History
After Stax Records went bankrupt and closed in 1976, the Stax studio was sold by the Union Planters Bank to Southside Church of God in Christ, located nearby on McLemore Avenue. Except for a brief time when it was used as a soup kitchen, it was allowed to deteriorate so it was torn down in 1989. The neighborhood had deteriorated badly and by 1998, a group of concerned people and anonymous philanthropists spearheaded a nonprofit revitalization effort for the area which was dubbed Soulsville after the slogan "Soulsville U.S.A." which Stax called its studio on its former theater marquee as a counterpoint to Motown Records' Hitsville U.S.A.
Construction began on the Stax Museum and adjacent Stax Music Academy in April 2001 and the museum opened in May 2003. The Stax Museum is a replica of the Stax recording studio, the former Capitol Theatre, down to the sloping floor of studio A. It is a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2) museum with more than 2,000 videos, films, photographs, original instruments used to record Stax hits, stage costumes, interactive exhibits, and other items of memorabilia. Some of the standout exhibits include an authentic 101-year-old Mississippi Delta church to help show the gospel roots of soul music; the Soul Train dance floor, Isaac Hayes' restored 1972 gold-trimmed, peacock-blue Cadillac El Dorado; and a changing gallery where special exhibits change five times each year.
Because the Stax Museum is one of only a handful of museums in the world dedicated to soul music (the Motown Museum in Detroit is another), it not only celebrates the legacy of Stax Records and its artists such as Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, the Staple Singers, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Booker T. & the MGs, Rufus and Carla Thomas and others, but also features other soul music labels such as Motown, Hi Records, Atlantic Records, and Muscle Shoals, and visitors are treated to vintage video footage of non-Stax artists such as Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Ann Peebles, The Jackson Five, Patti LaBelle, Parliament-Funkadelic, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ike & Tina Turner, and others.
The Stax Music Academy is a state-of-the-art facility where primarily at-risk youth are mentored through music education and unique performance opportunities they would otherwise likely never experience. The building also houses The Soulsville Charter School, an academically rigorous, musically rich school where students study math, language arts, science, social studies, and orchestra. Their Soulsville Symphony Orchestra has played for the likes of Stevie Wonder, John Legend, and Isaac Hayes.
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