The official YouTube channel of Stax Records has launched a substantial interview series around the release of the boxed set Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos.
The series features new interviews with Stax writers and artists, coming together to share their memories of the storied soul label, how they came to be involved with it and their thoughts about individual fellow contributors to the company’s legacy. The seven-disc Written In Their Soul set features 146 demos of songs – some of them later hits, some of them unreleased or undervalued – and was released on June 23.
The quartet of Stax notables taking part in the video collection, all noted songwriters among other roles at the label, are Bobby Manuel, Henderson Thigpen. Deanie Parker, and Eddie Floyd. The series takes the form of 26 short clips from a longform interview with all four, addressing such subjects as what it was like to be a songwriter at Stax, and how they write lyrics. Watch the whole series here.
Floyd talks about how he met Stax co-president Al Bell and how he and Steve Cropper wrote the Wilson Pickett hit “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.),” of which Floyd’s original demo recording is featured in the boxed set. Manuel, also an in-demand session guitarist at Stax, explains how the rhythms of Bo Diddley and James Brown informed his playing on “Too Much Sugar For A Dime,” included in the collection by both Homer Banks and Bettye Crutcher.
Parker, for her part, shares her views on what makes a truly great soul or R&B song, and how being a songwriter “was like having the key for every door” at the company, interacting with producers, artists, arrangers, and administrators. Thigpen recalls writing her first love song and how he met Homer Banks when he first came to Stax from Mississippi, as the series reaches far and wide into Soulsville history.
Buy or stream Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos.