Stax Records


  • Rock Chronicles, Part 1 โ€” Joe Cocker, with a little help from his friends

    In 1966, a gruff-voiced blues singer was looking to put a band together that might finally propel his straggling career to the next level. Joe Cockerโ€”born John Robert Cocker in 1944โ€” lived on Tasker Road in the English city of Sheffield. As early as 1960, at the age of sixteen, Cocker was already well under…

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  • Bob Dylan dead and done? The Bootleg Series Vol. 16, 1980โ€“1985

    The apocalypse was clearly at hand. Bob Dylan was dead and done. He had snapped and self-destructed. As the โ€˜80s dawned, even those who worshipped the man were having their doubts. The rebel, the doubter, the immensely skeptical, infinitely gifted oracle from Minnesota who predicted that the times they were a changinโ€™ was suddenly, unexpectedly,…

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  • Diving into Disco, Part 3 โ€” The Motown years

    Blues migrated towards the urban centres, along its way electrifying guitars and gigs, as black musicians fleeing southern racial segregation strived for more economic opportunities and a better life in places like Detroit, Chicago, and New York City.

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  • Groovinโ€™ with Booker T. & the M.G.โ€™sโ€”beginning of an homage

    I was born in the โ€˜60s, a decade when records and radio waves were in perfect sync. You could hear every kind of music, at any time of day or night; all you had to do was cruise up and down the AM dial. We had a station in Chicagoโ€”WVONโ€”that played great urban music. My…

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