WSJ Obituaries, Dec 10, 2022 (II)

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(2) James R Hagerty, Jim Stewart 1930-2022  Stax Records Founder Nurtured Soul Sound.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim ... records-11670599610

Note:
(a) "The first two discs, a cloying country ballad and a rockabilly number, went nowhere."
(i) English dictionary:
* cloying (adj)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloying
   ^ cloy (vt): "to supply with an unwanted or distasteful excess usually of something originally pleasing   <Cordelia has been cloyed by her sisters' excessive protestations of affection—Rebecca West>"https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloy
(ii) rockabilly (n; First Known Use 1956; ROCK entry 2 + -a- (as in rock-a-bye, phrase used to put a child to sleep) + hillbilly): "popular music marked by features of rock and country music"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rockabilly
(iii)
(A) number (n): "a musical, theatrical, or literary selection or production   <The actors broke into a song and dance number>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/number
(B) number (n): "Slang  a frequently repeated, characteristic speech, argument, or performance  <suspects doing their usual number—protesting innocence."
American Heritage Dictionary
https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=number
(b) Jim Stewart (record producer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Stewart_(record_producer)
(his label was fist called Satellite Records. After his sister Estelle Axton's [née Stewart] mortgage of her house, the label was changed to Stax: "The label's name 'STAX' is a combination of STewart and AXton")
-----------------text
Jim Stewart, a bank employee who moonlighted as a fiddle player in a country band, realized in the late 1950s that he was never going to hit the big time as a musician. The next best thing, he figured, was to become a record producer.

With makeshift equipment and no training as an audio engineer, he launched his own Satellite label. The first two discs, a cloying country ballad and a rockabilly number, went nowhere. His sister Estelle Axton mortgaged her home to provide more capital, and they founded what became Stax Records, housed in a former movie theater in Memphis.

Then came something they hadn't anticipated. Though the founders were white, Black [sic; since George Floyd's death in 2020, NYT has led the charge to capitalize the b in black; But here preceding white has w in lower case] artists began showing up to offer their services. Stax lurched into an astonishing run of success in the 1960s and early 1970s. Embracing Black R&B music wasn't a strategy. It just happened.

"Stax released 800 singles, including classics like "These Arms of Mine" and "Green Onions," between 1960 and 1975, according to "Respect Yourself," a history of the label by Robert Gordon. The label nurtured the carers of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Sam & Dave, Booker T and the MG's, Wilson Pickett and Albert King, among others.

Mr Stewart died Dec 5. He was 92.

"We were looking for good talent," he told peter Guralnick, a music historian. "It didn't matter how old, how black, how white."