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Jim Stewart, the white country fiddler whose powerhouse R&B-soul label Stax Records launched such stars as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Sam & Dave, has died at age 92 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he started the label in the 1950s in an in-law’s garage.
Stewart, widely credited as a trailblazer for his role in helping integrate American pop music at a time of strict racial segregation in the Deep South, died on Monday at a Memphis hospital.
His death was confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday by Tim Sampson, a spokesperson for the Memphis-based Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Sampson said the Stewart family did not disclose a cause of death.
Between 1959 and 1975, the label released 800 singles and 300 albums, among them Hayes’ soundtrack for the 1971 movie “Shaft,” which won him an Oscar.
The talent roster included the Staples Singers, the Emotions, the Soul Children, and Booker T. & the MG’s, which served as a house band for Redding, Sam and Dave and scores of other Stax artists.
Redding’s signature hit “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay,” was recorded at Stax. And Wilson Pickett’s breakthrough single, “In the Midnight Hour” was recorded there as an outside production for Atlantic Records.
The Stax label amassed a total of eight Grammy Awards, produced three No.
