1977.
Sold
Unbound. A small archive of material relating to the sale of Stax Records to a partnership, Elan Enterprises, which seems like it was a front for Fantasy Records. Consists of (1) a letter from an attorney to Bernard "Beans" Lieberman, one of the partners, enclosing (2) a fully executed partnership agreement for Elan, signed by all the partners, and (3) a "Document Book" containing all the legal documents concluding the acquisition of the assets of Stax. All items are near fine.
The Document Book is a spiral bound folio of a few hundred pages, most of them enumerating the property owned by Stax, mostly consisting of recorded and unreleased masters and rights to many musical acts, primarily soul, gospel, and R&B performers, with a few mainstream rock and spoken word records mixed in, under several labels (Stax, Gospel Truth, Volt, Enterprise, Truth, Hip, Portee, and Respect). Among the performers listed, with the values of their masters, are Booker T & the MG's, The Staple Singers, Soul Children, Johnny Taylor, John Lee Hooker, Eddie Floyd, Little Milton, Melvin Van Peebles, Albert King, Carla Thomas, Billy Eckstein, Isaac Hayes, Chico Hamilton, The Bar-Kays, Black Nasty, Bill Cosby, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Delany and Bonnie. There is also a photo copy of the canceled check for $2,050,000 made out to Stax owner Sam Nassi Associates for the purchase.
Stax Records was founded in Memphis in the late 1950s by a white brother and sister who primarily recorded soul music; it also featured integrated acts including the house band Booker T & the MG's (which included Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and for a while, Isaac Hayes). After the death of their biggest star, Otis Redding, and some problematic distribution deals, they gradually headed into bankruptcy, and the catalogue was sold to Elan, as documented here, and sold almost immediately to Fantasy Records, which reactivated the label.
The largest partner in Elan (and Fantasy Records) was Beans Lieberman's boyhood friend Saul Zaentz, who also owned Fantasy Films and won three Oscars for producing Best Pictures: *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, *Amadeus*, and *The English Patient*. Interesting insight into the evolution of a "race" record company.
Item #413012
