Stax Records
Stax Records is the Memphis soul label founded by Jim Stewart in 1957 as Satellite Records, renamed Stax in September 1961; with its sister label Volt it defined the Southern soul sound out of a converted movie theater on McLemore Avenue.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-stax-records.md]
Why it matters to the Hammond story
Stax's house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, was one of the first racially integrated groups of session musicians in the South, and its keyboard chair — Booker T. Jones on the Hammond B-3 and piano — turned the church-organ voice into the engine of hit instrumental R&B. "Green Onions" (1962) is the single most famous Hammond-led hit of the 1960s and a textbook of restraint: drawbar-set groove, Leslie speed swells, and space.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-stax-records.md]^[raw/articles/wikipedia-booker-t-jones.md]
Jones also played on hundreds of Stax sessions, making the B-3 a core texture of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave and William Bell records — the bridge between gospel organ and rock-radio audiences.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-stax-records.md]
Hammond-relevant highlights
- "Green Onions" (1962) and the M.G.'s instrumental run — the B-3 as hit-making rhythm engine^[raw/articles/wikipedia-booker-t-jones.md]
- House-session organ work across the Stax/Volt catalogue^[raw/articles/wikipedia-stax-records.md]