Monday, August 22, 2005

Jesse Jackson destroyed Stax?

Billy Zoom, founder of X, has had a long and interesting career in the music industry. Here's a bit from a drunken interview with some guy named Mark Prindle:

ps: Mark is the one drinking, not Billy.

Were a lot of white guys playing soul at that point?
There were some white soul bands, but in the bands I played in, I was the only white guy. So from '68 to '72, I was mostly playing in soul bands.
Were there still weird kind of separatist racist things going on in the country at that point?
No, we didn't see any.
Really!?
Yeah, we thought it was all gone. Because soul music was completely integrated, and we kind of had the impression -- I was kinda bummed because we had the impression at the time that that was all over and we just had to wait for the grandparents to die off.
It's still not over.
Oh, it came back. Mixed up with assholes like Jesse Jackson stirring everybody up and trying to bring racism back because without it, he would be out of work. He brought down Stax Records, he and his group -- the Black Panthers. I still haven't forgiven him for that, destroying the music scene.
Jesse Jackson did?
Yep. He was instrumental in the demise of Stax Records and soul music.
How? What'd he do?
He started hanging out with the Black Power guys and Black Panthers and stuff and started telling them they were getting ripped off and they had to get Whitey out of the music business. They had to take the business over for themselves. So they took the company over, took all the money and then --
JESSE JACKSON!? The Reverend Jesse -- Yeah!
Oh my goodness. Okay. Didn't know that about him.
It's well-documented if you read that book called Sweet Soul Music, and there's also a Stax documentary that goes into it. But yeah, in the '60s, soul music was completely integrated. I mean look at the Stax house band -- Booker T. and the MG's. Two black guys, two white guys.

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