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Mirrors of the soul: Exhibit of Soulsville photos, comments opens soon at Stax

By Pamela Perkins
perkins@commercialappeal.com

Stax Records wasn’t the only gem in historically rich Soulsville USA.

The museum that honors history made inside the old recording studio will honor the community and history made around it with "FROM THE SOUL: An Intimate Portrait of Soulsville, USA."

The exhibit of images and thoughts starts Sunday with a reception from 2-4 p.m. Sunday at the Stax Museum of

American Soul Music at 926 E. McLemore, where the Stax recording studio was demolished in 1989.

Admission is $9, but free to the museum’s Soulsville USA neighbors and Stax museum members.

"Part of the mission of the museum is to embrace the Soulsville community," said Tim Sampson, museum spokesman. "And we really want the community to embrace the Stax museum. ... The neighborhood has such a fascinating past, present and future."

The exhibit includes about 40 recent black-and-white photographs by Monty Shane, co-owner of the Cooper-Young area’s VUE gallery.

The photos show Soulsville landmarks that reinforce the neighborhood’s music legacy, including the former homes of Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & the MGs and Memphis Slim. The exhibit also features Aretha Franklin’s birth home on Lucy.

Boss Ugly Bob’s Record and Stereo Center, just west of the museum, is also featured in the exhibit. The store once had its sales tracked by Billboard and other national music magazines.

Other landmarks include the renovated Four Way Grill, now The Four Way Restaurant, at Mississippi and Walker. The well known soul food place regularly fed people as well known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Melvin’s Place, on College near the museum, was once a "whites only" diner. Now, said owner Melvin Turner, it’s a soul food diner where "retired folks" chat in the day, and a soul music juke joint on Friday nights.

Exhibit images also feature faces of Soulsville residents and their words collected in a summer oral history workshop.

Author Robert Wolfe of the Iowa-based nonprofit Free River Press led the workshop and plans to publish some of the remembrances in a book about life in small towns and communities.

At the workshop, neighbors told about the excitement Stax brought to the area in the 1960s and 1970s.

Stars frequented corner stores and barber shops. Merline Patton remembers working at a nearby cleaners when Luther Ingram tested out his steamy new song "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right" and asked her if it was OK.

"I told him it was very good, and it was a hit," she said.

-- Pamela Perkins: 529-6514



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INTIMATE EXHIBIT

What: Opening reception of "FROM THE SOUL: An Intimate Portrait of Soulsville, USA."

When: 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Exhibit runs through Jan. 20.

Admission: $9; free to Stax Museum members and residents in the 38106 and 38126 Zip Codes in South Memphis.

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