Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story is exhaustive in the details it provides about each era of the company's growth. Through interviews with the original core musicians and staff we hear about how various acts, performers, and songs grew out of the company's habit of keeping the doors open to the whole community. The three surviving members of Booker T. and The MGs, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Booker T. Jones, and Steve Cropper, who were the core musicians for almost every album produced until 1968, recount how people like Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes first became part of the Stax family. It was definitely a case of "if you build it, they will come", as talented performers from the surrounding area were drawn to the old movie theatre.
A distribution deal with Atlantic Records, a deal that brought Sam and Dave into the fold as Atlantic sent them down to record with the Stax team and sing the songs written for them by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, not only got their records played across North America, but arranged the Stax/Volt tour of Europe from which the Stax/Volt Revue Live In Norway 1967 footage was taken. While the Stax performers had produced hit records for the North American market, it wasn't until they toured Europe that they received any sort of public adulation. As Booker T. guitarist and songwriter Steve Cropper said, "it might not have been as big as the Beatles coming to America, but for us it felt like it."
In interviews included on the Live In Norway disc, Steve Cropper and Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave) talk about how amazing it was to play in front of audiences in the thousands and to be treated like stars. If the reactions of the Norwegian audience on the DVD are anything to go by, up and dancing from almost the word go, the tour must have been an incredible experience for all involved. A good thing too, for less then a year later the company would be pushed to the brink of ruin, and although it recovered, it would never be the same again.
According to the documentary, the death of Otis Redding in December of 1967 when his plane went down would have been a bad enough blow on its own to have hurt the company. They had lost their biggest and most famous performer, after all. However, to make matters worse, the company discovered that the fine print on their distribution contract with Atlantic meant that they had surrendered ownership of any titles that Atlantic had handled for them, and their entire back catalogue of hits and their potential revenue belonged to someone else. Adding insult to injury was the fact that although Sam and Dave had recorded hits like "Hold On" with Stax and Stax musicians, they were still considered signed to Atlantic, and were called home when it looked like the little Memphis label was going under.
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