Condolences: Stax Founder Jim Stewart
• Jim Stewart, founder of the legendary Stax Records, which helped launch the careers of icons such as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Sam & Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas, the Staple Singers, the Bar-Kays, Albert King, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, and hundreds of others, died Monday, Dec. 5 at the age of 92.
Born July 29, 1930 in Middleton, TN, Stewart left his family’s farm at 18 and moved to Memphis to attend then-Memphis State University. In the mid-’50s, inspired by Sam Phillips‘ local success at Sun Records with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, Stewart began recording Country artists on a tape machine in his wife’s uncle’s two-car garage, and in 1957 launched Satellite Records. A year later his sister Estelle Axtonmortgaged her Memphis home to help Stewart buy some recording equipment and joined him in the venture.
Soon thereafter, Stewart met Memphis DJ Rufus Thomas, who came to Stewart’s new studio, a former movie theater he had rented for $150 a month and renovated at 926 E. McLemore Avenue, the site of the Stax Museum today. There, Thomas recorded “Cause I Love You,” with his 16-year old daughter Carla, which became a regional hit and brought in some much-needed revenue. Stewart then gave up Country music and changed his focus to this new R&B music about which he previously knew very little.
With the advent of their first million-selling record, Stewart and Axton learned there was already a Satellite Records and had to change the label’s name. Using the first two letters of their last names, they created the new moniker, “STAX.” For the next decade and a half before being forced into involuntary bankruptcy in 1975, Stax cranked out some 800 singles and 300 albums, placing more than 167 hits in the Top 100 on the pop charts, and a staggering 243 hits in the Top 100 R&B charts, picking up eight Grammy Awards and an Academy Award (Isaac Hayes for “Theme from Shaft”) along the way.
Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 by Steve Cropper of Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and Sam Moore of Sam & Dave. His granddaughter accept the honor on his behalf.
Stewart was preceded in death by his wife Evelyn Stewart and two sisters. He is survived by three children and two granddaughters. Plans for a memorial are pending. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Stax Music Academy.
