The 901: Remembering Stax co-founder Jim Stewart + Memphis mall and movie news
Good morning, Memphis, where Ja continues to amaze, where the river is at last on the rise, and where music-makers and even malls are being mourned. To wit:
The ST in STAX
Hardly a day seems to pass without the passing of some significant, even legendary music figure.
Jerry Lee Lewis. Loretta Lynn. Christine McVie. Ronnie Spector. Coolio. Meat Loaf. The 2022 list is long but we won't say it's sad, because we remember the music these people created with joy.
Arguably no person on that list deserves as much respect as Jim Stewart, the co-founder of Stax, the Memphis record label and studio that produced or released some of the most celebrated, influential and beloved music of he 1960s and '70s — recordings by Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, the Staple Singers, Booker T. & the MG's, and so many, many more.
Stewart was the ST in STAX; co-founder Estelle Axton, who was Stewart's sister, provided the AX, along with the financial support that enabled the duo to launch Satellite (Stax's original name) in 1958, a year after Sputnik.
The partners did not enter the business intending to devote themselves to R&B, but the success of the label's funky 1960 single, "'Cause I Love You," by another family unit, the father-and-daughter team of Rufus and Carla Thomas, was the signpost to a new direction. As The Commercial Appeal's Bob Mehr wrote in his obituary of Stewart: "It’s one of the strange twists of history that the greatest, funkiest soul label in the world, one of the most powerful outlets for Black expression, was started by a white hillbilly fiddler named Jim Stewart."
For the full story of Stewart's remarkable life and inestimable contribution to culture (popular and beyond), read Mehr's story. And for the soundtrack to your reading, you could do worse than this 1964 Stax single by Barbara and the Browns:
Another mall mauled
As Corinne Kennedy reported, the Oak Court Mall is going up for auction at the end of the year.
Opened in 1988 in what was a prime East Memphis location on Poplar Avenue near the Laurelwood Shopping Center, the mall couldn't overcome the convenience of shopping from home, the fear of crime, the disruptions of the pandemic and the bankruptcy of its former owner, the Washington Prime Group.
The news caused some Memphians to express regret and share nostalgic anecdotes about Oak Court on social media. Others more or less said it was time for the place to go.
Movie time
The big movie news of the coming week is James Cameron's "Avatar: The Way of Water," which officially opens Friday, Dec. 16, but in fact begins its run the night before, Thursday, Dec. 15, at just about every available cinema in the Memphis area (and, presumably, everywhere else in the United States).
But devotees of non-blockbuster cinema have other options next week, thanks to the programmers at Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis and Black Lodge.
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 14, at the Crosstown Cinema, Indie Memphis hosts another entry in its "Microcinema" series devoted to short films. This also will be Indie Memphis' final screening event of 2022. It should be a good one.
"Microcinema: Best of 'Departures' Shorts" is a program of shorts from around the world that screened during the past decade-plus in the Indie Memphis Film Festival's "Departures" category, which is devoted to films that are experimental, animated, bold, risky, sometimes funny and often just plain weird.
The screening, which should last about 90 minutes, has been curated by longtime "Departures" programmers Robin Salant and Ben Siler, so it should be rather — to use an antiquated term — far out. (More evidence: films to be screened include such titles as "Hologram Friend," "Learning Tagalog from Kayla" and "What If Black Boys Were Butterflies.") For more information, visit indiememphis.org. Admission is free.
Meanwhile, the Crosstown Arts Film Series wraps up its 2022 schedule at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, with the groundbreaking independent film "Losing Ground," from 1982.
Written and directed by Kathleen Collins, "Losing Ground" is reputed to be the first feature-length drama directed by an African-American woman since the 1920s. That's only one reason that it was selected in 2020 for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, which recognizes films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"; another is that it's an honest, insightful, culturally specific and broadly relevant probe into the limits of romantic, ethnic and artistic expression. The cast includes Duane Jones, the famously ill-fated hero of the original "Night of the Living Dead." Admission is $5. For more, visit crosstownarts.org.
Another big movie event is the return of Claudio Simonetti's Goblin to Black Lodge, the video store/entertainment venue at 405 N. Cleveland. Founded by Simonetti and others in Italy in 1972 as a progressive rock band, Goblin soon found fame among cult-film aficionados by composing and performing wildly expressive scores for equally over-the-top horror movies, such as Dario Argento's "Deep Red" and George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead."
On Friday, Dec. 16, the current touring incarnation of the band returns to Black Lodge (where it made its Memphis debut in 2019) to perform what might be Goblin's greatest work, the score to Argento's 1977 masterpiece, "Suspiria," in accompaniment with the film. A Goblin's-greatest-hits concert will follow. Tickets range from $35 to $65. Visit blacklodgememphis.com.
'The 12 Days of Memphis'
Last year, The Commercial Appeal talked me into writing what was dubbed "a new carol for the Bluff City," titled "The 12 Days of Memphis." It turned out better than I'd hoped (the Christmas wish in the lyrics for "Ja Morant with a healthy knee" still applies), especially when performed by Justin Merrick and the Freedom Singers, a group that is part of the Creative Underground arts mission of the Center for Transforming Communities.
Christmas may still be 16 days away, but here's an encore presentation of the video of that performance. (Yes, you caught me re-gifting, again.)
John Beifuss is a pop culture and features reporter for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at john.beifuss@commercialappeal.com.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: The 901: Remembering Stax's Jim Stewart; Oak Court Mall up for auction
