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Stax doc appreciation

dmacdmac 472 Posts
edited April 2008 in Strut Central
Watched the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story[/b] in slack-jawed awe last night.This was everything that half-good/half-boring-as-shit Standing in the Shadows of Motown[/b] should have been.Samuel Jackson's narration was righteous and on-point. Loads of truly electrifying archival footage. Two hours blew by! And the contemporary footage--besides the necessary talking head shots (Rufus Thomas describing the sound of Stax was perfect), of course--was relegated to a DVD bonus. Which made it more interesting.The gentle swipes at Motown were funny ("Hitsville? Then Stax is Soulsville!"), but then the footage of Otis Redding delivering a blistering, raw live version of the Temptations' "My Girl" makes a strong argument for where the soul really was.Nothing but

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  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Watched the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story[/b] in slack-jawed awe last night.
    This was everything that half-good/half-boring-as-shit Standing in the Shadows of Motown[/b] should have been.
    Samuel Jackson's narration was righteous and on-point. Loads of truly electrifying archival footage. Two hours blew by! And the contemporary footage--besides the necessary talking head shots (Rufus Thomas describing the sound of Stax was perfect), of course--was relegated to a DVD bonus. Which made it more interesting.
    The gentle swipes at Motown were funny ("Hitsville? Then Stax is Soulsville!"), but then the footage of Otis Redding delivering a blistering, raw live version of the Temptations' "My Girl" makes a strong argument for where the soul really was.

    Nothing but

    Good thread on that a year or 2 back, worth finding. People mostly liked it, we don't like much here.
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    Yeah, it was in October of last year I believe...pretty good doc...most people get the Memphis thing wrong, but they did that one pretty well...just dont watch the Ardent one...what a piece of crap...they tease the shit outta you with 12 seconds of Frickin' raer ass Big Star and Chris Bell footage only to segue to minutes upon minutes of 80s ZZ Top videos and are all like "ooooh, wow "Eliminator" was recorded there! Hunka shit
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Yeah, it was in October of last year I believe...pretty good doc...most people get the Memphis thing wrong, but they did that one pretty well...just dont watch the Ardent one...what a piece of crap...they tease the shit outta you with 12 seconds of Frickin' raer ass Big Star and Chris Bell footage only to segue to minutes upon minutes of 80s ZZ Top videos and are all like "ooooh, wow "Eliminator" was recorded there! Hunka shit

    Does the documentary mention Cargoe?

    Obscure, I know, but they WERE on American Bandstand, so at least they would have had some visual aids...
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Here's what we had to say about the documentary last summer: http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=919929&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1mer:
  • dmacdmac 472 Posts
    Here's what we had to say about the documentary last summer: http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=919929&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1mer:

    A lot of that thread was dedicated to Zoom.
    But it definitely got good in the second half.
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    Yeah, it was in October of last year I believe...pretty good doc...most people get the Memphis thing wrong, but they did that one pretty well...just dont watch the Ardent one...what a piece of crap...they tease the shit outta you with 12 seconds of Frickin' raer ass Big Star and Chris Bell footage only to segue to minutes upon minutes of 80s ZZ Top videos and are all like "ooooh, wow "Eliminator" was recorded there! Hunka shit

    Does the documentary mention Cargoe?

    Obscure, I know, but they WERE on American Bandstand, so at least they would have had some visual aids...

    Yeah Cargoe was in there, and the Hot Dogs, but just in passing reference to a criminaly short segment on Terry Manning
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Here's what we had to say about the documentary last summer: http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=919929&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1mer:

    A lot of that thread was dedicated to Zoom.
    But it definitely got good in the second half.

    That's because the thread started just a little before the show actually came on -if you'll notice, this thread was revived after the program aired a month later. We let it go off on a little tangent there, since few of us had seen the thing yet. But once the documentary was widely shown, the conversation wasted no time getting back on track, as you just saw. It was all over but the shouting, then.
  • dmacdmac 472 Posts
    Here's what we had to say about the documentary last summer: http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=919929&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1mer:

    A lot of that thread was dedicated to Zoom.
    But it definitely got good in the second half.

    That's because the thread started just a little before the show actually came on -if you'll notice, this thread was revived after the program aired a month later. We let it go off on a little tangent there, since few of us had seen the thing yet. But once the documentary was widely shown, the conversation wasted no time getting back on track, as you just saw. It was all over but the shouting, then.

    In retrospect, I shoulda started with a late pass request on the Stax doc, as I didn't spend much time with TV last summer and since I added it to my Netflix queue last fall, there was always a "Very Long Wait." Hence my finally seeing it last night. But I don't think you can ever talk too much about Stax Records.

    Or Zoom.
  • ostost Montreal 1,375 Posts
    If you liked that one you should check out the Funk Brothers' one as well... PBS/Mountain Lake played both of them in the past couple of months.
  • DJCireDJCire 729 Posts
    Watched the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story[/b] in slack-jawed awe last night.
    This was everything that half-good/half-boring-as-shit Standing in the Shadows of Motown[/b] should have been.
    Samuel Jackson's narration was righteous and on-point. Loads of truly electrifying archival footage. Two hours blew by! And the contemporary footage--besides the necessary talking head shots (Rufus Thomas describing the sound of Stax was perfect), of course--was relegated to a DVD bonus. Which made it more interesting.
    The gentle swipes at Motown were funny ("Hitsville? Then Stax is Soulsville!"), but then the footage of Otis Redding delivering a blistering, raw live version of the Temptations' "My Girl" makes a strong argument for where the soul really was.

    Nothing but

    I took the late train on this one too, and just watched it about 1/2 months ago. Shit is great and cosine on it being better than the motown one. I've also watched the atlantic records one (the house that ahmet built) which was cool too, but Respect Yourself is the best to me...
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