Anyone
who knows me knows I work for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music
and the Stax Music Academy. That said, my editor said it was okay for
me to be little self-serving this week and write about something very
special — the Stax Music Academy's 10th Anniversary, which we'll
celebrate this year. And no, this is not a promo spot or a plea for
funding. I just want to tell you about some of our kids and how things
have played out over the past 10 years.
We started on June 1, 2000, with 125 kids in the lunchroom of an
elementary school near the corner of McLemore Avenue and College
Street. Rufus and Carla Thomas were among the many musicians who
conducted workshops, and the kids "graduated" at the end of six weeks
at LeMoyne-Owen College. (I was outside in the bushes, so no one would
see me crying.) They had a big grand finale concert at the U of M. (And
I was in the bathroom, so no one would see me crying.) We carried on
this way until the beautiful Stax Music Academy building opened in
2002, followed by the Stax Museum next door in 2003. We opened the
school first, because we weren't going to build anything at the
original site of Stax Records unless it did something for the young
people in Soulsville, USA. From that time until now, it has been a
little piece of magic on earth.
I've watched young people come in so shy that they slumped in the
corner, speechless for days. Two weeks later, you couldn't bend their
smile out of shape with a pair of pliers and you certainly couldn't get
them to stop talking — mostly about music. They performed concerts at
the Orpheum, with guest artists such as Mavis Staples of the Staples
Singers — Stax royalty. They gave concerts at the Cannon Center, the U
of M's Mike Rose Theater, and other venues. You could see their
self-confidence building before your eyes.
As time went by, we switched from serving very young children and
started concentrating on high school students who showed musical
talent. They played for the likes of Bill Clinton, Bono (who jumped
from his seat and gave them a standing ovation), Oprah Winfrey, Isaac
Hayes, Bootsy Collins, the Memphis Grizzlies and their fans (during
games on the court at halftime), and a host of others. They began
playing every year at the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale,
Mississippi, and they opened for B.B. King in Indianola. They opened
the festivities at the famed Porretta Soul Festival in Rufus Thomas
Park in Porretta Terme, Italy. They played the Rock and Roll Fall of
Fame in Cleveland and the Kennedy Center on July 4, 2007.
They traveled to Australia in 2008, playing a huge outdoor concert
in Melbourne, a command performance for the United States ambassador in
the capital of Canberra (where they also had tea at the embassy), and
at the U.S. consulate general's private July 4th gala, where the crowd
demanded an encore. And they played at several Australian Royal
Children's Hospitals along the way, and those were some of their
favorite gigs, because they felt a sense of giving back. They also
performed there on national television to an audience of millions. This
all sounds pretty glamorous, but this entailed getting up and at it at
5:30 every morning and working pretty much all day, while also learning
a lot about that country's culture. They worked very hard.
In 2009 and 2010, every single one of our Stax Music Academy high
school seniors was accepted to a college or university, some on full
scholarships and some with special grants. Some got accepted to
prestigious colleges but had to settle for something more within their
families' budget. This summer five of them will attend the Berklee
College of Music Summer Music Program on full scholarships. They are
all working as hard as they can to raise money to have pocket money
while they are there. One academy graduate, who I have watched grow up
for 10 years, is touring with the current incarnation of Con Funk Shun
and just returned from a gig in the Cayman Islands. That's a long way
from his home in 38106 Memphis, one of the most economically depressed
zips in the country.
Don't think for a minute that these young people haven't had
obstacles along the way. Sometimes, their circumstances have been
incredibly frustrating to them and to us. We can't solve every problem.
But, if I do say so myself, we have made a historic amount of progress.
Next time someone asks how you can live in a city like Memphis, tell
them about the Stax Music Academy. I can only imagine what the next 10
years have in store. I'm sure I'll be doing plenty more hiding, so no
one will see me crying.
