It is late Wednesday night, technically early Thursday morning and if this were five years ago it would be past my bedtime. In 1999 I was taking classes at the community college and Thursdays were my big day. I had to be at school from eight in the morning until three thirty in the afternoon, and that included almost five hours of actual class time. Five for sure, it might have been six hours. Thursdays were tough. It was my own fault though, I had made the schedule.
Of course, the other days of the week each only had two classes, so it all worked out. Mainly I had based my schedule on what credits would transfer to the Big State University. I wanted to get the general courses for half the Big State University price. While browsing the catalog I found a class called The History Of Rock And Pop Music, and you can be sure that I signed right up. Hello transferable Humanities credit that I will love ever so much.
My teacher was fabulous. Ms. Yolanda. We were supposed to call her by her first name and all, but I always stuck the Ms. on there because I respected her tremendously. She ran a great class. And she knew everything! She told us she had been raised on James Brown and jazz, but she knew blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, everything.
I felt terrible (yeah, right) for the people who had taken the class for easy credits. Oh, did they ever suffer. We had two textbooks and a never-ending syllabus because we read both books in their entirety. And she didn't always lecture (or test) out of the books. She might refer to them occasionally, but the books were our responsibility. She was there to fill our heads with additional information.
And in this class, The History Of Rock And Pop Music did not begin with Bill Haley and The Comets, not even close. It started with three categories of pre-Civil War music. We learned about musical trends of the military, free people, and slaves. We saw slave spirituals and work songs spin off into gospel and blues. Then we learned about the three types of blues. (I just gave LCG the, "NOW, there are three categories of blues..." lecture a week or two ago. Thank you Ms. Yolanda!)
We also learned about country and western, folk, and Big Band music. She had to cover the different regional types of music because they would all eventually collide into rock and roll. I cannot tell you how much I loved this class. I showed up early every week. Sure, I had an hour or so to kill before class, but I would sit on a bench outside the music classroom to do my homework. I still have all of my notes from that class in a binder on my bookshelf.
But the best thing I ever learned in that class was about Soul. Ms. Yolanda made sure to drum into our heads that there is a difference between Motown and Soul. Both are good, but Motown music is Motown music and Soul music is Stax/Volt. A couple of years later when I was working in a record store, my boss Smithers made fun of me when I made divider cards for the LP section that read SOUL/R&B/MOTOWN. I was all, "Dude, Ms. Yolanda said. There is a difference."
I think she made the distinction because Motown worked more on an assembly line premise and less of a creative premise. I think. I know that is how I make the quick distinction these days. Motown was trying to make hits while Stax was trying to make music. I believe she was also big on the fact that Stax was an integrated studio that never made a big deal about being an integrated studio. I have always gotten the impression that Stax was more concerned with talent than anything else.
That class is where I acquired my love for Steve Cropper. He was the guitarist with Booker T. and the MGs and as well as releasing records of their own, they were also the house band at Stax. Our final project in that class was a research project and my topic was Steve Cropper. Steve! Cropper! Not that I needed any kissy-ass points, but I didn't think it would hurt to pick a topic that both me and Ms. Yolanda found interesting.
I bring this up because the co-founder of Stax records died yesterday and I found out by sheer luck. I had already plowed through the entire paper and then gone on to the crossword. For some reason I stopped back at the Variety section, which I had already read. On the little Entertainment News sidebar I saw the headline Stax Records co-founder Estelle Axton dies and my stomach just sank. Now, I am not the last word on Soul music, but this goes beyond Soul music. It's about respect. Another important figure from the heyday of independent record labels has died and the news was shoved off to the side.
I raced over to the Billboard site to see if they had posted the story. Nope. Well, VH1 Classic had a Soul special on the other night so I thought I would have better luck at the VH1 site. Nope. I got all wild-eyed and bitter and called LCG to bitch about the fact that the news outlets had failed me yet again.
LCG: Hello!
Me: The co-founder of Stax Records died and no one has the news!
LCG: Well, you do know that Janet Jackson's boob popped out at the Super Bowl, don't you? I don't think that has gotten enough coverage.
Me: Do you know what is the top story is on the VH1 site?
LCG: Boob!
Me: No...
LCG: Popped out!
Me: Nope. Justin Timberlake is pulling out of some Motown tribute.
LCG: That's news because he was there when the boob popped out.
Me: People are not happy with him for letting Janet take all the blame. Oh, and down further we have Bobby Brown in jail again...
LCG: For what?
Me: ...I dunno...I saw that yesterday. Uh, probation violation. Failure to (insert many "failures to" here). So, it looks like four violations of probation all together. Anyway...oh, look! Nick and Jessica have relationship advice.
LCG: Oh, no.
Me: That isn't news! The death of the co-founder of Stax Records is news. This is bigger than when Johnny Cash died.
LCG: Um. No it's not.
Me: Okay, fine. It's bigger than when Sam Phillips died.
LCG: I might give you that one.
Me: So he launched Elvis, BIG DEAL. This lady ran an integrated label. Stax was for everybody! Lemme check when the story ran...1:31 Eastern time, okay, so the story is five hours old. It should be on VH1 by now. If it's not there tomorrow I'm going to be mad.
LCG: Well, there might be more Janet Jackson boob news tomorrow.
Unfortunately, he's probably right. I just hope Estelle Axton does get the respect she deserves. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that being a woman running an integrated studio in Memphis in the sixties was not always the easiest task in the world. But she (along with her co-founding brother) got the job done, and for that we should be grateful.