Stax Records  is an American record label, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee.  Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961.  It was a major factor in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music.  Stax also released gospel, funk, jazz, and blues recordings.  It featured several popular ethnically integrated bands (including the label’s house band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s) and a racially integrated team of staff and artists unprecedented in that time of racial strife and tension in Memphis and the South.  Following the death of Stax’s biggest star, Otis Redding, in 1967, and the severance of the label’s distribution deal with Atlantic Records in 1968, Stax continued primarily under the supervision of a new co-owner, Al Bell.  Atlantic Records continues to hold the rights to the vast majority of the 1959–1968 Stax material.  (More from Wikipedia)