Skip to content

Jim Stewart

JIM STEWART

YEAR

2002

INDUCTED BY

Steve Cropper & Sam Moore

CATEGORY

Ahmet Ertegun Award

The creator of the ultimate R&B label—Stax.

Jim Stewart built Stax Records with the explosively talented ensemble of Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes and more.

Jim Stewart

Jim Stewart

HALL OF FAME
ESSAY

By Steve Greenberk

Born in 1930 in Middleton, Tennessee, Jim Stewart got his start in the music business as a part-time country fiddle player. Recognizing his limitations as a musician, Stewart went on to start the label that would be at the forefront of the soul-music revolution.

After founding Satellite Records in the late 1950s, Stewart- a longtime resident of Memphis – convinced his sister Estelle Axton to take out a second mortgage on her home to finance a label inspired by Sam Phillips’s success at Sun Records. From 1960 to 1975, Stax (after Stewart and AXton) scaled the heights of success with classic recordings by Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T. and the MG’s, Rufus Thomas, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, the Dramatics, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Carla Thomas, Albert King and dozens more.

As producer, engineer, businessman and mentor, Jim Stewart was at the center of it all.

Read More
Class of 2002
Some of those songs his ear was responsible for have already stood the test of time
Steve Cropper
More from the class of 2002
%post_title%

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers