Tagged: Tennessee

As part of our "Sense of Place" series on Memphis, we dug into the World Cafe archives and pulled out a 2003 interview with Stax Records' best-selling artist, the late Isaac Hayes.

Before Hayes became known for the theme to Shaft, he was an in-house songwriter and producer for Stax; along with David Porter, he wrote the iconic hit "Soul Man" for Sam & Dave.

Here, host David Dye speaks with Hayes about his beginnings at Stax, his work with Booker T. Jones and the Memphis scene in general, which he called "wonderfully incestuous."

Soul music, barbeque and Elvis Presley. World Cafe is spending this week getting the vibe of Memphis, Tenn., a city that — like New Orleans — has had an undeniable influence on all of American culture. Our "Sense of Place: Memphis" radio journey takes us to the five major studios where much of the music that came out of radios from the '50s to the '70s was made.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Before Twitter, radio, even electricity - in fact, going all the way back to pre-historic times, people gathered around fires to listen to stories. Even though the glow of computers has replaced the warmth of the campfire for most of us, some folks still hold fast to the tradition of oral storytelling.

As Missy Shelton reports, nearly 10,000 people have gathered this weekend for the National Storytelling Festival in northeast Tennessee to hear professional tellers weave some good yarns.