Full Transcript for David Porter

it that's different? Can you talk a little bit about that process? 00:03:47 Speaker 3: I thought it was fascinating. Coming up in the 40s and 50s, as Isaac and I did, we had the opportunity to see the transition of authenticness of Black talents, meaning that they found the greatest path to recognition for them. And that became what was something known as an identity for them. Motown, in the writing at Motown, exemplified that in a way that cracked America's consciousness open to being appreciative to music that was made by people that look like me, unlike anything else that had happened prior to that. Even though inside of the greatness of the Fats Dominoes and the Muddy Waters and the Chuck Berries, that uniqueness was also there. But it was evident, that those times of talents finding themselves in their own originality would be the means by which it would change the American appreciation for music coming from people that look like me. And that is really the meat of the merit of what this music has done throughout the world. 00:05:04 Speaker 2: And you were, a lot of people sort of put Stax and Motown against each other. like they're opposites. You liked Motown Records. 00:05:12 Speaker 3: I love what Motown was doing. Motown was able to take what I call the straight four beat, straight four, and put these beautiful melodies on top of them and make you feel that. And then when they wanted to get pretty with a little bit of strings or whatever, they were able to do that in the most effective way. Burt Bacharach, Hal Davis were able to take chord progressions and melody, intricate ways of going about finding uniqueness inside of their melodies and make it be so, so powerful and profound. Those two were the tempest of what we aspired to do, we being Isaac and I. But we knew that we cannot do Motown better than Motown, and we could certainly not do Rack-a-Rack Hal David better than they could. So we had to find an identity that could, in fact, work for us. That opportunity existed from the foundation that we got from the church and from that emotional merit that the spirituality of the church would give you when you would go to worship. And out of that came an appreciation for the rhythmic kinds of essences that came through the spirituality of people expressing themselves, not just through the song, but through the movements and the tempos that were set in those movements that gave you something to think about. Well, if that kind of action works in that kind of way, why not let us find a way to do that through the music that we would do that would not be competing with those that we respect, such as Motown. And so we found that that was existing on the low end through the bass, drums, guitar, and keyboards. And we found that the opportunity to create a signature line, as we call it, a musical part from that area and make that be a compliment in addition to the lyrical connotation, the merit of the melodies as well, would have an identity that could possibly create a niche for us. And we knew that that was the way to go when we did a record on Sam and Dave called You Don't Know Like I Know. That was the path that we should work to even perfect even more. We were attempting to do it, but we were not all in until we got the opportunity to try this on Sam and Dave. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: So what did you do on that song that you weren't able to do before? 00:07:31 Speaker 3: It was in the bass pattern, the bass line pattern on the song. That was a signature line happening with that bass pattern. There was a signature happening also with the horn patterns. We created melodies, singing melodies with the horn patterns that were also a little bit extended beyond what you would hear on other records, Motown and others as well. That was an avenue that we felt gave us an opportunity to have a lane that was unique for us. 00:08:00 Speaker 2: And you mentioned the floor-on-the-floor feel. Of Motown. 00:08:05 Speaker 3: Motown. 00:08:05 Speaker 2: You didn't have that though. 00:08:06 Speaker 3: No, no. The straightforward that Motown had, they would make the beat, make you feel the straightforward beat, but the melodies that they would do through the singers and the songs would create the movements for the accents or whatever they would want to do through that way. But they didn't overemphasize it through the musical instruments. And we did. That was a conscious effort on our part to do that. 00:08:28 Speaker 2: And so how did you, when you sat down, You and Isaac sat down, you wrote that song, and then how did you communicate that to the band? And the band, I'm assuming, was Al Jackson the drummer on that? 00:08:42 Speaker 3: Al Jackson Jr., Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, some cases Booker T. Jones, other cases Isaac would be playing the keyboard. The Memphis horns would consist of Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love, and we would add, in most cases, a couple other players, different players, but always around Andrew and Wayne. That was the foundation of the uniqueness of Stax Records. And we used that to its fullest to also magnify what we saw was the individuality of us. Now, having to do that would be going into the studio, giving each musician the parts that created, as I mentioned to you, the emphasis that we were going for on the low end. And Otis Redding was the artist that perfected this technique, but we had it as well. But Otis was perfect at it. And that is going around the room, giving the identical lines that you wanted the bass player to play, the guitar player to play, the essence of the drum, percussive kind of direction to go in for Al, and then to put those together and make it marry the personality that you were trying to find inside of the song. So we did what we call head arrangement. That is, after we would write a song, and this happened with everybody at Stax over time, we would go into the studio and let the uniqueness of the personality of the song come through, not only through the

melody and the lyrics, but in the music that would accompany it. 00:10:08 Speaker 2: Did the band members, when you worked with them, did they contribute some of their own things to it? Or were they kind of doing what you said? 00:10:17 Speaker 3: Any of the patterns that we would give out had to be played to the trueness of the pattern. But inside of any pattern, as you well know with music, you have the opportunity to, to have a little bit of your persona and your personality, because the only way you can make it have the feel that it has is you have to believe in what you're doing. And the only way you can do that is feel that you're connected in a personal way to doing it. And so that was a part of it as well. So certainly, but each of the patterns were patterns that were thought out in order to have freshness and uniqueness for these musical parts. You had to have, because you had basically the same players playing a personality and a persona, from artist to artist, song to song, if not everything would end up sounding alike. And so we had to magnify the efforts to be sure that we were accomplishing that goal. 00:11:06 Speaker 2: So you would have different ideas for Carla Thomas than you would for Sam and Dave or for the emotions. 00:11:12 Speaker 3: On purpose and with the surety that in order to have a chance to make the music have connection in the marketplace, there are no new emotions. You have to find a fresh way to talk about common emotions through songs. In order to do that, you have to look for fresh ways in every aspect of it to do it. And inside of the book, I talk about that extensively because it's so important for people to understand that as great as we were with what we attempted to do at Stax Records, it was not something that we just haphazardly went into the studio to do. We had so many artists to work with. We had to think through processes in order to have a value for every artist that the public would get a chance to hear in the marketplace. And we were passionate about that. 00:11:55 Speaker 2: So when you were writing, were you always writing with a certain group in mind? 00:11:59 Speaker 3: Every time. 00:12:00 Speaker 2: Because at Motown, they would write a song and say, well, this would be good for Martha Reeve. This would be good for Diana Ross. 00:12:06 Speaker 3: No. No. No, we had to personify the uniqueness of personalities. We want identity artists that we would work with. The artists that we worked with and we were passionate about all had Their personal identity that could stand on its own and what they needed to have to magnify that was the right kind of material to help them to do that. So we knew if we would sit down to write a song for, hypothetically, Johnny Taylor, we knew why we would take it a particular direction to do it a certain kind of way on Johnny Taylor. By the same token, we would do the same thing with Sam and Dave. or if we were working on a song for Albert King, or we would go to the

other end of the spectrum and work on a song for The Emotions or The Soul Tour. And we knew that we had to capture their true essence, but also not lose the abilities of being sure that we're not replicating something that we would have done on some other artists the day before. 00:13:05 Speaker 2: So, for example, Johnny Taylor, who had a huge hit with Who's Making Love. 00:13:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, right. 00:13:10 Speaker 2: What would you do on a Johnny Taylor record, say, compared to a Sam and Dave record? 00:13:14 Speaker 3: Well, on the Johnny Taylor record, that was produced by a gentleman by the name of Don Davis. But Don couldn't get what we call the final master take on Johnny. And so he got Isaac and I to help him with that record. So Isaac did the horn arrangements on Who's Making Love. I did the vocal arrangement with Johnny Taylor. And with Johnny Taylor, I knew that part of his arrangements, identity rather, that worked well for him, for him to have signatures and inside of words or inside of what we call a squall or a vocal sound that sounds like a scream. And on Who's Making Love, I gave him a line that said, hear me now. And he screamed that, hear me now, at the very top of the record. And he screamed it a couple of times in the record. That was calculated and on purpose. And so in the horn parts that gave that track energy, that was Isaac Hayes. 00:14:10 Speaker 2: He wrote all the horn parts, right? 00:14:13 Speaker 3: On that particular song. The song was not written by us, but at Stax Records, we had a thing about trying to help everybody to have success because fortunately for Isaac and I, we were fortunate enough to have success just on everything we worked on. 00:14:27 Speaker 2: Did you ever write the horn parts? 00:14:29 Speaker 3: Well, that's what I meant by head arrangement. We would come up with horn parts by head arrangement. Isaac didn't sit down and write a horn chart. We'd come up with the parts inside of the room. So I would come up with some parts as well, But Isaac was more profound at that than anyone. Anyone associated with Stax Records. No one can compete with Isaac Hayes on horn parts. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: So I'm thinking of the, it's one of the signature horn parts of all time that starts Hold On, I'm Coming. 00:14:56 Speaker 3: That was Isaac. Matter of fact, that horn part on Hold On, I'm Coming, Isaac had that down a couple weeks before we even came up with the idea of Hold On, I'm Coming. That idea came about when we were out at a club one night just jamming and and having fun, we would leave a club, go back to the recording studio, work on writing songs late at night. Many nights we would do that. And one of the nights was Hold On, I'm Coming, and I went to the restroom, and Isaac was trying to rush me out. Well, he screamed, hey, man, hurry up. And I screamed, hold on, I'm coming. I came out of the restroom and said, hey, buddy, I got one. He said, what? I said, hold on, I'm coming. And we talked about

the concept and sat down and talking about it. He said, I have a horn pattern that could work on that. And he played that horn pattern for me. And we talked about a rescue song. And in 20 minutes, we wrote Hold On, I'm Coming. 00:15:47 Speaker 2: Now you say a rescue song. Is that how you talked about it back then? 00:15:51 Speaker 1: Right. 00:15:51 Speaker 3: We were motivated off of the TV show Superman. Yeah. We were really motivated off of that small TV screen. And during that time, Superman was a big hit on television. So the concept was a rescue song. And that's why Isaac said, hey, I got this horn pattern that sounds like a fanfare for rescue. And that was where that pattern, we had that pattern before we started writing the song. Wow. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: So it was a restroom song that became a rescue song. Is that what you're telling me? Yes. 00:16:24 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:16:25 Speaker 2: Okay, I want to ask you one more question about influences at that time, which is on one of your own albums, and I think it's the opera album. 00:16:35 Speaker 3: Victim of the Joke. 00:16:36 Speaker 2: Victim of the Joke. You do a great... great rolling cover of Help by the Beatles. 00:16:43 Speaker 3: Oh, wow. Thank you. 00:16:44 Speaker 2: Love that. 00:16:44 Speaker 3: I love that version. 00:16:46 Speaker 2: Were you influenced by the Beatles at all at that time, or was it too early for them to make an impact? 00:16:51 Speaker 3: No, the Beatles were quite impactful. I thought their writing was really, really special. This was 1972, 73 when I recorded that album, and they had already been superstars And their writing was already validated as unbelievably great. And we had artists that wanted to record and cover some of the Beatles songs. By the way, the Beatles had already approached Jim Stewart about coming to Saks to record. The only reason they didn't is the word got out that they were going to. That was something I wanted to do. I wanted to do a song by the Beatles. That was one of those head arrangements things that I was talking about. Now, after doing the head arrangements for the rhythm of the song, I did sit down with a string and horn arranger and hummed out parts for him to put on the charts of that. And I did that. And all of those parts were head arrangement parts. But that was wanting to take the song in a direction that was more like my kind of energy, but also trying not to embarrass myself by doing a weak version of something of one of the greatest artists who had lived. That was a passion for me. I had such great respect for those guys writing. 00:18:05 Speaker 2: And then your friend, Maurice White, ended up covering them a little bit with Earth, Wind. 00:18:10 Speaker 3: & Fire, too. Well, the interesting thing in my book, I talk about this. Maurice and I came from the same day at Inn Street in Memphis, Tennessee, singing at that church, Rose Hill Baptist Church, being influenced by the church, and understanding the value of crystallizing a concept if you wanted to do music. And he took the concept part of that, and I talk about how he vetted the title of Earth, Wind, and Fire with me and how we went through me going to Los Angeles and him, we walking up Sunset Boulevard, and he explained the concept of that. But we both understood the value of being sure that you find a fresh way to talk about common emotions lyrically, melodically, and musically. And so that was a part of that. He perfected it with Earth, Wind, and Fire. I like to think Isaac and I perfected it with what we were doing at Stacks Records. 00:19:08 Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going back to that dead-end street where you grew up. How many siblings did you have? 00:19:15 Speaker 3: Twelve. 00:19:15 Speaker 2: Twelve siblings. 00:19:16 Speaker 3: You're right. 00:19:16 Speaker 2: But your father died when you were. 00:19:18 Speaker 3: My father died when I was two. 00:19:19 Speaker 2: And is it true that you never saw a photo of your father? 00:19:22 Speaker 3: I have never seen a photo of my father to this day. What was happening is he worked at IC Railroad, hard-working man. Big family was not a lot of money in the 40s, not for the Porter family. And so the last thing that was thought about, I would imagine, would be let's get a camera to take pictures. So it was about survival. And so there was no way for him to know that he would pass. He passed in his 40s. He was 43 years old when he died. And so certainly not thinking about leaving the earth that young. And so I would imagine over time he may would have had some. But no, I've never seen a picture of him. The family that lived next door to me was the Cunningham family. That street was the dead end street was full of of creativeness, in my opinion. Maurice White right across the street from me from my house. The Cunningham family next door door to me. Carl Cunningham was the drummer of a group called the Bar Cays. He also was the drummer that perished in the airplane crash with Otis Redding. So on that street was the Bar Cays, Earth, Wind & Fire, and the producers at Stax Records, one of them, and David Porter. 00:20:34 Speaker 2: That's a pretty good dead-end street. 00:20:36 Speaker 3: That's a pretty good dead-end street. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from David Porter after the break. 00:20:46 Speaker 2: You mentioned the church because... What fascinated me in your book, because there was so much talent in Memphis, but you wonder, a lot of that talent could have gone to waste. But there were institutions that seemed to really kind of nurture you and a lot of the people who ended up at Stax. You mentioned the church. Was that your mother's church that she went to? 00:21:07 Speaker 3: Yes, definitely so. 00:21:09 Speaker 2: So that was the church everybody went to, because I'm sure she made sure of that. 00:21:12 Speaker 3: That was the place right there. 00:21:14 Speaker 2: And now did you sing... In the choir at church, did you sing

solos? 00:21:17 Speaker 3: It was a very, very small choir. Maurice Kelly and Leanna Cunningham, the brothers of Carl, we were the ones that were singing in that small choir. 00:21:27 Speaker 2: Now, do you have a favorite song from back then that you remember from that? 00:21:30 Speaker 3: Amazing Grace was a staple of all of the Baptist churches back in those days. And that was just one of those things. And when I was coming up at a very, very young age, there were standard hymn songs that were sung more than anything else. As time went on, by the time you get to the latter part of the 50s, there were more gospel artists coming up with more original songs, more original songs that had more melodic stretches, melodically and musically, and it became a different world. So now I'm singing in high school in church, the songs were different. But on that day at Inn Street, it was mostly Amazing Grace and those kinds of standard kinds of gospel singing that was permeated throughout most of the churches of the times. 00:22:18 Speaker 2: Did anybody say, wow, David, you've got a great voice? 00:22:22 Speaker 3: Well, interestingly enough, I never heard anybody say it, but it did not stop Maurice White David Porter and Leanne and Kelly Cunningham from thinking that we had great voices because we thought people were reacting to us in the church based on what was going on during the services. We didn't realize until later when our mothers told us to shut up, the people were worshiping because we thought it was about us. We thought we were great singers. But the church gave us as youngsters confidence to be comfortable and confident being in the presence of people and showing what you had in your talent pool. 00:22:57 Speaker 2: And were you singing in harmony back then? 00:23:00 Speaker 3: You had the opportunity to learn those kind of traits very, very young. Yes, you could sing in harmonies. You could sing with attitude. You could sing with range and all of those because you heard so much of that. There was so much talent in our communities during those times. You heard so many examples of those people who were stretching themselves to find themselves through song. And that motivates you to try to find yourself. So yes, homities and range and baritone and tenors and sopranos and altos was a common trait for any and everyone to sing. 00:23:40 Speaker 2: Did you learn to read music then? 00:23:42 Speaker 3: None of us read music. Really? We didn't have the opportunities to have music class. At Stax Records, Isaac did not read music. David Porter didn't read music. None of the folk at Stax Records. We all did head arrangements. and learn to play just by playing. I was not a person that grabbed an instrument. I wanted to play trumpet, and I started with a trumpet and put it down quickly because I wanted to be a singing star. Maurice started beating cans and things such as that, and he wanted to be a drummer. By the time he got in high school, he was playing

drums in a band. I was singing on talent shows. But as far as reading and going through a lot of that, no, that was not the case. 00:24:21 Speaker 2: Now, was it true that your first talent show you sang a Paul Anka song? 00:24:26 Speaker 3: I flunked on the talent show because I was in high school, the ninth grade, and that was not the first talent show I sang on, but that was the first high school talent show I sang on. And here I was thinking that I was such a huge fan of that song called Diana by Paul Anka. And I'm thinking that I'm going to sing Diana on this talent show. Now, mind you, the radio station that was now playing black music in Memphis, WDIA-NC, It already started. It started in 1947, 48. By the time we get to the late 50s, 59, I had enough music in my coffers to grab some of those songs that were played on DIA. But I was such a fan of beautiful melodies and lyric and all of that. And I just looked at songs and songs. I thought I would take that song and do it on a talent show. And I bummed. I could not believe that no one responded to me whatsoever singing Diana. And the reason being was people were getting on the stage singing Bobby Blue Bland songs, singing Ted Taylor songs, and some of the great R & B artists and David Porter got on the stage singing a pretty beautiful song, which had very little connectivity to it, to that audience. 00:25:44 Speaker 2: Written by a kid from Ottawa, Canada. 00:25:48 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:25:50 Speaker 2: There were some amazing talents at that school. Is that where you met Booker T? 00:25:55 Speaker 3: Booker T. Jones was two years behind Maurice White and I. William Bell was two years in front of Maurice and I. 00:26:02 Speaker 2: Who sang You Don't Miss Your Water. 00:26:05 Speaker 3: You Don't Miss Your Water. Andrew Love, the leader of the Memphis Horns, was two years above us. Al Jackson was four years above us in high school. Rufus Thomas, many years before us, went to Booker T. Washington High School. a school so rich in talent. Isaac Hayes, who we were friends only from talent shows that were held on Beale Street at a movie theater called the Palace Theater when you sing on Wednesday nights trying to win $ 3 for first place. He was a product of a Manassas High School, which was on the other side of the city, and they were known for their emphasis around jazz. Music in schools and and the like, that's such an important thing. It's a shame when schools don't really, really push to have that as a common thing in our educational systems. 00:26:58 Speaker 2: But you didn't take an instrument in high school. You just sang, right? 00:27:01 Speaker 3: No, I wanted to be Clyde McFetter. And I put the trumpet down, any thoughts of that, and I wanted to be a singer. And that's what I pursued passionately. 00:27:11 Speaker 2: You mentioned another great Memphis institution, which was WEIA. I think it was the first... radio station in the U.S. that primarily focused on a Black audience. 00:27:22 Speaker 3: It was the very first. WDIA was the first African-American radio station in the United States of America who had an emphasis totally around Black music. And that was the beginning of us in 47, 48, Maurice White, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, learning about the power of individuality in artists who found a way to show their own uniqueness by the way they created melodies by the way they played instruments, by the way they sang songs. And that told us that if you want to have a chance to be successful in music, you got to find the individuality seed that exists in everyone and magnify that to the extent that people can feel you, that you're comfortable with it, you're passionate with it, and you're also effective as you do it. 00:28:11 Speaker 2: Who are some of the artists you remember listening to and being moved by? 00:28:14 Speaker 3: Oh, Fats Domino is one. Mm-hmm. Johnny Ace is another. Ray Charles, needless to say, is another. The Moonglows and Lil' Anthony and Imperials are others. I mean, there was Benny King in the very late stages of my career when I'm starting to really get some traction was another. There were so many great, great talents. Right before I graduated from high school, the record that emotionally just moved me to the hilt was a record by a group called The Impressions. It was led by a guy by the name of Jerry Butler, and the song was For Your Precious Love. And I walked from my home to the radio station where Jerry Butler came to Memphis and was being interviewed at WLOK radio station. He was 19 years old, and I asked him when he came out of the radio station, would he mind telling me how to get in music business? What's the best way? And he wasn't that much older than I, but he had this massive hit record, For Your Precious Love, with the impression, And he told me to be diversified. And I kept that word with me always. And I first found out the true meaning of what being diversified meant. And I made sure that I knew more than just singing. I started really emphasizing the writing possibilities and finding out what other kind of areas of music that one could get into to be a part of it. And so that was all a part of it. But the radio station WDIA set the template for you to understand the power of individuality. 00:29:48 Speaker 2: And they had DJs like Rufus Thomas, B.B. King. 00:29:51 Speaker 3: Nat D. Williams. B.B. King was one. Nat D. Williams was the first African-American DJ hired at WDIA. And he was also a high school teacher. He taught at Booker T. Washington High School history. He was also my teacher at Booker T. Washington High School history. He was a great, great man. The amazing thing about WDIA, the people they hired, they may not have been aware of it totally. I don't think they were. But the people they hired were educators. So these were people that would go into the persona of a personality or uniqueness for the performance of the radio station and then come off of that and go to a school and

teach kids English, algebra, whatever. And so the power of that was something that resonated in an unbelievable way for us. 00:30:38 Speaker 2: You know, another great institution, if you want to call it that, in Memphis was Beale Street with all the bars. When did you start singing there? 00:30:45 Speaker 3: Well, the truth is, when I mentioned a day in the street that I talked about and the talents that were on that street, all of the talents that were on that street, we could walk from our homes up to Beale Street, which is not even a mile away. So Maurice and I would walk to Beale Street. We were too young to go in the clubs. But we would see people on the street dressing these amazing suits and looking all sharp and everything. You would see some stars when they would come into town during the course of the late afternoons. We were out of school. We would see them walking into these clubs with instruments. And some of the artists were going for rehearsals. And that was so amazingly fascinating. And Beale Street was a street that had all of the great entertainers walking. who would come to perform on that street. All of the clubs were loaded on the street with high-level entertainment. And that's one of the reasons why a young man by the name of Elvis Presley would be hanging around those clubs meeting people. And this was during the times of segregation. Elvis Presley, I didn't know he was Elvis Presley at the time, but I saw this white guy on the street quite often when we would walk up there, and it was Elvis. And so it was one of those things where A young kid with a passion for music had kinds of potential influences that resonated with him in meaningful ways. And Beale Street was one of those streets that played a key role in that. There was a theater on the street, the Palisade, that would have talent shows every Wednesday night for young kids who were in high school to come and sing on the talent shows that show their talent wares. And that also was one of the great pluses. That's how I really got to know Isaac Hayes very well. He had a vocal group called the Teen Tones, and I had a vocal group called the Marquettes. And we would compete on Wednesday nights for $ 2 and $ 3 trying to win the first prize. 00:32:40 Speaker 2: Were you singing kind of classic doo-wop? 00:32:43 Speaker 3: What were you singing? Without a doubt. Isaac was a bass singer with his group. There was a record called Get a Job that the bass would do that was highly noted. And I had a song called Come to Me, Darling by the Dale Vikings that I used to sing. I won first prize with that. He won first prize with Get a Job. Isaac and I used to talk about that. We remember those two songs because they worked for us in that setting at the Palace Theater. 00:33:10 Speaker 2: Now, did you know when you were doing those shows, this is what I want to do, I want to do music? 00:33:16 Speaker 3: I knew that I was passionate about it. I didn't understand with total clarity how to get in it. I knew I wanted to get in it. I knew I wanted to find out more about it. So I knew I had the passion for that. more than anything else. I just didn't know the path that it would take to make it work. I did, as I mentioned to you, Jerry Butler saying, be diversified and all those kinds of things that would happen as examples and things I would see. But I was passionate about a desire for that. Over time, that passion grew and looked for opportunities to make it be manifested in things that I could take action on. And eventually it did with the day that This kid working at a grocery store walked across the street for these people who were recording country records called Satellite Records. He convinced them to do music that ultimately became a record company called Stax Records. 00:34:10 Speaker 2: So tell me about that day. You had a young family by that point. 00:34:14 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:34:14 Speaker 2: You were working very hard. You were working at two supermarkets in town. 00:34:17 Speaker 3: Right. 00:34:17 Speaker 2: And then across the street from the theater that became Stax. 00:34:21 Speaker 3: Yes. Well, I was a curious kid. And as I'm working, I'm now right out of high school. I still got a job now because I got a family member response before. And I'm going across the street to find out more about this place. And they were doing country music. They had two artists, Charles Hines and Nick Charles. Nick Charles was a disc jockey out of St. Louis. Charles Hines was a local singer out of Memphis. And I worked on trying to convince Jim Stewart to consider letting me have an audition there. And his sister was running a record store that was connected to this movie theater. And I found that it's much easier for me to go in her record store every day to try to talk to her, listen to music, learn new songs that I would want to sing at a club to try to make two or three dollars a night. And that's how I developed a relationship with her that ultimately ended up her convincing Jim Stewart to let me do the audition that changed this country label into an R & B label and changed David Porter into a songwriter producer. She was a beautifully kind lady. 00:35:29 Speaker 2: Estelle. 00:35:30 Speaker 3: Yeah, Estelle Laxton, who was the AX of Stax. Jim Stewart was ST of Stax. AX, his sister, was Estelle Laxton, her married name. And so she was a beautiful lady. And many of us who had to experience the Stax records give her a lot of credit for the beauty that she showed at a time of trying times in this country. And she encouraged some kids to look like us, that there was a means to an end for us. And she made sure that her brother took the time to listen. And he listened to his advantage that worked out quite well for him. 00:36:05 Speaker 2: And then you became, I mean, you were a singer. You started producing. You didn't know anything about producing, though, did you? 00:36:12 Speaker 3: I didn't even know what the word meant. But I

started learning singing. about what those things were. When Isaac and I first started producing records, our names were not put on the records. I have to be honest, Jim Stewart put produced by staff on several records when all the time Isaac Hayes and David Porter were producing those records. But as we learned about those steps of what the business was, we then learned how to say, well, look, we are the producers of the records, our names and our royalties have to be associated with that. So we started making changes. with that success, but we came in green and learning what those things meant and how to make them have merit for us, including the publishing and writing and all those kinds of things. 00:36:57 Speaker 2: But you were more than the sum of your parts at Stacks. You were this kind of connector. You brought in your friends from high school. You brought in Maurice. Did you bring in Booker T. Jones as well? 00:37:11 Speaker 3: I brought Booker T. Jones in to play the demo with me. that I did for my audition. But after that, when Jim Stewart was impressed by a guy by the name of Rufus Thomas to record a song with him and his daughter, Jim didn't know how to put a band together. He had just opened himself up to consider doing something with talents that looked like black books, because they were. And I got Booker T. Jones out of high school to come and play baritone horn on that record, as well as some other people. The baritone horn on the record that got the attention nationally for Stax Records, a song called Cause I Love You by Rufus and Carla. The baritone horn player on that record was Booker T. Jones. And if you read Booker T. 's book, you'll see him talking about that in his book. And if you read The Soul Man, Life of Songwriter David Porter, I'm talking about it in mine, too, because that was really the beginning of the transition of Stax Records into Stax. a soul label. 00:38:12 Speaker 2: And when you say you called him out of school, he literally missed a class at school to come and do that session. 00:38:16 Speaker 3: I literally went to school. It was a school I graduated from, and I was popular in high school. And I talked to Mr. Martin, who was the band director, and told him that I had an opportunity for Booker T. Jones to make a record, and he helped me get him out of school. 00:38:30 Speaker 2: Amazing. So what was it like working with Isaac Hayes? Did you have your own writing room, or did you work in the studio? 00:38:37 Speaker 3: We started out in the studio, but we became... Poplar needed us to say quite quickly, and we ended up having our own office. 00:38:44 Speaker 2: And it had a piano? 00:38:46 Speaker 3: It had a piano in there, office desk and a piano in there, and we would work in our writing room. 00:38:52 Speaker 2: So how would you write together? Neither of you wrote music. He would be at the piano. 00:38:56 Speaker 3: We would hear what we would hear, come up with ideas, and he could find the chords and play the chords. And the more he would play the chords, the more he would become acclimated to one, three, fives, how to structure harmonies, where the sevens were. You know, he developed more of an instinct musically on his own. Self-taught is the best way to say that. But also going into the studio to do the parts, we both trusted our instincts in the creative process after we learned instinctively how we wanted to do sessions. And that's why I use the term head arrangement. So we'd create a song, we'd decide on the instruments that we would want to have on the song. We would then go into the studio. We trusted each other. without question. And so we knew what we were doing and we would each play our part in putting it together. And we did it that way without writing any charts out in that regard. Not at all. 00:39:53 Speaker 2: Now, you were doing most of the melodies on top of what he was playing. 00:39:56 Speaker 3: I was doing the melodies, lyric, and come and go with musical directions that we could go in. Sometimes I would tell him, look, let's take this chord down or up. Let's spray it the chord. We're going to put a background here. We're going to have an accent here. Those are the kinds of things that are part of what we call head arrangements. And we were doing that throughout the whole process, not only with the writing of the songs, but with the musicians as we would work with them in the recording sessions. And that was part of the magic of Stax Records, because that happened with everyone. 00:40:26 Speaker 2: And you wrote out the lyrics, I assume, did you? 00:40:29 Speaker 3: I definitely created words for most of the songs that we would write. 00:40:32 Speaker 2: But would you actually write them out for the artists then and then take them in? 00:40:35 Speaker 3: I would have to do that to teach them the song, yes. And I would then direct the artists on the microphone to sing the song. Because as we would do the session, they would come in for the session, then had the opportunity to learn the songs. I would have to teach them the song before we'd bring the musicians in. Once they would do that, now they're familiar with it. I want the naturalness of their emotions to be pure with that, and I'd be sure that I would get them into the character. Now they're ready to record the song, I would go to the microphone back when they're ready to record, and I would stand on the other side of the microphone and direct them. I did that with Sam and Dave. I did that with everyone we worked with. After we work up the arrangements inside of the room, that would be the role I would do. 00:41:16 Speaker 2: Did it always work when you got in the room with the artists, or sometimes did you have to go back and say, this isn't working, we've got to redo it? 00:41:23 Speaker 3: That very seldom ever happened with us. There was only one song I can recall that we had difficulty in really making work for us in a real creative way, and that's a song

called It's a Wonder You Don't Turn to Sugar. And that was a song that we ended up on one of the albums on Sam & Dave, but it was not our best work on a session on Sam & Dave. That ended up later being a part of an album that we would have wanted to have recorded later. Again, but we never got the opportunity to. They left and went back to New York with Atlantic Records when their relationship dissolved with Atlantic Records and Stax. 00:42:02 Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from David Porter after the break. 00:42:08 Speaker 2: Now, Atlantic had signed Sam and Dave, but didn't know what to do with them. So sort of gave them to you and said, what can we do? Do you remember meeting them for the first time? 00:42:19 Speaker 3: I remember meeting them. You know, I've heard fairy tales of Sam Moore talking about what he saw of us and all of that, which it wasn't true. But I remember meeting them, but I don't remember many of the steps toward that meeting. I remember us being told, these are some guys that we want to see you guys work with who want to try to do the work on them. And I was the one that took the lead on that. The very first record is a record called A Place Nobody Can Find. which was the first release on Sam & Dave. You'll see my name 100% right in everything on that song because I was the one that did the first record on them. There was not a lot of jumping up and down wanting to do them. After that first record, Isaac and I approached him about let's form a team and go and do it. So I asked him if we could do the production on them. He allowed us to do that, and the rest is history. There came You Don't Know Like I Know. And that was the beginning of a long string of major hit records. 00:43:19 Speaker 2: And then after that was Hold On? 00:43:21 Speaker 3: After You Don't Know Like I Know was Hold On, I'm Coming. Yes. 00:43:26 Speaker 2: That was a number one record, I think, wasn't it? 00:43:28 Speaker 3: That was a number one record. 00:43:30 Speaker 2: Even in pop? 00:43:31 Speaker 3: Well, it didn't make it. It was top ten in pop, but it was number one in R & B. Soul Man made number one in pop. That followed Hold On, I'm Coming. 00:43:41 Speaker 2: So was that a big moment in Stax? 00:43:43 Speaker 3: That was a huge, huge moment at Stax. That was the first number one record of Stax Records. 00:43:49 Speaker 2: Did that sort of change the atmosphere in Stax? 00:43:52 Speaker 3: Well, I would think so. We were so excited, and needless to say, Isaac and I, but it was something exciting for the entire company because we were now finding our footing in the music industry, and there were some other great records that were also being written and produced and recorded at that same time as well. Booker T and the MGs were now beginning to take off as artists. And Booker T and the MGs were recording some amazing instrumental records that were truly tremendous. And then we had artists like Albert King and Johnny Taylor that also were amazing. 00:44:27 Speaker 2: And then you started touring with the Stax artists, right? 00:44:33 Speaker 3: I did, but I was not passionate about touring. I wanted to be the artist myself. but I was having so much success as a writer, producer, and I was much more comfortable there than I was on stage. I love the stage, but I was having much more success writing and producing. I just couldn't walk away from that. When Isaac exploded as an artist, he had no choice because he became so amazingly huge. It just made all the sense in the world for him to take advantage of that. When he did, Atlantic had left Stax Records completely in the relationships, and we had to have product. And that was when Al Bell encouraged Isaac to record, said that we needed a great number of albums, and encouraged several of us to make records. And though I had no intentions of going on the road and touring at that or anything like that, I made a record myself, and it did well. It was certainly not out of the sales of Isaac's record, but 250,000 albums was not bad. It was very good for albums. But I just started recording these albums because they were successful, but I still was in the studio working day in and day out on writing and producing and building the publishing company and overseeing the labels in A & R. 00:45:52 Speaker 2: And that was more interesting to you than being up on stage? 00:45:55 Speaker 3: I did a couple of tours. One of the tours I did was I was in Philadelphia at the Spectrum on a Thursday night. Isaac was the headliner. I was the co-headliner. Miles Davis opened the show. If you get my book, The Soul Man, you'll see the placard that was promoting that show at the Spectrum in Philly that I did that. And Bobby Womack and I used to tour together. Bobby was the headliner and I was touring with him on some dates as well. But I just wasn't as passionate about that as one would think. So I was more comfortable being in the studio. I started out before all the success of recording records. When Booker T and the MGs first started having their success, I was the vocalist for Booker T and the MGs because we would perform on the weekends in colleges across America. And then come back on Monday, we'd be back in the studio making records. And that was fun. 00:46:52 Speaker 2: Did you go on one of the European tours? 00:46:55 Speaker 3: I was on the tour. Isaac and I both were on the European tour in 67. We were not performers on the tour, but we were on it. And we were treated as stars on it because we didn't realize the amount of fans that we had that were fans of our writing and producers. That's when we found out that people truly did love the songwriters and producers. With all of those adulations and excitement for what we were doing as writers and producers was really amazing to us. 00:47:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, Stax had a huge audience in Europe. 00:47:27 Speaker 3: Unbelievable. The acceptance in France and Amsterdam. in Germany, in all these

countries. It was amazing. And we had no idea until we got there to find that that was the case. And don't even begin to mention London when all those big acts over there wanted to come and find us, where we were staying and what pub we were at outside of a gig night. It was amazing, amazing. 00:47:55 Speaker 2: Did you end up meeting some musicians over there? 00:47:57 Speaker 3: There were several of them that we had an opportunity to meet. And I wouldn't begin to start calling out, because I can't remember everybody, but the Beatles were huge fans. The Animals, Eric Burden was a huge fan. Rod Stewart was a fan. I mean, a lot of those guys that were making those records were huge, huge fans of Stax Records. 00:48:20 Speaker 2: So tell me about the first time you met Otis Redding. 00:48:24 Speaker 3: Well, Otis Redding came to Stax as a driver, and I talk about this in the book because it's fascinating because No one knew about Otis Redding as a singer. He was a driver and a gopher for a guy by the name of Johnny Jenkins that Jim Stewart had given an opportunity to record at Stax. Well, Otis was the driver for this artist, came to Memphis, was on the floor laying in the corner while Johnny Jenkins was recording on the microphone. It just so happened that Johnny Jenkins was not a comfortable, confident artist with star potential. But No one knew that, and I never to this day understood how he got in with Jim, except I was told that someone talked Jim into giving him a shot. This guy that was driving him asked Al Jackson if someone would take a listen to him. They took a listen to him, and Otis sang his original song, These Arms Are Mine, and changed our world forever. He was simply amazing. That's how I met him. 00:49:33 Speaker 2: So you were in the room when he sang that for the first time? 00:49:37 Speaker 3: Oh, yes. 00:49:38 Speaker 2: Who else was there? Do you remember? 00:49:39 Speaker 3: Booker T. Jones was there. Not when he did the audition. Steve heard him, along with Al Jackson and Jim Stewart. I was in the room, but there was no session going on. Jim quickly said, let's get some players together and put this down. And that's how these songs of mine ended up being recorded. But from that point on, Otis became friends with everybody, to be honest with you. But Otis and I developed a tremendous relationship because I was marveling at the fact that Otis would do head arrangements with the band. Head arrangements mean he would go around the room and give them parts to play. And he wouldn't even sing the song. He would just give them the parts to play. And when he'd given them the parts and they're playing the parts, then he would go on the microphone without any lyric sheet or anything like that and sing the song. So I found out later that he was making up the songs on the spot. He was that talented. So he was an amazing gifted talent. He left the service much too soon for people to find out the totality of his brilliance. 00:50:44 Speaker 2: Now, did you write for him? 00:50:46 Speaker 3: Isaac and I wrote two or three songs for him, Trick or Treat. We wrote two or three songs that we felt really good about him. I sang with him. I sang on a record, the Fair, Fair, Fair, Fair, Fair record. That's me singing harmony with him. But Otis was such a great writer, and he did a favor for us by allowing us to write a couple of songs. But he was such an amazing writer himself. He didn't need songs from us. 00:51:12 Speaker 2: And then you did go on to, you mentioned you did some of your own albums. You did Victim of the Joke, Gritty, Groovy. 00:51:20 Speaker 3: Gritty, Groovy, and Gettin' It. 00:51:21 Speaker 2: Gettin' It. I mean, those are great albums, but it wasn't your first love was not performing. 00:51:26 Speaker 3: No, I had fun with the records. I did a version of Hang On Sloopy on Into a Real Thing that I used to love to sing that song because I sung it differently in high school. And by the time I'm now at Stax Records and have the opportunity to call the shots on how I want to record these records, I would think of creative ways to do the songs. I did the same thing with The Masquerade Is Over. So that was fun for me. And so I was also pleasantly surprised that they were selling, the albums were selling. Isaac was selling Double and Triple Platinum. I wasn't in that league. I'm selling 150, 200,000 albums, and that's worth your recording, but it wasn't worth me putting everything I've got and focusing on just making records. But it was enough to make me feel real good that people were, to some degree, accepting what I was doing. And I had fun with it. 00:52:24 Speaker 2: You write in a really interesting way about the decline of Stax when it eventually went bankrupt and it was sold. There's this myth around Stax Records that it was torn apart by racial division. 00:52:37 Speaker 1: Huh. 00:52:38 Speaker 3: That's not true. 00:52:39 Speaker 2: That there were guns being pulled on people, that Al Bell was a crook. You don't really see it. 00:52:45 Speaker 3: That way at all. Everything you just mentioned was the furthest thing from the truth. There were many people, because of the notoriety and the popularity of Stax, want to create the aura that they were intricately connected to Stax Records. That was the furthest thing from the truth. I could call names, but I won't call them out now, of people that were doing that. And they had all of these fantasies. The bond that we had in that studio, the whites were Steve Cropper, Doug Dunn, Wayne Jackson. The blacks were Al Jackson Jr., Booker T. Jones, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, Andrew Love, Wayne Jackson. And so that was it. The bond that we had was unbelievable. We would go and play gigs on the weekend. This is before we exploded as recording albums ourselves, Isaac or I. And I'm on the road with Booger T, Booger T and the MGs, Al Jackson Jr., Doug Dunn, Steve Cropper, and we're playing the college circuit. If that was racial,

whatever, how would it look for Steve Cropper and Doug Dunn to be traveling all around the country in this station wagons, because we didn't have any limos at that time, that we would go on the road for these performances in. We went through all of that together. And we did it committed and devoted to each other. And when we would come up on a hotel that wouldn't accept us into the hotel, Steve and our duck would not stay in the hotel. They would leave. And so that's the commitment and the bond that we had. And the music that we made, how could you make music as beautiful and connected as that if there was anything remotely close to the vision inside the company? The people who were, like I say, making those fairy tales or people that wanted people to believe that they were connected in some way with Stax, that was the farthest thing from the truth. The beauty of Stax Records lives in through the spirit that you feel from the music. And you feel that spirit from the music because the authenticity of the passion and commitment and the locked in togetherness of the people was felt throughout the energy of that music. Every time a record was played, every time a song was recorded, every time a record was released, it was never released unless it had all those qualities of commitment, passion and togetherness. And that's why those records were successful. 00:55:19 Speaker 2: You also write about the studios themselves because people talk about the stacked sound. Part of it is a slightly delayed beat on the drums. And you say it's because you had a sloped floor in the room. It was a former theater. Tell me how that affected the sound. 00:55:35 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, you know, years ago when there were, before all the world of technology as it is today, there were movie theaters where you'd walk inside of the rooms there would be a restroom right at the door so that when you walk to the back of that room, if you're inside of the theater, you open the restroom, the light would not go down and mess up the audience with a light coming on while they're trying to see the movie screen that's going up top as they look up. Well, you also, when you walk in that door, you walk down the floor and the seats would go up. Now you're sitting where everyone is able to see the screen that's up higher. Well, when Jim Stewart got that building, He didn't change the floor. And what happened was the instruments that were put in there to play, Al Jackson Jr., rather than get at the top of the room as you walk in the door, got all the way at the bottom of the floor, near where the screen would go up to. And that's where he set his drums up. The piano was set up about four feet beyond him going back up the floor. Steve Cropper was another two or three feet above where the piano was. with the guitar. Doug Don was another two or three feet beyond Steve with the bass. The horns were a little bit further than that around a baffle in the center of the room. And there was the organ

and the piano in the area toward the wall. Al Jackson had to hear the music being played through the amps. They were not directs at that time where you go directly into the wall, right into the recording mechanisms. It was Through amps. And so there was a natural delay that Al had to adapt to and create what we call a groove or a pocket for the music to feel good. It was not something that had been thought out that we're going to make it this way and we want the flow to be slow. It spoke to the brilliance of Al Jackson Jr., the drummer, being able to adapt to a pocket or a set pattern that merit the credibility of of what everything he was hearing and everybody could feed off of that to lock into where everything was. And that was done in the most amazing way, but it was an accident. It was not something that had been thought out to any credible way. Because here I am at the back of the room with Sam and Dave with our little headset song, singing the songs and laying the vocals and things back to this pocket. 00:58:09 Speaker 2: Now, were you singing... While the band was playing or did you record the singing later? 00:58:15 Speaker 3: No, no. You sang while the band was playing. The horns are playing at that same time. 00:58:20 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:58:21 Speaker 3: The amazing thing about those records during those times were that when you made the record, you had to do everything. You said one, two, three, four. I mean, the next time the one came, everything had to be perfect on the beat. And it had to be as it needed to be to be a record. So it was not like it is in today's world where you can make mistakes and you can punch in and correct that or correct this. No, the energy, the performance, the pocket, everything had to be with each cut. And that speaks to the emotional commitment of the creative processes with every studio during those times, from Motown to Chess to all, but certainly it stacked with that sloped floor That speaks to what we were doing. 00:59:10 Speaker 2: So how many takes would you have done of a song like Soul Man, for example? 00:59:15 Speaker 3: Maybe 12, 13, 14 takes. Mm-hmm. 00:59:19 Speaker 2: Would you do them all in one day? 00:59:21 Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. We'd cut four songs in one day. I would be able to teach Sam and Dave all four songs in one day. They were that in tune to what we were doing, and we were that in tune to what we needed to do for them. 00:59:36 Speaker 2: So a lot of people now hear that stack sound, but they probably don't know they're hearing it. They hear it on Dream Lover by Mariah Carey. There's so many samples of staff songs. 00:59:47 Speaker 3: Wu-Tang Clan, Will Smith, LL Cool J. 00:59:53 Speaker 2: Biggie, or all those. So a lot of those, when you go back to those records, you hear Blind Alley by The Emotions. You're like, well, that's where that organ part comes from. 01:00:05 Speaker 3: Well, that's David Porter. that wrote that song 100% and produced that record in 1973. And Blind

Alley, it happens to be one of the most sample pieces of work that ever came out of Stax Records. 01:00:19 Speaker 1: Really? 01:00:20 Speaker 3: Oh, yes. 01:00:20 Speaker 2: Do you make sure you get paid for those? 01:00:22 Speaker 3: I'd have to be kind of crazy if I didn't make sure. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not crazy. No, it's been real good for me. 01:00:31 Speaker 2: So after all this, you still live in Memphis. 01:00:34 Speaker 3: I still live in Memphis. I I certainly want to give something back to a community that has given so much to me. 01:00:41 Speaker 2: And so what are you doing now? 01:00:43 Speaker 3: I have a nonprofit. The nonprofit is called The Consortium. That's T-H-E is important part of the name of the organization. The Consortium MMT. So you can go to the consortiummmt.org and you'll be surprised to see that that is a program that is free to young people who have aspirations. to be in the music business. It gives you the principles and processes of some of the greatest artists who ever lived. Philip Bailey talks about how to be a vocalist who takes care of their voice. Valerie Simpson talks about the writing structure of songs and how to make those magical. Stevie Wonder talks about how to come up with concepts of lyric and melody and that you can make the uniqueness and individuality of what you're doing have its own persona to it. Valerie Simpson, Eric Benet, Philip Bailey, Jimmy Jams. The list is so long. I have 130 plus videos of some of the biggest names in our business talking about processes that are used to make great music from our day. And it's given freely to young people. And we stress that there are no new emotions. You have to find fresh ways to talk about common emotions. So you're finding... just a fresh way to talk about something that is the same thing. So you can benefit from hearing the expertise of some of these talents in this program. And so I wanted to do that and it's done free. In addition to that, I'm passionate about the soul man life of songwriter David Porter, because I want to create as many opportunities as I can to give people insights about the credibility and the magic of what was once Stax Records and still is Stax. stacks to the credibility of music, but also to be just documented for young folk in the future to realize that there were people like me who was passionate about a thing called music out of respect for what it had done so much for him. 01:02:47 Speaker 2: Well, the emotion right now is gratitude. Thank you so much for coming in. It's fascinating and just some of the greatest records ever made. Thank you so much. 01:02:55 Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I really have enjoyed the time with you. 01:03:01 Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Talladay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. 01:03:11 Speaker 3: If you love this show. 01:03:12 Speaker 1: And others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for $ 4. 99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.