Stax Museum of American Soul Music
The museum stands on the original Stax site and rebuilds its story through studio equipment, records, stage clothing, films, a transplanted church, and Isaac Hayes’s Cadillac.
Artwork inspired by Ted Faiers
Stax was a sound, workplace, and unusually integrated creative community in a segregated city. The exhibits show how arrangements, house musicians, business decisions, and neighborhood talent turned a former theater into an international label—and how corporate expansion unraveled it.
Begin inside the Mississippi Delta church before entering the reconstructed Studio A. Listen for the dry, muscular rhythm section across several songs, then use the glamorous Cadillac as a counterpoint to the company’s fragile finances and abrupt 1975 closure.
- Hoopers Chapel
- Rebuilt Mississippi Delta church
- Studio A
- Deliberately spare recording room
- Isaac Hayes Cadillac
- Soul-era glamour and success
Quick guide
- First move
- At Stax Museum of American Soul Music, begin with Hoopers Chapel: The museum stands on the original Stax site and rebuilds its story through studio equipment, records, stage clothing, films, a transplanted church, and Isaac Hayes’s Cadillac.
- Second look
- Studio A: Stax was a sound, workplace, and unusually integrated creative community in a segregated city.
Build the visit around three specific anchors
- Start with
- Hoopers Chapel: The museum stands on the original Stax site and rebuilds its story through studio equipment, records, stage clothing, films, a transplanted church, and Isaac Hayes’s Cadillac.
- Look closely at
- Studio A: Stax was a sound, workplace, and unusually integrated creative community in a segregated city.
- Connect the story
- Isaac Hayes Cadillac: Soul music built from a neighborhood sound.
- Plan around
- Begin inside the Mississippi Delta church before entering the reconstructed Studio A.
Good to know
Stax Museum of American Soul Music: listen for the dry, muscular rhythm section across several songs, then use the glamorous Cadillac as a counterpoint to the company’s fragile finances and abrupt 1975 closure.
Notice these
- Hoopers Chapel
- Studio A
- Isaac Hayes Cadillac