I thank Screen13 for the knowledgeable follow up post to my Stax Records history. Part of my dilemma in writing these histories of the major soul music labels was limiting the content. If you write a blog post that exceeds 20 or so medium size paragraphs, you lose that 50% of readers who lack the attention span to read a longer piece.
My original unedited Stax history was 65 paragraphs but only a handful of people with a deep interest in soul music would have read the unedited version. I decided to concentrate on Stax's anchor artist, Otis Redding and therefore many important players in the Stax chronicles, like Booker T and the MGs, Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas and Albert King didn't get their due.
I'm currently editing the Motown Story which is the longer than both the previously posted Atlantic and Stax histories. Motown's sordid story under the rule of Barry Gordy is a compelling object lesson on how not to treat your artists, producers and front office employees. It's ironic that the only black owner of the three legendary '60s soul record companies was a ruthless tyrant who ran his record label like Idi Amin ran the nation of Uganda. There are so many compelling stories at Motown that I think I'll have to allocate two seperate posts to Motown, even after I complete the final edit. I'm hoping to get the Motown story posted by the end of this week.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt
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