Motown, becuase they kept it going after their prime years into the 80's and 90s.

nd33 said:

Damn you puttin the hard questions on!

On the real, if this was a fight to the death, Motown gotta win, although I LOOOOVE them both.

If you had to list a top 5 soul/R&B albums of all time, it'd be hard to argue with Innervisions, What's Going On and Songs In The Key Of Life being in there. I just can't think of a single Stax album as a body of work that would be in the top 5.

i see your point..what about isaac hayes "Hot Buttered Soul" or " shaft" that won him av oscar

TonyVanDam said:

[img:$uid]http://theseconddisc.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/philly-international-logo.jpg[/img:$uid]

love the philly sound as well, then you got Chicago soul too

TonyVanDam said:

[img:$uid]http://theseconddisc.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/philly-international-logo.jpg[/img:$uid]

LOVE Philly soul!

MOTOWN!!!

Mo......by a mile.

stax records. no contest, this is the funkiest blackest label that ever rock the industry.

Motown because they had Rick James.

jackson35 said:

stax records. no contest, this is the funkiest blackest label that ever rock the industry.

PREACH !!!!

I'll go with Motown only because I think they were the perfect music machine.

I have never been a big Stax fan. I like a lot of their artists/music, but it doesn't compare to Motown for me. Johnnie Taylor was my favorite Stax artist by far. I'm probably one of the few people on here that is not an Otis Redding fan.

jackson35 said:

stax records. no contest, this is the funkiest blackest label that ever rock the industry.

I always find it funny when people say things like this since some of the Stax house band members were white (particularly the horn section) and Jim Stewart & Estelle Axton, who ran the label, were also white. It's like when people say Aretha Franklin's early Atlantic records are her most soulful, when it was a white band on those songs too.

MickyDolenz said:

MickyDolenz said:

jackson35 said:

stax records. no contest, this is the funkiest blackest label that ever rock the industry.

I always find it funny when people say things like this since some of the Stax house band members were white (particularly the horn section) and Jim Stewart & Estelle Axton, who ran the label, were also white. It's like when people say Aretha Franklin's early Atlantic records are her most soulful, when it was a white band on those songs too.

A lot of them were black too. See Wattstax.

I find it funny you take offense to orgers here talking about funk.

[Edited 9/29/12 18:50pm]

phunkdaddy said:

A lot of them were black too. See Wattstax.

I find it funny you take offense to orgers here talking about funk.

I said nothing about funk here, and highlighted the word "blackest". I didn't say I was offended, just that it's funny.

LiLi1992 said:

Motown artists

Bruce Willis

We have a winner. That right there is Motown's trump card.

GoldDolphin said:

Very true. Thing with many people I see is that they don't like Motown because they had a "nicer" image, but people gotta remember that Motown was for a more urban/city audience and was for those black people who lived in the city And had another type of life style than those from the south and so I think that reflects the music, don't know if I make sense tho...

Similar to southern rock being different than rock from other parts of the country. There was also the "California Soul" of groups like 5th Dimension & Friends Of Distinction, which was different than the southern soul of Stax/Backbeat and northern soul of Motown.

MickyDolenz said:

jackson35 said:

stax records. no contest, this is the funkiest blackest label that ever rock the industry.

I always find it funny when people say things like this since some of the Stax house band members were white (particularly the horn section) and Jim Stewart & Estelle Axton, who ran the label, were also white. It's like when people say Aretha Franklin's early Atlantic records are her most soulful, when it was a white band on those songs too.

i'm talking about the al bell years, were u have issac haynes hold down the funk in black cinema, i'm talking about mavis staples and her fam holding it down in the gospel arena taking black fols to church. i'm talking about the bar kays going toe to toe with p funk on the charts as the blackest group to represent the funk to the yougsters. i als like stax for their comitmant to urban cause and didn't back down from white media when they started to get flax about it.

jackson35 said:

i'm talking about the al bell years, were u have issac haynes hold down the funk in black cinema, i'm talking about mavis staples and her fam holding it down in the gospel arena taking black fols to church. i'm talking about the bar kays going toe to toe with p funk on the charts as the blackest group to represent the funk to the yougsters. i als like stax for their comitmant to urban cause and didn't back down from white media when they started to get flax about it.

Yeah, but when Bell took over, he hired thugs like Johnny Baylor, and the label started going down financially until it went bankrupt and had a lot of lawsuits and IRS problems. Al Bell also made a deal with Clive Davis that eventually backfired for Stax.

The Bar Kays had their biggest success after they left Stax and went to Mercury Records, although they were the main house band during the early 70's after Booker T. & The MG's weren't really doing it much anymore.

mrjun18 said:

Motown, becuase they kept it going after their prime years into the 80's and 90s.

But that's when Motown failed to become a sound, revolution, etc., and just became another label. Between 1961 and 1974, however, they were the tops...

MickyDolenz said:

jackson35 said:

i'm talking about the al bell years, were u have issac haynes hold down the funk in black cinema, i'm talking about mavis staples and her fam holding it down in the gospel arena taking black fols to church. i'm talking about the bar kays going toe to toe with p funk on the charts as the blackest group to represent the funk to the yougsters. i als like stax for their comitmant to urban cause and didn't back down from white media when they started to get flax about it.

Yeah, but when Bell took over, he hired thugs like Johnny Baylor, and the label started going down financially until it went bankrupt and had a lot of lawsuits and IRS problems. Al Bell also made a deal with Clive Davis that eventually backfired for Stax.

The Bar Kays had their biggest success after they left Stax and went to Mercury Records, although they were the main house band during the early 70's after Booker T. & The MG's weren't really doing it much anymore.

Yeah Al Bell wasn't as good with business as the Gordy family for instance. He actually ran around with thugs where it's only speculated that the same thing happened with Berry (though Berry was real foolish with his gambling, something that bothered him and nearly put him in as much red ink as some of the Motown artists that were either broke (most of the Temptations and Supremes and many others) or who had money but failed to pay because he didn't trust the government (Marvin). But Al's dealings put Stax in trouble real fast. Without Isaac Hayes in the early '70s, Stax wouldn't have continued. The Bar Kays are only part of Stax folklore for "Soul Finger" and for backing Otis and Isaac but they didn't become legends until they left whereas in Motown most of the acts found success there. Of course you can compare the Bar Kays to that of Rose Royce, who performed under a different name when they backed Edwin Starr, the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations in Motown before Norman Whitfield took them under his wing.

MickyDolenz said:

GoldDolphin said:

Very true. Thing with many people I see is that they don't like Motown because they had a "nicer" image, but people gotta remember that Motown was for a more urban/city audience and was for those black people who lived in the city And had another type of life style than those from the south and so I think that reflects the music, don't know if I make sense tho...

Similar to southern rock being different than rock from other parts of the country. There was also the "California Soul" of groups like 5th Dimension & Friends Of Distinction, which was different than the southern soul of Stax/Backbeat and northern soul of Motown.

Don't forget:

Philly soul

Chicago soul

New York soul

New Jersey soul (The Moments, Sylvia and 'em)

North Carolina soul
Virginia soul

Soul wasn't just Detroit and Memphis. It could be argued soul was born in Los Angeles thanks to Johnny Otis' discoveries of Etta James and Little Willie John (though Little Willie was based from Detroit and soul music allegedly began on his clock).

Motown.
Stax is a lot less consistent imo.

Timmy84 said:

MickyDolenz said:

Yeah, but when Bell took over, he hired thugs like Johnny Baylor, and the label started going down financially until it went bankrupt and had a lot of lawsuits and IRS problems. Al Bell also made a deal with Clive Davis that eventually backfired for Stax.

The Bar Kays had their biggest success after they left Stax and went to Mercury Records, although they were the main house band during the early 70's after Booker T. & The MG's weren't really doing it much anymore.

Yeah Al Bell wasn't as good with business as the Gordy family for instance. He actually ran around with thugs where it's only speculated that the same thing happened with Berry (though Berry was real foolish with his gambling, something that bothered him and nearly put him in as much red ink as some of the Motown artists that were either broke (most of the Temptations and Supremes and many others) or who had money but failed to pay because he didn't trust the government (Marvin). But Al's dealings put Stax in trouble real fast. Without Isaac Hayes in the early '70s, Stax wouldn't have continued. The Bar Kays are only part of Stax folklore for "Soul Finger" and for backing Otis and Isaac but they didn't become legends until they left whereas in Motown most of the acts found success there. Of course you can compare the Bar Kays to that of Rose Royce, who performed under a different name when they backed Edwin Starr, the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations in Motown before Norman Whitfield took them under his wing.

I wonder how Prince later hooked up with Al Bell to release Most Beautiful Girl In The World.

MickyDolenz said:

Timmy84 said:

Yeah Al Bell wasn't as good with business as the Gordy family for instance. He actually ran around with thugs where it's only speculated that the same thing happened with Berry (though Berry was real foolish with his gambling, something that bothered him and nearly put him in as much red ink as some of the Motown artists that were either broke (most of the Temptations and Supremes and many others) or who had money but failed to pay because he didn't trust the government (Marvin). But Al's dealings put Stax in trouble real fast. Without Isaac Hayes in the early '70s, Stax wouldn't have continued. The Bar Kays are only part of Stax folklore for "Soul Finger" and for backing Otis and Isaac but they didn't become legends until they left whereas in Motown most of the acts found success there. Of course you can compare the Bar Kays to that of Rose Royce, who performed under a different name when they backed Edwin Starr, the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations in Motown before Norman Whitfield took them under his wing.

I wonder how Prince later hooked up with Al Bell to release Most Beautiful Girl In The World.

Knowing Prince, Al probably gave him money upfront...

MickyDolenz said:

jackson35 said:

i'm talking about the al bell years, were u have issac haynes hold down the funk in black cinema, i'm talking about mavis staples and her fam holding it down in the gospel arena taking black fols to church. i'm talking about the bar kays going toe to toe with p funk on the charts as the blackest group to represent the funk to the yougsters. i als like stax for their comitmant to urban cause and didn't back down from white media when they started to get flax about it.

Yeah, but when Bell took over, he hired thugs like Johnny Baylor, and the label started going down financially until it went bankrupt and had a lot of lawsuits and IRS problems. Al Bell also made a deal with Clive Davis that eventually backfired for Stax.

The Bar Kays had their biggest success after they left Stax and went to Mercury Records, although they were the main house band during the early 70's after Booker T. & The MG's weren't really doing it much anymore.

mr dolenz, what does johnny baylor has to do with how dope stax records is? if u want to talk gangster, tell me what u known about ewart abner... this dude was using artist funds to pay disc jockeys not to play stax and philly international records. i don' know about u but that's some foul shit.

Considering how many more well known and more influential acts they had, and often better music, I say Motown by a long shot.

To be honest, though, Stax, as much great music was included, never really was able to prove itself beyond the market. For a brief time, Stax actually did attracted the mainstream (Otis and Sam & Dave, who were a big sensation in Europe and "Soul Man" was a number two US pop hit in 1967) but after Otis' death and the sale of Stax to Atlantic, that's when things started to break apart in Stax. Also distribution was tough after 1967. Stax was originally a country label when it started in 1957. Rufus Thomas was mainly the reason it turned into a top R&B label ("Walking the Dog" and Carla Thomas' "Gee Whiz" was Stax's first hit records before the introduction of Otis Redding in 1962). Motown was initially a blues/R&B label that was founded on the purpose that Berry Gordy was making little to no money for his productions and had been suggested to him by Smokey Robinson, after Gordy received a check for only $3.19. He only got cents for his other compositions for Jackie Wilson since the label kept most of the royalties then, this is what led Berry Gordy to produce other artists. Berry, with help from Johnnie Mae Matthews, Esther Gordy, Anna Gordy, Gwen Gordy, Billy Davis, Janie Bradford and Smokey Robinson, slowly turned Tamla/Motown into a good investment. Berry knew how to make the business work as compared to Stax, who had their artists' music distributed within Atlantic (Volt and Atco were created primarily for R&B recordings and most of the Stax acts released recordings under those labels, never Atlantic itself though). Stax had an advantage though in that the instrumentalists were allowed to release their own albums (mainly Booker T & the MG's) while the Soul Brothers, later the Funk Brothers, of Motown never got that privelege except when it was credited as Earl Van Dyke and the Soul Brothers (Berry hated the word 'funk' and that name wasn't used to describe them until 1966 or 1967), and even then, Motown didn't really promote them because Berry and Co. had people under a tight lease.

Timmy84 said:

Stax had an advantage though in that the instrumentalists were allowed to release their own albums (mainly Booker T & the MG's) while the Soul Brothers, later the Funk Brothers, of Motown never got that privelege except when it was credited as Earl Van Dyke and the Soul Brothers (Berry hated the word 'funk' and that name wasn't used to describe them until 1966 or 1967), and even then, Motown didn't really promote them because Berry and Co. had people under a tight lease.

The Funk Brothers would also secretly play on songs from other labels.

MickyDolenz said:

Timmy84 said:

Stax had an advantage though in that the instrumentalists were allowed to release their own albums (mainly Booker T & the MG's) while the Soul Brothers, later the Funk Brothers, of Motown never got that privelege except when it was credited as Earl Van Dyke and the Soul Brothers (Berry hated the word 'funk' and that name wasn't used to describe them until 1966 or 1967), and even then, Motown didn't really promote them because Berry and Co. had people under a tight lease.

The Funk Brothers would also secretly play on songs from other labels.

Yeah "Cool Jerk", "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher" and some others I forgot the names to at the moment...

Timmy84 said:

MickyDolenz said:

I wonder how Prince later hooked up with Al Bell to release Most Beautiful Girl In The World.

Knowing Prince, Al probably gave him money upfront...

Didn't he hire Al Bell during that time to help with NPG records? Levi Seasar was also apart of the line up of NPG records.

I just looked it up and Al Bell was the president of Bellmark records and they handled the distribution and marketing of TMBGITW.

I had forgotten about that. He also did a similar deal with Johnny Guitar Watson for his last album, "Bow Wow."

[Edited 9/30/12 13:39pm]