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Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion
Contributor(s): Gordon, Robert (Author)
ISBN: 1608194167     ISBN-13: 9781608194162
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
OUR PRICE:   $18.90  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: February 2015
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Music | Genres & Styles - Soul & R&b
- Music | History & Criticism - General
- Music | Genres & Styles - Blues
Dewey: 384
Physical Information: 1.4" H x 6.1" W x 9" (1.35 lbs) 480 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 20th Century
- Chronological Period - 1960's
- Chronological Period - 1970's
- Ethnic Orientation - Multicultural
- Geographic Orientation - Tennessee
- Cultural Region - Mid-South
- Cultural Region - Southeast U.S.
- Cultural Region - South
- Locality - Memphis, Tennessee
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a monument to racial harmony in blighted south Memphis during the civil rights movement. Their success soon pits the siblings against each other, and the brother abandons his sister for a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, the heights they achieve result in their tragic demise. They fall, losing everything, and the sanctuary they created is torn to the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick and is once again transforming disenfranchised youth into stellar young musicians.

Set in the world of 1960s and '70s soul music, Respect Yourself is a character-driven story of racial integration, and then of black power and economic independence. It's about music and musicians--Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, and Booker T. and the M.G.'s, Stax's interracial house band. It's about a small independent company's struggle to survive in an increasingly conglomerate-oriented world. And always at the center of the story is Memphis, Tennessee, an explosive city struggling through volatile years. Told by one of our leading music chroniclers, Respect Yourself is the book to own about one of our most treasured cultural institutions and the city that created it.


Contributor Bio(s): Gordon, Robert: - Robert Gordon is Professor of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and Director of the Pinter Research Centre in Performance and Creative Writing. His research has focused on modern British theatre, the theory and practice of performance and on musical theatre He has published books on Stoppard and Harold Pinter, on modern acting theories and edited The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies and is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical.