Soulsville USA, the South Memphis neighborhood you have walked into, gave the world the Stax Records sound. In the 1960s, this was a working-class Black community full of churches, barbershops, corner stores, and an almost unbelievable concentration of musical talent. The Stax recording studio at McLemore Avenue became the center of gravity, drawing musicians from across the neighborhood and the region.
But Soulsville was more than a record label. It was a community with its own identity, its own pride, and its own way of making meaning through music. When the highways were built and urban renewal policies cleared large swaths of South Memphis in the 1960s and 70s, the neighborhood was fractured.
The Stax label itself went bankrupt in 1975, and the building was torn down. What remained was a neighborhood that had been scattered and diminished, but not destroyed. Today, the Stax Music Academy continues the tradition, training young musicians from this same community.
The soul here didn't disappear. It just went underground and kept growing.