Producers Michele Smith and Sophia Dilley first worked together on the terrific Billie Holiday documentary Billie in 2019. A film that was oddly overlooked despite how deep it went into Holiday’s remarkable and ultimately tragic story. Thankfully, the same fate did not befall their new Emmy nominated documentary series STAX: Soulsville, USA. In covering the history of the record label that birthed such greats as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Booker T. and the MG’s, Isaac Hayes, and so many others, STAX not only illuminates the sound of this beloved catalog of music, but also the times in which it was created.
While STAX’s glory days are extraordinary, there is no small amount of sadness in addressing the label’s disintegration at the hand of white corporate executives, whose scurrilous tactics stole the sound of Memphis and robbed music lovers of what could have been. Still, the soul and sound of STAX persists, as this tremendous series shows. The suits come and go, but STAX is forever.
Here is my interview with Michele and Sophia:
Awards Daily: When I was doing my research to get ready to speak to both of you, I realized that I had talked to Michele five years ago for the Billie Holiday documentary (Billie). This connection that the two of you had that started with Billie, how did it lead to the STAX documentary?
Sophia Dilley: The overall reason is that we both still work under the banner of Concord. I run the film and TV division, Concord Originals, that supports the music publishing side, the recorded music side, and the theatrical side with all our plays and musicals. So I’m looking across all of those different artists, songs, catalogs, and saying what can we build, develop, produce for screen. When I started, one of the first projects we got into was Billie Holiday, which brought me to Michele in her oversight of the Billie Holiday estate. I had gotten this wonderful pitch in. I said Michele, we don’t know each other, but we’re going to work a lot together. And we started with that project and had a great time. It was very early in my music business education, coming from the film world. I think that project really allowed us to both cut our teeth on the kinds of docs we want to be making, but also we started establishing this great relationship and Michele and I now have had many an adventure on multiple things. I’ll let Michele tell you the story because the next thing she did was she came into my office and said okay, we’re working on Billie, but let me tell you what we really need to work on.
Michele Smith: Day one, she walked in the office and I walked by and said oh, you’re the new head of film and TV. Yes, I’m Sophia Dilley. I said I’m Michele Smith and I want to work with and for you. Can you get me a new documentary on STAX Records? She looked at me and said yes. That was her first day at Concord. And then she said oh, we have this Billie Holiday film and we’re going to work on that too. I was like bring it on, baby. Let’s work together. She’s become my partner in crime, because I believe that we bring such different nuances and different experiences, but when we put them together, the story comes out beautifully. Billie was her expertise in film and mine in legacy. Billie, to me, is extraordinary. You were saying that you think that it did not receive the justice due, and I agree with you. I love working with Sophia. We have many more stories to tell. And just so you know how I ended up on STAX is, I oversee the brand of STAX globally. I have for the last seventeen years as part of a side of my main job. I came on to work new artists that Concord was releasing on STAX. It emerged into a position where I’m the vice president of estate and legacy brand management. So I oversee the brand of STAX. I also oversee the estates of Billie Holiday and Tammy Wynette. I do believe in preserving legacy, upholding legacy, correcting the inaccuracies within legacies, especially when it comes to whatever story, whether it’s Tammy, whether it’s Billie, or STAX. We crafted and wanted to make sure that you saw the whole picture of Billie Holiday from when she was raped at ten, to prostitution, to who she was in her fight through the civil rights, and to remove the stigma of how people envisioned her.
I know we’re not here to talk about Billie, but I wanted you to understand what the background is. STAX is very precious to me as well, because I’ve had the pleasure of knowing almost every principal or their estate in STAX. Ms. Deanie Parker took me under her wing when I started seventeen years ago. It wasn’t until ten years in that she said okay, now you’re ready to meet Mr. Stewart. Every time I went to meet Mr. Jim Stewart, I had to sit with him for four hours because when I whittled it down to two, he would say you’re leaving? Because he just wanted to talk about records. Every time I flew to Memphis, I would sit at his kitchen table and he would let me record our conversations and we would talk about music. One of the first questions I asked him was what is your biggest regret? And he said the obvious, that I signed the agreement (to let go of control of STAX). Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, David Porter, Mr. Al Bell, Dr. Mabel John, I have been blessed to sit at their feet, hear their stories and be entrusted to upholding their legacy. This documentary does that by telling stories from their perspective.
Awards Daily: There’s this thought process, that I think is incorrect, that musical documentaries are somehow a lesser version of documentaries. The two of you, along with the rest of your team, clearly don’t think that. What elevates this series is the recognition of Memphis as a city and the inclusion of the civil rights movement.When you two started to develop this series, and I talked to Jamila Wignot about this too, the idea of marrying the world they lived in to the music they made obviously must have been very significant to you.
Sophia Dilley: You touched on this a bit in the question, one of the challenges of putting together a really good documentary on any subject is allowing as much of the story as possible to be told. Coming from the music side and Michele managing the legacy, there has to be this level of trust in the process that allows for every component of the production, from the interviews to the edits, to how you promote it and push it out into the world. I think everybody has to feel like everyone’s on board to really dive into the hard truths and the good as well as all the blemishes that come with telling a true story. What was really special about this production is that, very early on in putting this team together, there’s a lot of it where Michele and I step away.
We didn’t want to overly influence how Jamila and her team are crafting the story because we are mindful that a lot of this has to come from this authentic perspective of what if you aren’t a true fan, if you aren’t somebody who knows anything about STAX, what’s going to be your access point? How are you going to experience this story and then be impacted by it? I think a huge thing for us is that we want people to not only discover the history and obviously listen to this fantastic music, but to also understand the cultural importance of it. As a company, we want to be working with people who are going to champion the artistry in a way that allows you to think differently when you hear some of this. That comes from putting together a team that you can believe in and trust and you all share the same North Star, even if you have different opinions on where the story could go and what is the most important element about something. It’s part of what made Jamila the right person to tell this story.
Michele Smith: When we spoke to the artists beforehand, I went with Jamila to introduce them and they’d say no, I don’t know if we’re going to talk. And I said look, you’ve wanted to tell your story from your perspective for these many years. She’s the one, she’s the vehicle. She gets it. Unfortunately you don’t see a lot of it, you don’t see William Bell or Eddie Floyd, but you do see the overall arching story, a wider universe where everyone else can tell their stories thereafter. I’m very pleased that Jamila and her team were able to craft and find unique archival film that no one had seen in the past, that was very special. And I think that’s also what lends itself for this to be a very special four-part series.
Awards Daily: There are many things that knocked me over while I was watching it. I think Charlie Pride aside, all country music was white back then, it’s not nearly as diverse as it is now. And this brother and sister team wanted to record that kind of music. And they failed. And this pivot to soul music, I think there’s something about the Memphis sound and the southern nature of the music that is a connecting tissue in some ways to the kind of records they initially intended to make.
Michele Smith: I’d also have to say though, where they decided to make those records was in the heart of what is now called Soulsville, USA. So if they were going to make country, I don’t think they chose the right neighborhood, so I think it was meant to be. (Laughs). You can now have country in a predominantly black neighborhood, but back in the fifties and sixties, it was pretty unlikely. So to have walked through the door, yes, there was a Steve Cropper that was there, but to have David Porter who brought in Booker T. Jones, and then you have all of these artists coming in and Isaac Hayes who worked at the butcher shop down the street, was a blessed accident. In the series, David Porter says to Mr. Stewart in this neighborhood? This is what you want to do? Okay. Good luck with that. This music is very authentic. There was nothing created out of pretense. Memphis just drips the heart and soul of R&B soul, and the blues. So I think STAX is the epitome of that authentic, gritty, soulful sound, which also is the sound of the Memphis Horns and the collective that you’ve met through all the STAX artists.
Awards Daily: I think one of the interesting things about it is that the band was interracial. It’s in a very black area of Tennessee. And these people were just brought together by music. And that was what they really cared about. Once they walked through the door to record, everything else just went away, even if they might’ve dealt with it outside the door. Whether it’s Steve Cropper as a white man or Booker T. as a black man, when they were together, they were just playing music.
Michele Smith: That era was not conducive to bringing harmony between the races. That’s what makes STAX special. Behind the doors of 926 East Mclemore, you had black and white members of mankind coming together for the music and to create art. As you said, they just wanted to make music. What’s so special about that is when they stepped on the street, they saw the divide. The police were on the street and Mr. Stewart or Mr. Al Bell would say you can’t be on the street. I believe Otis Redding was with them at the time. You can’t be on the street, go back inside. Also, the fact that album covers did not have faces for some of the artists, so many people didn’t know that Booker T. & the M.G.’s were two black musicians and two white musicians. So that’s what made it unique. And I think Mr. Al Bell says in the docuseries I didn’t know what they looked like. You mean these interracial black and white people made this music? It was unheard of. STAX is at the forefront of so many things and that’s why this is American history, period. That’s why this music will outlive all of us. It’s for all generations. What was new then is new now. A lot of the similar things that they were going through then, we still see now in some ways. STAX is important to just the fabric of American history.
Awards Daily: One thing that also occurred to me while watching is that it was as if STAX was an answer to Motown. There was a sweetness to Motown. Not to say that STAX didn’t have any sweetness or that Motown never had any grit, but STAX had a different level of grit. You can really hear that in the music. Motown and STAX answer and complement each other and find a way to get this black music on the radio and out there for all audiences.
Michele Smith: STAX actually started in 1957 if you look at the country side of it, where Motown, I believe, was 1959. However, they complement each other because they are the Black American experience. You have those above the Mason-Dixon line. You have those below the Mason-Dixon line. One is not better. One is not worse. They are just the Black American experience at that time in different places. Yes Motown was more slick, more produced. Mr. Stewart would just hit record when he heard a great jam. And it became “Green Onions.” So there was a difference in recording practices and the structure of the labels, but the heart and the meat of the music is still the same. It might be a little bit different for Motown because of the different writers there, but in regards to STAX specifically, it was their lived experience.
If you look at “Gee Whiz” by Carla Thomas, she wrote it in 20 minutes. She just was so happy that she got a recording contract because she was a teenager, her father was a DJ, and she was able to live her dream. They were all able to live their dreams. Booker T. was fourteen when he walked into a studio and got to play on the record. It was unheard of. The fact that Ms. Axton had a record store in a black neighborhood where she allowed them to play records and to dance in the store and dance on the street…unheard of. So it was a freedom in a very confined era where it was a little confusing because here was a white woman telling black young people go listen to this music, dance on the street, dance around, you are safe here, but when they walked outside those doors, it was a totally different story. So Motown and STAX, similar but different.
Sophia Dilley: Then I think what’s really interesting is that it also speaks to the power of music and its universality. When you see–and I love this part of the doc, because it’s just so wild–the story of pirate radio outside the coast of the UK. The fact that everybody’s discovering this music, especially in England. The sociopolitical elements that are impacting how music is experienced in America is being completely bypassed in this sort of neutral zone in the ocean by this music playing into the country, and it’s just this awesome sound. There’s this beautiful subtext in how powerful music is generally, you remove everything and everyone is completely absorbed by it. It’s one of my favorite parts of the series because it’s just a fun moment to realize how so much of our experience has a social construct around it and when you remove it, good art always breaks through.
Awards Daily: I caught a piece of an interview with Noel Gallagher from Oasis the other day, and he said the consumer does not know what they want until you give it to them. I thought that was so telling because if you say oh, this is what people like, let’s keep making the same thing, they get tired of it. The sense of discovery that STAX is a great example of that. The consumer didn’t know what they wanted until it was given to them.
Michele Smith: Great example too is that STAX didn’t know that they mattered outside of America until they found out that they provided something that people wanted outside of America. They didn’t know they were stars in London.
Awards Daily: It’s funny how that’s the story for Jimi Hendrix too, as well as a lot of American jazz and blues musicians, who were much more successful in the UK than they were back in the States. You see this footage of these young musicians who are not always comfortable walking down the streets of their own home being in a foreign country where they actually were much more free. That really hit me how different it was for them. And then they have to come back home.
Sophia Dilley: Yeah, it’s heartbreaking. The series does a really good job of showing the inequities without being overly didactic, but it is so unbelievably painful to watch. You just can’t imagine. It’s just heartbreaking.
Awards Daily: We were talking about found footage earlier. I love how in the documentary series, you hear Otis Redding’s voice before you see him–the recording quality is extraordinary. You see him first in what looks like a living room, with his horn players doing “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa, which is not one of his signature songs, but he’s playful as he’s figuring it out as he’s going along and he’s cueing the horn players. It was just magical. Were you stunned by some of the footage that existed?
Michele Smith: I think this is a point in time when we have to celebrate the archivist, Ines Farag, because she found footage and different archival pieces as the archive researcher for the docuseries. She found pieces that we’ve never seen before, even the footage of Sam & Dave. And yes, I was just stunned. You’re seeing these performances in new light because they’re not here any longer. That was just stunning to me to see those archival pieces and that music. And I also think we have to give kudos to the sound mixing as well, because how they brought it even more to life within the docuseries is extraordinary.
Awards Daily: That nomination (for sound mixing) was well earned. Then you get to the part where, historically, music made by black people, especially in the fifties and the sixties is often co-opted by white executives. And it did end up happening to STAX eventually. But the interesting thing here is the tension point actually goes from Jim and Estelle, who are white folks who really aren’t as ambitious, but then you bring in Al Bell who believes we can go higher with this music. Showing the tension when Al Bell, a black man, takes over this music. There’s this sense that you have in your head that STAX wasn’t as popular after Otis died, which is actually not true at all. Al had this capacity to promote the music in a way that I think Jim and Estelle just couldn’t have conceived of.
Michele Smith: I think it goes back to your other question. They were in a neighborhood that they did not know. Al Bell was a DJ. He knew black music. So for him to say to Mr. Stewart and Ms. Axton, this is the direction I think you need to take it to, he was speaking from his wisdom because he was in the community. He was in the culture. After Otis Redding died, and it wasn’t just Otis Redding—you had four members of the Bar-Kays—only Ben Cauley survived, STAX was stunned. STAX went into a time of mourning and then right after that, Dr. King dies and Atlantic takes the master recordings. I don’t know anybody who could have survived a triple devastation or three acute situations that happened right after each other. What’s really interesting though is when they might have thought STAX was dead, it was Al Bell that brought it back with Soul Explosion. The recording of 27 albums in that short period of time, and as Ms. Parker says, you cannot have a record label without a catalog. So it goes back to the testament of STAX. When people counted STAX out, STAX always rose. This is a story of people not willing to give up because society tells them to stop. They believed in themselves, they believed in what they were doing, and they kept on rising.
Sophia Dilley: I think there’s this tremendous spirit that exists, the part of what makes STAX STAX, that inherent energy. Ultimately, Al Bell takes that on in a way where he really was relentless in the pursuit of his dream. He just was the most ambitious person. It shows that when you’re faced with the worst things, you can look for opportunity in the problem, which I think Mr. Al Bell does incredibly well. He then faces the systemic racism, the corporate inequities, all of the things that become tragedies, but the spirit and the energy he brings is something that I think is really inspirational. For me that’s one of the biggest takeaways from the series. Don’t give up and do the right thing and always stay the course. He just said okay, got a problem, how do I solve it? He doesn’t let failure destroy him. It’s really remarkable and I think that’s something that everybody should look at and take away from this.
Awards Daily: What ends STAX’s glory days, is not that Al did anything wrong, it is that he was smeared. Sometimes all that has to happen to somebody to ruin their life is an accusation and then tying them up in court. Attaching him to the bank that STAX worked with and the fraud that was going on there, which Al had nothing to do with, that’s just the bank STAX used, and then also the refusal to distribute the records properly just shows how capitalism may have many benefits, but it also has this ability to put a crushing thumb down on people who are entrepreneurial.
Sophia Dilley: Yeah, and then think about what other art we missed out on.
Michele Smith: I also think in episode four Mr. Bell states about his relationship with Mr. Rockefeller, he foretells what’s going to happen. And a side note, when Jamila and I went to Memphis and screened it for the principals, at the end of episode four, at the end of the series, Mr. Bell took this deep breath and exhaled and you saw 50 years fall off his shoulders. You had two people in the audience say Mr. Bell, we didn’t know that’s what you went through, because he never talked to people about what he went through and his story. He said the truth is now finally coming out, and if this gives him a little bit of relief, then I’m grateful. This documentary is more powerful than people really believe because it’s changing lives.
It changed lives back in the fifties and sixties, but it’s changing lives today. And it is an important piece of film because it will be the one that goes into schools and libraries to help educate generations from now on. To learn that Mr. Bell was wronged in that manner, and the other things that happened to STAX Records, I just think it’s a wonderful way to document the story, reveal their truths, and help preserve the legacy. But more so it’s art moving into storytelling because I think Jamila and the filmmakers peel back the many complicated layers of STAX to reveal this honest story that is so poignant that it makes people sit back and say oh, I know the music, I didn’t know the label, I knew part of that story, I didn’t know that this was the ending. But it makes people think of who they are as people and how we treat others.
Awards Daily: I want to end this on two notes of joy because you can’t skip over the ending, but it’s a hard part to talk about. There’s certainly a difference between Sam & Dave and Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding, but you can feel how they’re connected in sound. But I didn’t put together the flexibility of the music in STAX until I thought about Otis and Isaac as being these sort of musical bookends who don’t really sound alike. It had to be a joyful experience to be able to show people the wide range of music that STAX created, because I think there’s a feeling that it’s Otis and then some other stuff, for people who are randomly interested.
Sophia Dilley: I consider myself a newbie to STAX in the last five years. Now I feel like I’m more of an expert, but at the beginning of this process I would definitely take the point of view that you did, which is, I know some of these songs. Then you start to get into the context behind them, in addition to feeling like I’m flying because this music is so incredible. But to your point, the idea that it was a bunch of fun, just let’s go jam. Let’s come up with music together. That moment during the recording of “Green Onions…” the hairs stick up on my arms every time I watch it. If anything, I just hope it inspires people to go start listening because this is just the surface. There are so many songs that couldn’t be in the series that are just fantastic and are ones that I can live in and just jam to when I’m out and about. So I’m very excited about the experience of it.
Michele Smith: I totally agree with Sophia, but I’ll say this. First off Booker T. and the M.G.’s were interracial, second they created the house band, and they played on all those records. So you have one band of four members who are behind Rufus, Carla, Otis, everybody if you go down the whole list. They play for William Bell, they play for Eddie Floyd, they play for everybody. And they don’t sound alike. The four same musicians. So I think that’s extraordinary. Not only that, when it comes to what you say about Otis and Isaac, I think that’s what’s so special. STAX evolved with the times. Isaac was at the forefront because he created the theme for Shaft.
It’s only when STAX stopped in ‘75 that “the magic ended.” But they were still evolving, so I think that’s what is the indomitable spirit of STAX. You could not squelch the fire and the creativity, the authenticity. The sound just needed to get out and be birthed. No matter who came out, like the Staples Singers, Linda Lindell, Shirley Brown, Jean Knight, Luther Ingram, Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” was recorded at STAX, Johnny Taylor, the fact that The Beatles wanted to record at STAX. There was something special there and still is and it’s the music that lasts, but it’s the heart and the essence. When I say purity, I mean the purity in the music because they just wanted to create music. And that’s why it’s long lasting.
Awards Daily: Wattstax has been a little bit lost as an event because of concerts like Woodstock and Live Aid, but the idea that this group of musicians went into Watts, which is a very black neighborhood in Los Angeles, and they gave this free concert and there wasn’t a police presence of any kind. Jamila and I talked about this a little bit, when Malcolm X came out, there was this idea that black people were going to go shoot up the theaters, which is the most ridiculous thing ever. The fourth episode is almost like a concert film to a large degree, and it shows the sheer joy that music brings to people. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. More people should know more about that. Now they will because of this documentary.
Michele Smith: August 20th we’ll be coming up to the 52nd anniversary of Wattstax. Wattstax came about, as you know, seven years after the Watts Rebellion. A lot of people say Watts Riots. It’s the Watts Rebellion. And when the Watts Summer Festival asked Mr. Al Bell to send one artist, all the artists got together. They all wanted to go. So they go to LA to put on a seven-hour concert for a hundred thousand plus African Americans of all ages. They didn’t want a police presence because seven years prior, what spurred the Watts Rebellion was an interaction in the community with the LAPD. It’s so special not just that the music was phenomenal, but also because it was bringing together a community, and that’s what STAX is about. If you find people who were there, they talk about how it was an amazing day. If you find people whose parents wouldn’t let them go, because they were fourteen years old, they’ll tell you how they still blame their parents for not letting them go. (Laughs). It was one dollar to get in.
It was a charitable concert. Woodstock was not a charitable concert. No other concert of its time, similar to Wattstax, did what Wattstax did. It was a way to uplift the African American community to say, as the Reverend Jesse Jackson says, “I am somebody,” I might be poor, I might be black, but I am somebody. It was a renewing of building and installing into the community that we still matter no matter what we go through or what we look like or how much money we have. STAX is important because it always gave back and thought about the community. Even during the Civil Rights movement, when Dr. King was killed, STAX was called on to get on the radio and ask for common peace. And that’s what STAX is known for, even to this day with the museum, the music academy, the charter school, it is about giving back to the young people the essence of the community. That’s what’s important. And Wattstax allowed people to see that it can be done. You just have to put the right parameters and it can be done.
Awards Daily: So can you two just keep making movies and shows forever?
Michele Smith: I’d love to. Who’s my partner in crime? (Laughs)
Sophia Dilley: We have lots of things on the horizon, both scripted and unscripted. We’re so lucky that we get to work in this space every day. And I think just to mirror off of what you just said, Michele, we talk about our ethos as a company that we want to champion artists, we want to elevate voices, and we want to impact culture. I think that’s what draws us to the stories within our own catalogs. What are the ones that really capture that kind of essence? We want to create things that we would want to watch and that we feel have that power. We take this responsibility very seriously. So I think watch this space because the two of us have more on the horizon.
Michele Smith: We’re just honored that you enjoyed Billie and people are enjoying STAX. We’re excited that people are seeing Stax and getting to know it better through the HBO series and I hope it just doesn’t stop there.
STAX: Soulsville, USA is available for streaming now on HBO
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