Interviewer: Let me ask you just again about the importance of Sam Cooke and who he influenced and how that influence was manifested.
Bell: Well, Sam Cooke was truly one of a kind.
Bell: And he was the classic example of the, or the epitome of the evolution of church singing, church music, church melody into popular music appreciation.
Bell: Ah, Sam was the artist that was able to take a church melody and apply it to a so-called secular song, and add to that a country yodel, and make it all sound the same.
Bell: His, his music projection and talent was so poignant until it influenced, I supposed just about male vocalist of that era, and perhaps the generation that followed.
Bell: He influenced and impacted an Otis Redding, David Ruff__, obviously of the Temptations.
Bell: You hear that in other vocalists with the Temptations.
Bell: I don't know, but I would like to believe even there was some influence on Benny King and some of the earlier singers with the Drifters.
Bell: But practically all of the male vocalists of that era had some sort of influence, ah, ah, that they appreciated from Sam Cook.
Bell: Probably the greatest male R and B, or, or soul, or pop vocalist to ever live.
Interviewer: Let's talk a little bit about Otis Redding.
Interviewer: Maybe you can tell us when you first were exposed to him and his music, I forget the exact chronology, you know, whether you knew him before hearing his music.
Interviewer: Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that and why he was unique.
Bell: I fell in love with Otis Redding as a vocalist.
Bell: Ah, Otis seemed to me to be so natural, and so sincere.
Bell: And he had two other things that I grew to appreciate in his singing.
Bell: One was he had that tear in his voice, and the other he always sounded like he was begging.
Bell: And, and, and in his songs you would hear the pain, and the anguish.
Bell: And I loved that about Otis.
Bell: I first met Otis when I was in radio, in Memphis, Tennessee.
Bell: Otis would come by the radio station and bring me his records.
Bell: And I'd play his records and developed a relationship with him, whereby one of the other jocks on the station and I became promoters of Otis Redding.
Bell: We would promote him on concerts, and the Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee area.
Bell: And I really grew to love him as a human being and have a very strong friendship with him.
Bell: When I left Memphis, radio and went to Washington, D.C.
Bell: in radio, under my arm, along with my other Stax music and other music that I had that was a Southern oriented music or BAMA music as they called it at that time, I had Otis Redding.
Bell: So we went to Washington, D.C.
Bell: And we went on the air with Otis Redding and his "Security in these Arms of Mine," and "Pain in my Heart." And all of that kind of great music and introduced that to Washington, D.C.
Bell: We hadn't been exposed before and to people in that area.
Bell: When I, when I got out of radio and got involved in Stax, our relationship became a closer relationship.
Bell: Ah we, I wrote songs with Otis, ah enjoyed a number of successful songs with him.
Bell: Enjoyed going across the world promoting Otis Redding, and our friendship became one that ah, really was a friendship whereby I felt closer to Otis than my own brothers.
Bell: Ah, when, when Otis died it had a profound impact on my life, ah, and there's a void in my life today that isn't filled and cannot be filled because of the void left there by Otis Redding.
Bell: Took a long time for me to get to the point ah, where I could even listen to Otis's music.
Bell: I think probably one of the greatest human beings, that, that I've ever met.
Bell: One of the, ah, one of the most talented and ah, I don't know whether I'll hear another vocalist, that, that, that moves me, or moved me the way that Otis Redding moved me.
Bell: I, I'll miss him for the rest of my life.
Interviewer: Tell me the story about how you wrote So Hard to Handle.
Bell: Well, I, I, I was ah, I, I always enjoyed being around Otis Redding's sessions.
Bell: I mean, that, that, that was an experience that I can't, I can't even articulate today.
Bell: I'd watch Otis play his guitar and work up his songs, and get involved emotionally and all of that, and it just thrilled me.
Bell: On one occasion we were between sessions, or before, actually it was before a session was starting.
Bell: Otis came to town and Alan Jones, Otis and I were kind of kibitzing around, in, in, in one of the music rooms, and, and, and, banging away on the piano and everything.
Bell: And we started talking about ah, ah, the power of, of, of us as males, and, and the power of us as males as, as we related to females.
Bell: And, and out of that came the concept of, hard to handle, that, that, that we were men that were hard to handle.
Bell: And that we were greatly appreciated by the females.
Bell: And as we kibitzed about that, and, and, and, and Alan banged away on the piano, and Otis fooled around a little bit, out of that was born the song, Hard To Handle, which Otis recorded and it became a hit, and as we recorded it a number of times since then it's been, been big hit records.
Bell: And we've enjoyed the revenue generated from that, and still kind of feel like we're hard to handle, if you know what I'm saying.
Bell: But, I enjoyed, I enjoyed writing with those, __ wrote Sweet Lorraine I enjoyed talk-, with him, I enjoyed talking to him ah about the songs for.
Bell: The thing about Otis's songs were ah, in all instances, they were really true to life.
Bell: And, and when you listen to, to Otis sing his songs, what you feel in, in him is his true to life experiences.
Bell: And that's what kind of motivated me into to write with him and why I enjoyed it so much.
Bell: It, it also is the thing that caused him, ah some trouble in the marketplace, where some of his product wasn't really, generally his product wasn't accepted, by, by, by radio at large at that time.
Bell: I think by and large because of this approach to his singing.
Bell: It troubled him ah, ah, because he wasn't getting the acceptance that he felt he deserved.
Bell: And that led to us talking about ah, ah, coming up with what we called then soul folk.
Bell: Or another approach to writing.
Bell: Another approach to singing on Otis's part which was really the genesis of Dock of the Bay.
Bell: It, we, we, we were getting ready to try to introduce soul folk music, on Otis Redding, and out of that came, I'm sure his thinking for Dock of the Bay.
Bell: As a matter of fact he told me that when he was working on the concept of Dock of the Bay.
Bell: But he was trying to get to another type of writing and another type of performing, that hopefully would have a more general market acceptance in America.
Interviewer: The Stax goodwill tour of Europe, and that was the first time away from home for a lot of these performers.
Interviewer: Maybe you could talk about that a little too, as well as how they went over with the audiences over there.
Bell: The, the most encouraging moments for me ah during our Stax career, was when we toured the continent of Europe with the Stax tour review.
Bell: What was so exciting about that was to go throughout the continent and see the venues, packed standing room only.
Bell: And all of these people that we could not have imagined, had an appreciation for our music.
Bell: And to see them screaming and hollering, and, and shouting, like they would for an Elvis Pressley.
Bell: To see them react to the MGs and, and an Eddie Floyd, and a Carla Thomas, and an Otis, and a Sam and Dave at that time, was a thrill.
Bell: I, I just couldn't imagine anything like that.
Bell: I remember on one occasion when we were, I forgotten the theater now, but we were in Paris, France, and ah the performance was, here we are, now performing, or they were performing, I was backstage.
Bell: Performing though to an audience that didn't speak English.
Bell: And, and, and it was obvious that nobody spoke English because we heard no English anywhere.
Bell: But to hear and see them reacting as though they understood every word in every song, literally blew my mind.
Bell: It was even more exciting to, to see as, as, as the show was staged, Sam and Dave preceded ah Otis Redding.
Bell: And, and to see that audience receive a performance by Sam and Dave that was just driving them wild, and, and, and you would think standing backstage looking, it was impossible for anybody to follow that and to see, Sam and Dave hit the last note, and to hear that audi-, that audience say O-tis, O-tis, O-tis, O-tis, and to see Otis Redding come on stage while all of these people are saying, O-tis, O-tis, on their feet, just, just blew my mind.
Bell: We, we, we left Europe all of us, encouraged, about our music having a greater appreciation for our music, for we saw the continent of Europe express a profound appreciation for that music, and I don't think there's any experience greater than that.
Bell: At least there wasn't anything greater than that for me.
Bell: It was that way, I think, for most of the, the artists that performed there.
Bell: I saw them come back exhilarated; I saw them write more hit songs, greater hit songs.
Bell: I saw more enthusiasm for we didn't have the problem in Europe that we had been having in America.
Bell: Nobody said anything about Stax, other than, we just love your music, and that was a great experience for all of us.
Interviewer: So you didn't have the problem that you had in America, talk about that.
Bell: That's what I mean about that BAMA music and the problem that we were having.
Bell: Ah, with, with, with the acceptance of the music.
Bell: The thing that was a blessing for us as it relates to our music at Stax, was at the same time a curse.
Bell: For, because of the, the beauty of that raw, authentic sound, in, in, in many radio stations throughout the, the, the, United States, particularly in your larger cities, it was considered BAMA music which was a short for Alabama.
Bell: Which means that it came from the South and it was that kind of music.
Bell: And they sort of ah looked down their nose at it.
Bell: Ah additionally, an Otis Redding for an example who had a speech impediment, many of the, the disc jockeys would criticize the sound of Otis, because of that speech impediment.
Bell: But when we got to Europe, there was none of that, it wasn't BAMA music, it was just great music, and it was just great performances, and the audience reacted accordingly.
Bell: And, and, and the journalists, and, and the newspapers wrote accordingly, and it was just a great feeling to be totally accepted without any criticisms at all.
Bell: Ah, ah great, a great experience, a great experience.
Interviewer: Do you have any stories about...
Bell: When, when, when, when you, when you look at what made Stax function creatively, you see Booker T.
Bell: and the MGs, all great writers, and you see a Steve Cropper, obviously an excellent writer when you look at his credits, but the two guys that really were the catalyst for writing with that aggregation was Isaac Hays, and David Porter.
Bell: You had an Isaac who was the pianist, and, and a David Porter who was the lyricist.
Bell: David who had a feel for the church, the street, and who was a performer himself, and a singer.
Bell: And an Isaac who was a performer also, but, but had an arranger's mentality, who could, who, who could hear incredible arrangements in his head, who, who was great with melodies.
Bell: Who could hear unusual men-, unusual melodies.
Bell: The combination of Hays and Porter became prolific writers.
Bell: They, they were the writers that wrote the great hits, on, on Carla Thomas, and, and, and the B-A-B-Y and, and No Time to Lose and all of the great hits on Carla Thomas.
Bell: They wrote the great hits on Sam and Dave, and many of the other artists.
Bell: I remember on one occasion, ah, ah, a really unique story here.
Bell: Ah, I, David who, who, who would come into the studio and work a bit, and would run out to the golf course, or have someplace to go, would be very busy in and out of the studio.
Bell: Was going someplace one day with Isaac Hays and as you came out of Studio A, going out the front of the theater to the right, there was a bathroom.
Bell: And Isaac had come out and was in the bathroom there a, taking care of some private matters, and David was in a hurry to get out of, out of, out of the building.
Bell: And he kept hollering to Isaac, come on, come on, let's go man, let's go, let's go, let's go, and Isaac said, hold on I'm coming.
Bell: And, and from that grew the song, Hold on, I'm Coming that you heard on Sam and Dave.
Bell: Isaac ended up, and, and, and David ended up being I think two guys that, in some instances were the exact opposites of each other in terms of their personality.
Bell: Where Isaac in many instances was the, extrovert that was introverted.
Bell: And David the introvert that was extroverted.
Bell: And the combination of the two, seemed to work well in writing their songs.
Bell: And then how they pitched their songs to the various artists as they came in.
Bell: I found them very, very unique writers for, they could write for a Sam and Dave, they could write for Carla Thomas, and then they could write such warm and gentle songs, like, So I Could Love You, for the emotions, and what have you.
Bell: Just great, great writers, unparalleled writers in my judgment.
Interviewer: In 1968 all of a sudden Martin Luther King was killed, what happened at Stax and to black music in general around that?
Bell: Well the death of Dr. King in one sense disturbed our peace at Stax for we had been there, an interracial company from top to bottom, in our little isle of tranquility, insulated by music from the rest of the world, and our appreciation for each other.
Bell: And all of a sudden that was broken and torn apart by his death.
Bell: In, in the community where we had functioned without any problems, which was in the heart of what you would consider the ghetto, ah we didn't call it a ghetto, but what you would consider the ghetto, the white employees had not had any problems with any of the blacks in that area.
Bell: And we hadn't had any problems those of us black that were, were working there.
Bell: But after the death of Dr. King, that changed somewhat.
Bell: For we had some groups, and basically they were some radical, rebel groups in, in, in the community.
Bell: Gang bang, as it, as we would call them, who were reacting to his death, and posed threats, if you will, on, on some of our white personnel, and intimidated them, even, even attempted in one sense to intimidate us as a company at large.
Bell: For what reason I really don't know, other than just reacting to his death.
Bell: The ...
Bell: The death also subconsciously, and in some instances consciously, influenced the writers, and the singers.
Bell: For I think, without being aware of it, and we, we, we thought about reaching over, and individually picking up the baton.
Bell: It manifest itself in some of the songs that were written after his death.
Bell: Whether it was A Long Walk to DC, which was recorded on Staples I believe which was a tribute to him, ah you found the artists now being a bit more assertive.
Bell: Ah, ah, ah I don't at the moment recall all of the songs at that time, but there was, there was a different attitude.
Bell: The dreamer had died.
Bell: And, and many of us who, who had lived that, we really wondered, if the dream had died with the dreamer.
Bell: So some of that was reflected or a good deal of that was reflected in our attitudes, and of course that was reflected in how the songs were written and how we sang the songs and how we related to each other.
Bell: I don't know how, how the, the, the, the white writers or musicians or personnel really felt deep within them, in their souls at that time.
Bell: But I can imagine just changing places, that they may have felt some of that, as well as, as feeling the sadness, and they may have felt some other kind of changes in their lives as they, they all of a sudden realized in this sea of tranquility that we had, that they were in fact white people in there a black world.
Bell: And, and, and I just can imagine that it had some kind of influence that, that I'm not aware of at this point in time.
Bell: But we sang a bolder song.
Bell: We thought boldly.
Bell: We moved to new and larger heights, we dreamed for more ourselves, we wanted bigger records.
Bell: I personally wanted to see that happen.
Bell: Just prior to Dr. King's death I had been working on a song with Booker T.
Bell: and the MGs and Eddie Floyd, titled Sin, Peace, and Harmony Home.
Bell: Winding, winding road, sin, peace, and harmony home.
Bell: Which at the time of his death I was in the studio recording on an artist at that time, Shirley Brown.
Bell: Who couldn't quite get into the song, but while the tape was rolling, I don't know for the tenth or twelfth time, or maybe more takes than that, somebody stuck their head through the studio door and said, Dr. King just got killed.
Bell: And Shirley started singing the song, and there was a performance that I hear in my head now, that sends chills through me.
Bell: And we, we after that ah we went on, and completed the recording and mixed it and released a few copies.
Bell: Got a few copies to Mrs. King, and it was ah memorialized in the Congressional Record, and what have you.
Bell: But that was a song that we were writing that we wanted to give to Dr. King, who was a friend, just for him to have that, not thinking about his death or anything like that, but just wanted to give that to Dr. King.
Bell: Ah, unfortunately we were unable to, to do that, but I think that the writers, and the artists and the producers and what have you managed, those in Stax in particular, and certainly others but those in Stax managed to care for what some of his legacy, in the songs that we sang, and in the way we lived our lives.
Bell: What, what, what happened I think in, in, in many instances, after Dr. King's death was leadership emerging from the singers, and the writers and, and you found them becoming more assertive as it related to social and political issues.
Bell: You would hear James Brown say, Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.
Bell: And, and you would hear Nina Simone I believe it was say, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.
Bell: And, and you would hear a Norman Whitfield deal with a social issue and say Poppa Was a Rolling Stone.
Bell: And, and, and as you go through all of those kind of songs you start realizing as you look back on that period, that you hear social commentary on political positions that prior to that, you'd never heard before from the writers and the singers.
Bell: Particularly as you look at Motown, it was more of the romantic songs, but you began to see that come through in Motown, you certainly saw it in Stax, and in various other artists at that time.
Bell: And I think what you were seeing there was a manifestation of the dreamer now being felt through the writers and the singers.
Bell: And you saw them, I guess you might say broader, or a more in depth kind of soul music.
Bell: For it is my belief that, that soul music was music that expressed what was going on inside the person.
Bell: So whether it was, I Love You, or I Got to Love Somebody's Baby, Cause Somebody's been Loving Mine, it also was said loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.
Bell: So we felt now, just another kind of assertiveness coming from the lives and the lifestyles of the people.
Bell: Because that's what the music was all about.
Bell: And the death of Dr. King brought that on, in my opinion.