[3] According to ethnomusicologist Rob Bowman, the label's use of "one studio, one equipment set-up, the same set of musicians and a small group of songwriters led to a readily identifiable sound.

During the mid-1970s, a number of factors, including a problematic distribution deal with CBS Records, caused the label to slide into insolvency, resulting in its forced closure in late 1975.

[3] Taking a considerable financial risk, she mortgaged her family home to invest US$2,500 (US$26,401 in 2023 dollars[7]) in the company, enabling Satellite to purchase an Ampex 350 mono console tape recorder.

Around the same time, and at the urging of Chips Moman, Stewart moved the company back to Memphis and into an old movie theater, the former Capitol Theatre, at 926 East McLemore Avenue in South Memphis; Stewart recalled that he chose the building because "it was in the area close to where Rufus Thomas (WDIA Radio disk jockey) lived [alongside] several of the other musicians and writers that are still working with the studio today.

Not having really known anything about the R&B genre prior to having recorded acts such as the Veltones and Rufus & Carla, Stewart likened the situation to that of "a blind man who suddenly gained his sight."

In the first few years at Stax, the house band varied, although Cropper, bassist Lewie Steinberg, drummers Howard Grimes or Curtis Green, and horn players Floyd Newman, Gene "Bowlegs" Miller, and Gilbert Caple were relative constants.

By 1962, multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones was also a regular session musician at Stax (he was primarily a pianist and organist, but he played sax on "Cause I Love You"), as was bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn.

Cropper, Dunn, Hayes, Jackson, Jones and Porter were collectively known as the "Big Six" within the walls of Stax and were (either as a group or in various combinations) responsible for producing almost all of the label's output from about 1963 through 1969.

When Dowd returned to New York the next day he had the tape of Thomas' breakthrough hit "Walking the Dog", which Jim Stewart lauded as the best-sounding record Stax had yet produced.

[3] Hayes would also permanently join the Stax house band, often subbing for Booker T. Jones, who was studying music full-time at Indiana University during the mid-1960s.

Stax also sponsored a Christmas concert in Memphis for several years, the most notorious of which was held in 1968, when special guest Janis Joplin performed drunk and was booed off of the stage.

[3] Alongside Otis Redding were soul singers Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas and writer Isaac Hayes, who would have a deep impact on funk music in the 1970s.

[3] In contrast to Stax's rapidly rising fortunes at this time, most of the house band were struggling to make a living: the musicians often worked long hours in the studio during the day, developing songs and arrangements, but they were paid for recordings only when the actual sessions took place, so most had to play at local venues in the evenings to earn enough to support themselves and their families.

[17] Stax was located in Memphis, Tennessee, which was still a segregated city, where Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of the civil rights movement, was assassinated in 1968.

This called for the renegotiation or termination of the distribution deal in the event that Stewart's nominated "key man" at Atlantic—Jerry Wexler—either left the company or sold his stock in Atlantic.

[3] Stewart regarded his original deal with Wexler as a gentleman's agreement, and when the distribution arrangement was formalized with a contract in 1965, he had signed it without reading it, thus missing the fateful ownership clause.

[24] The company was dealt another crushing blow when its biggest and best-loved artist, Otis Redding, as well as all but two of the members of the Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967.

In April 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the place where many members of the Stax staff regularly met and ate, and where Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd had written "Knock on Wood".

In 1970, Stewart and Bell decided to purchase the label back, with financial help from Deutsche Grammophon, the European record company owned at the time by the giant Grammophon-Philips Group (renamed PolyGram in 1972).

In addition, Bell became heavily involved with various causes in the African-American community, and was a close friend of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and a financial supporter of his Operation PUSH.

However, Davis was fired by the company shortly after signing the Stax distribution deal[3] because of reports that he used funds from CBS for personal expenditures, including an expensive bar mitzvah of his son.

(Davis, for his part, continues to insist that the "official" reason for his firing was only a convenient excuse and that, in reality, his quick ouster was a matter of personality conflict.

Stax had signed artists like Joyce Cobb bringing her over from their Truth country music label that year, but were never able to produce recordings with her and other new talent.

[3] Jim Stewart, unwilling to see the company die, returned to active participation in Stax and mortgaged his Memphis mansion to provide the label with short-term working capital.

In the 2014 documentary Take Me To The River, Bell states unequivocally that the city's white power structure loathed the presence of such a successful black-owned company and was determined to destroy it by any means necessary, using the bank loans as an excuse.

Stax's one-time McLemore Ave. headquarters were not sold until 1981, when Union Planters deeded it to the Southside Church of God in Christ for ten dollars.

Porter was also responsible for overseeing compilations of previously unissued material by Isaac Hayes, Randy Brown, the Bar-Kays, Albert King and the Emotions.

Fantasy had to make do, however, without many of the well-known acts on Stax, who moved on to other labels during the bankruptcy proceedings and were enjoying a string of hits at their new homes, including the Bar-Kays (on Mercury), Johnnie Taylor (on Columbia, where he had the nation's first RIAA-certified Platinum single in "Disco Lady"),[48] Isaac Hayes (on Polydor), the Staple Singers, Richard Pryor (both on Warner Bros.), the Dramatics (on ABC), Shirley Brown (on Arista), and the Emotions (on Columbia, and later on ARC after their new producer Maurice White relaunched it as a vehicle for his productions).

[50] The first Concord-distributed Stax album of all-new material was a various artists CD which was released on March 27, 2007 and titled Interpretations: Celebrating The Music of Earth, Wind & Fire.

[55] In 2016, Stax issued an album of new material by one of the label's original artists, William Bell, recorded in New York City and co-produced by him and Jon Leventhal.