexler matched their intense, scorching vocals with the instrumental artistry of house band Booker T & the MGs along with the Memphis Horns - the result became synonymous with Memphis soul and remains the gold standard for soul duos, with the possible exception of the Righteous Brothers.

Gee Whiz, Carla Thomas (1961)

You begin to hear ordinary people, but ordinary people stepping forward with more will, desire, vehemence, self-presentation, confidence. - Greil Marcus essay in The Stax Story CD box set

Read or hear any recounting of the improbable origins of Stax Records and you'll come away with the sense that the whole thing was an alchemical combination of lucky breaks and people who worked really, really hard to convert the talent they had into gold.

Talent at running businesses, at recognizing and nourishing talent, at singing, at playing instruments, at composing, at working together in racial harmony ... the stars were all aligned when Stax incubated in a Memphis neighborhood that was rapidly shifting from white to black.

But before Stax became a soul mainstay, there was this little record label named Satellite. Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton co-owned Satellite, which started out as a producer of white pop and country music in a different part of town. With success eluding them, they moved to an abandoned movie house in a changing neighborhood of Memphis where prices could be kept low. The former candy concession was converted to a record store run by Axton, whose clientele began to reflect the demographic shifts. The Satellite Record Shop became a hub of activity for the neighborhood and, as history would show, the crucible in which the unmistakeable Stax sound developed.

Local radio station WDIA, where one of the popular DJs was Rufus Thomas, sponsored a singing group called the Teen Town Singers, featuring his teenage daughter Carla (Isaac Hayes also did a stint in this group). Word spread that the Satellite Record Shop's back door led to a recording studio, which prompted Rufus to stop around with some tape of their father-daughter duet 'Cause I Love You. As whites in a highly segregated city, Stewart and Axton knew next to nothing about black music, but figured they had nothing to lose by changing their marketing strategy. The song had respectable regional success.

This didn't escape the notice of Atlantic Records, which decided to distribute Satellite's product in the south. Next up: Carla Thomas' love poem Gee Whiz (it was actually a poem that she wrote when she was 15). The slow-dance-love-song arrangement together with Carla's crystal clear voice also did well regionally, and Atlantic put national distribution on the table for discussion.

With another company having claimed the Satellite name first, Stewart and Axton combined the first two letters of their last names and Stax was born. A re-release of Gee Whiz made it Stax' first hit under the Atlantic tent and infused the company with the resources needed to transform it into the powerhouse it was for 15 years.

RIP Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

The news just came in about the death of a man whose legacy in American soul music is as profound as it gets.

Although Isaac Hayes was best known for scoring the 1971 film Shaft, and in particular its funky-fabulous theme song, for a number of critical years he, along with his songwriting partner David Porter and Booker T & the MGs, formed the lifeblood of Memphis' Stax Records. Together they served as Stax's in-house production powerhouse, writing and producing hundreds of songs, and nurturing some of the label's key artists, particularly Sam & Dave and Carla Thomas. Jim Stewart, Stax's co-founder, credited Hayes with being one of the main sources of what became known as the Memphis sound.

Hayes began at Stax as a keyboard player, and it was he who, on his very first session, played on Otis Redding's Respect and I've Been Lovin' You Too Long. But his prodigious talent as a songwriter could not be denied. Some of my favorite Stax-era songs include Hold On, I'm Coming, Soul Man, I Thank You and, most especially, When Something's Wrong With My Baby for Sam & Dave, and Let Me Be Good To You for Carla Thomas. The man was soul personified, and knew how to bring it out in others.

In 1969 he emerged into the light of day beyond Memphis as a solo artist with Hot Buttered Soul, which had just four cuts on it. His lush signature style is sampled by many young artists today - witness the fact that he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 by Alicia Keys, who here describes how his work inspires and has informed hers.

Hayes had a complicated and diverse life, about which much will be written in the days to come. For me, it's enough to note that the man who was born in the grinding poverty of a sharecropper's family was a man of extraordinary determination to make his mark - and make his mark he did. I'll play him out with one of my favorite later songs, Don't Let Go.