Last week in the States, another seminal STAX box set was released. Issued on Craft Records, ‘STAX 68 A MEMPHIS STORY’ is a five-disc box set containing all the A- and B-sides of every single released under the Stax banner in 1968, including the company’s subsidiary labels. The massive 120 tracks feature all the label’s big names (Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, William Bell, The Staple Singers et al) alongside lesser luminaries (like Linda Lindell, Billy Lee Riley and Shirley Walton).

1968 was a pivotal year for Stax. Sadly it followed the untimely passing of Otis Redding, but it was also the year that Stax severed its links with Atlantic (losing Sam and Dave’s contract in the messy process). 1968 was also, of course the year of Martin Luther King’s assassination in Memphis.

The box set also offers a 56-page book with liner notes by Memphis historian Andria Lisle, Stax Records historian Robert Gordon, and renowned producer Steve Greenberg, plus rare and never-before-seen photographs from the Stax archives.

Stax ’68: A Memphis Story’ released in the UK November 9th 2018