In our long tale regarding the history of Stax, we have reached the point where you can hear the organization skidding out of control.

By 1974, everything starts to wrong, some of it due to gross mismanagement, and some due to corporate manipulation. It didn’t help matters that the label could not generate hits at anywhere near to what they had grown accustomed. For example, up until now our typical show was comprised of approximately 2-3 months of history. For this show, we combed through six months of music to find these tracks, and most of them never charted at all. Al Bell, Jim Stewart and virtually every employee knew that things were bad, but they held on to the hope that it could be turned around.

Here are a few selected songs from this era, most of which you are unlikely to recognize;

1) Joy – Isaac Hayes

2) Good Woman Turning Bad – Hot Sauce

3) That’s What the Blues Is all About – Albert King

4) We’re Getting Careless with Our Love – Johnnie Taylor

5) Touch a Hand, Make a Friend – The Staple Singers

6) Change It All – Joy Fleming

7) Getting’ What You Want – William Bell

8) I Got You and I’m Glad – David Porter

9) The Whole Damn World Is Going Crazy – John Gary Williams

10) Goodness Gracious – Kim Weston