In this episode, host Brandon Jenkins speaks with legendary record executive and songwriter Al Bell. Mr. Bell was the head of Stax Records during the height of the blaxploitation movement and oversaw the release of the film genre's most iconic soundtracks like "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" and "Shaft". He discussed blaxploitation's impact on film soundtracks and the continued legacy of that moment in music. This Episode's Blaxploitation Watch List: Dolemite Is My Name (2019) Shaft (1971) Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)
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Brandon: Welcome back to There’s Something About Dolemite. I’m Brandon Jenkins. This week we’re diving into the sounds of the blaxploitation era. I feel like everyone has a favorite film soundtrack, whether it’s a song that scored an emotional moment or the musical bed of an action scene, or the case of breakout title music that has become a hit of its own.
This connection between music and film has many lines of heritage. But when it comes to today’s popular culture, many of those roots lead back to blaxploitation films of the early to mid-’70s. While blaxploitation created new ventures into film and the visual arts, it also boosted the black music scene, giving birth to not only new songs, but new ways to interpret music.
It all started with Melvin Van Peebles, a 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Due to an unrelenting vision and a very thin budget, the movie score was composed by Van Peebles himself, who tapped a little-known group that would one day become Earth, Wind & Fire.
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Brandon: The soundtrack released on Stax Records, and it was a relative hit, spending 19 weeks on the Billboard charts. This was followed by others, like Isaac Hayes’s funky work on Shaft, which won both an Academy Award and a Grammy. A waterfall of black music’s best artists did the same, Marvin Gaye for the movie Trouble Man, James Brown for Black Caesar, Willie Hutch for Foxy Brown and The Mack, Bobby Womack for Across 110th Street, Roy Ayers for Coffy, and Curtis Mayfield’s work on Super Fly.
Alongside these legends was Rudy Ray Moore. The multi-hyphenate talent provides the soundtrack for his own breakout film, Dolemite. His unique rhyme style found life outside of his films and served as one of the early influences for rap music.
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Brandon: Here’s what Snoop Dogg, who stars in Netflix’s Dolemite Is My Name, had to say about Rudy’s legacy in music.
Snoop Dogg: He was one of the first ones to put rap and rhyme to rhythm and talk shit and swallow spit at the same time while getting at a biatch. So his style was so rap-orientated ahead of rap, before rap, so there was a lot of rappers that drew their influences from him. So, without Rudy there wouldn’t be a lot of great rappers.
Brandon: The sound of funk, jazz, R&B, and soul created by these artists helped to build out the world that these films were living in. At times, the soundtracks eclipsed the films in notoriety and served as characters in their own right. Like, when we say Shaft, of course I think of Richard Roundtree. But I also think of Isaac Hayes and those opening cymbals of the Shaft theme song.
That pattern alone evokes the badass charisma of Shaft himself without even needing to see him on the screen. The song is blaxploitation personified. The music from these films helped in the marketing of the projects but also really created the best practice for film soundtracks going forward. Think Beyoncé’s “The Gift” for the live action Lion King or Kendrick Lamar taking the reins in the Black Panther soundtrack.
We don’t think twice about it now, but back in the ‘70s, this was new shit, pairing popular talented artists to bring these sounds to life, help to expand profits, increase overall star power, and to submit a film’s vision for moviegoers. You can now take a piece of the movie home with you, throw it on your record player, and relive your favorite scenes.
When we look back at the blaxploitation movement, it’s important that we give the music of these films their own focus. They produced some of the era’s best songs and helped to solidify the bond between film and soundtrack in ways seen throughout art and media today. With that said, we dug deep to connect with one of music’s most important figures, Mr. Al Bell.
Mr. Bell was an executive and co-owner of the Memphis-based Stax Records. Stax was instrumental in developing the earliest soundtracks for blaxploitation films, like Sweet Sweetback and Shaft, in addition to a ton of the era’s biggest and most memorable songs. So, even if you don’t know his name, you’ve definitely heard his work.
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Brandon: Al Bell and Stax Records are pillars of black art. So, for me, this was a huge honor to speak directly to one of the minds responsible for creating the foundation. So, let’s get into it.
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Brandon: So, Mr. Bell, first and foremost, how are you doing today?
Al: I woke up this morning. [Laughs.]
Brandon: Well, look, man, thank you for spending the day with us. We want to start at the beginning. Can you tell us about what your upbringing was like and what role music played in your life?
Al: Well, I started learning about music in high school, my senior high school years. At that time this was the first time that we had a black programmed radio station in our city. And I went by at that time to meet with the alt manager of the station and the top disk jockey on the station and asked them if they would be judges on my little event that I was putting on. And they said yes.
I said, “Oh, great.” I knew I’d get publicity as a result of that and perhaps be able to get some additional attendants for the event. Went on, put the show on that night. I was the emcee. Came out, sat on the stool, introduced the actors that came out to—artists as they came out to perform. And afterwards, the manager of the radio station, Ed Feylon [phonetic 00:06:08], came up to me and said, “Listen, I’m going to make a disk jockey out of you.”
And he said to me, “What I want you to do,” said, “I want you to go and I want you to visit all of the restaurants around town to see what black people are playing, what music they’re playing in those restaurants.” He said, “And if you do it and do it correctly and learn about the people and hear what they’re saying about the music, you can talk about the music, and that will make you the number one or top disk jockey in town.”
He said, “Do you know why?” I said, “No, sir.” He said, “Well, you see, white people like black music as much as, or in some instances, more than black people. And because of the population, if you’re playing that music, then you have those white people listening to you as well as the black people. So you are reaching that audience, and you’re getting more white people possibly because of the population. You have more whites than you have blacks.”
Well, I did it, did just that, talked to the people on the phone, listened to them talk to me about the music and the music they requested, and became the number one disk jockey there. And as a result of that, I saw the impact music had on people and how people felt about music and realized that, if you take music out of our existence, we cease to exist here on planet earth.
I grew also to appreciate that we were really born of music. And without going any further and talking for the next two days, that’s why I fell in love with and understood—I mean, I really understand the impact and healing power of music on people.
Brandon: So you took all of that—this experience on the ground, personal feelings, practice at a radio station—
Al: Yes.
Brandon: —and combined this all to get the—what amounts to, I guess, the essence of feeling, right? The idea that’s baked into the music.
Al: Yes.
Brandon: So, with that love and understanding for music, how do you then get to Stax Records?
Al: Ah, I met Jim Stewart in Memphis, Tennessee when I was working there at radio station WLOK. And Jim Stewart called me one day and said, “Al, we’d like for you—we’re having problems. We’re $20,000 in the hole and about to go under. And we need you to come in here. These disk jockeys respect you. They know you. We’ve seen you interact with them. And we believe that, if you came in and started talking to disk jockeys about our music and promoting it with them, that they would start playing that music, and we would start selling more music, because we’d be played in more markets around the country.”
And I agreed after many discussions, so I added all of that knowledge when I went into Stax to get us out of the hole and added that knowledge and increased knowledge based on my experiences as time passed by across America. And, from that point forward, inside of Stax Records it never became the same.
Brandon: So you not only revived Stax, but you really helped it to come into its own, which for me just sounds like wild. I guess my next question is, as we leave the ’60s and make our way into the ‘70s, what kind of things are taking place in the film industry, and how does the music play a role in that?
Al: Well, we were just getting some exposure because some films were being produced at that time—not too many—with blacks in them. Unfortunately, we were always the maid or the housekeeper or whatever, so the little—we’re a little off and sometimes offensive. The difference though with music is, as musicians, the musicians obviously was influenced by the producer who said I’d like to have this kind of feel and emotion at this point in the film, because the music provided the emotions.
You take the music away and you don’t know whether, really, this is a scary scene or it’s a scene that sounds like love or whatever the case might be. And the black musicians at that time, I mean, they didn’t know it and were not being taught this, but they were really producing and playing art. I mean, it was like a painter making a painting.
So, when they went into the film studio to record film soundtracks, they did what they were supposed to do and told to do in terms of where they played and the sound that the producer or director needed at that point in time. But they were—I mean, they were just great musicians. They couldn’t be anything—any less than better than the best, because they were trained that way. They felt that way.
So, as you heard them play, they were doing the music to the soundtrack, but they really were trying to be great, like going in and recording another hit record, based on what the subject matter was about in the film itself and adding to that, but not just to be adding a soundtrack, but to be great in an artistic manner.
So that was really a separation, and no one really knew that, and it wasn’t discussed like that. And it took me time to understand and appreciate it, but I appreciated that’s what was taking place. Even though they were working together, they were two separate components.
Brandon: I’m wondering what purpose did you feel like these soundtracks served? Because, like you said, they supported the film, but in a lot of ways were able to live separately?
Al: Well, yes. What happened back during those days, the recorded music companies were anxious to be able to get a soundtrack from a film, because you had people in the marketplace, music consumers, that thought that that was something special and unique. And at the record companies, they didn’t have to spend a good deal of money in promoting that music from the film if it said on the outside of the jacket of the 12-inch vinyl at that point in time, “Music from the motion picture soundtrack block.”
Well, people would purchase that music without knowing anything about it, other than maybe the name of the arranger, the names of some of the performers, meaning the musicians that played on it, and that it was music from a soundtrack,. So they bought it because, “Oh, this has to be something different because this is from a soundtrack.” It gave you additional asset value and made you more important or gave more consideration, or you were given more consideration by the music purchaser and the music appreciator.
Brandon: I’m curious about the way music interacts with this art, and by this art I mean film. The way music interacts with these films that were made and constructed by black people.
Al: Well, I think that, by the ’70s with the Sweet Sweetback's and the Shafts, we had—especially with Shaft, we had—and I made sure of a portion of that that I’ll explain—I made sure that it was an authentic reflection of the art form. And what the music did was it in fact lived the character that was presented in that motion picture. Shaft is a bad mother—shut your mouth. The problem I had was that the quality of music in general.
But the music that came from African-Americans in these soundtracks, the quality was not there in those recordings that we would capture on the quality of the music when we recorded it in the studio, because the idea back then on our sonic recording equipment was to mix it—after capturing it on the different tracks, to mix it where you could hear that snare on the drum just where it was supposed to be to let you feel and hear the arrangement there in the studio.
The same with the guitar, the drums, et cetera. The mix was there. The sound was different. So, what I did was, after we recorded in Los Angeles the soundtrack for Shaft, to ensure we had that quality, that high quality and that studio sound, I chartered a plane after we had finished a session for the motion picture and flew all those musicians back to Memphis, put them in a hotel, then the next day took them into Stax Studio, and rerecorded that entire soundtrack album in the recording studio and mixed it in the recording studio, so that the persons that purchased that soundtrack album would hear all that they should hear and the authenticity of the original recording and original sound that should be heard from all of those musical instruments, because we could capture differently in the studio than while doing the soundtrack for the film. And we came up with, for want of a better way to put it, a masterpiece.
Brandon: Yeah, I would say so. Mr. Bell, I had this all wrong. I thought that—I had this idea that the movies had given, you know, the musicians a supported budget and that’s why these sounds sounded so rich. But what you’re explaining to me is that you actually recorded, essentially scoring the film so that it could function within the film. But then you all went back and you all chartered a plane to go back and record it for the average listener.
Al: Yes, no question about it. No question—and had the same quality that you would have in a masterpiece sound recording. Yes.
Brandon: Well, okay. That changed my whole theory. That’s, one, just an amazing thought process, to think about that and to find that, “Hey, you know, we’re making this for this film, and it works great within this movie. But you know what? We’re going to be selling this thing, and we have a name to keep up. And we want people to know that, you know, we make a product to a certain level.” And to go back and to rerecord it, and then, like you said, to make, you know, a hit recording. That’s amazing.
Al: Yes. Yes. And because what was inside of us and really inside of me then and today, was to make music for people that they could feel emotionally and all of the nuances that came from the artist, whether it was the singer or from the musicians, that were legitimate and very important to the overall production, that you could hear that.
Well, you couldn’t do that when you were doing, you know, the soundtracks. So, in order to ensure that we captured all of that, that’s why I did that—went back, went to the studio—so we could capture every little bit of that painting, if you will, and music, that we could capture it on that sonic canvas, so that that listener could hear it and hear every little bit of that painting.
Brandon: Can I ask you about another film that you worked on?
Al: Sure.
Brandon: Sweet Sweetback.
Al: Badass song. [Laughter.]
Brandon: With Earth, Wind & Fire. But, at the time if I’m correct, they weren’t Earth, Wind & Fire yet.
Al: They were not Earth, Wind & Fire and didn’t have a name, other than these guys. [Laughs.] And I wasn’t involved in the recording. Melvin Van Peebles was able to pull together—he knew them—was able to pull together that group of musicians, being as brilliant as a composer, as a creative person. All I did was listen and say, “Oh, my goodness, this is great.”
Brandon: I mean, that was sort of the birth of them. Right? Like to think that a film soundtrack can make one of our time’s most prolific groups, when has that happened since?
Al: I don’t know if it has. That was the beginning. That was the beginning. They weren’t even—as you said, they weren’t even Earth, Wind & Fire at that time. And I can tell you this. We couldn’t get distribution, so we did what they call four-wall. That’s where we went from city to city and rented the theatres and showed the film in the theatre.
The theatre owners were glad to take it as long as we were paying them, but wouldn’t let us have concessions, because that’s where their margin of profit was. I didn’t realize it at that point in time, because we fought hard to try to get the popcorn, hot dogs, and whatever the case might be. But they would let us sell—and this is what I found every interesting—they would let us sell the CDs in the theatre.
We could put them out where the rest of the concessions were and sell our CDs. I don’t remember the number, the quantity, but we sold a lot of CDs that were not being played on the radio. And the only place you heard them—heard that music was in that soundtrack on that film. And for those people to come out of that theatre, go over and buy that CD—I don’t remember the quantity, but I do remember the feeling.
It blew my mind. I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve sold these many CDs, and we haven’t been on radio? These people haven’t heard it anyplace other than in that motion picture?” And that’s how we managed at that point in time to break even, or add a little bit more—let me put it like that—add a little bit more to our margin of profit.
Brandon: I mean, first off, the idea that there is—this is an independent film—the idea that there’s no—the group isn’t the group yet—the idea that this is completely independent getting Stax to help push this thing through. And then you’re telling me that you paid—you all paid the theatres to even just host the film.
Al: Yes.
Brandon: I—that’s insane. And to think about the aftermath of all those things, how prolific it is, not just the music but the film. And how also what you’re talking about, like selling the music right after, in a lot of ways, even in today’s digital era, is best practice.
Al: Yes. Yes, yes.
Brandon: What is the motivation? Because there’s no game plan, right? You have to kind of make this up as you go along. What is the motivation? And how does this era fuel this?
Al: Well, we—it’s attitude, attitude, and Melvin and mine, and Jim Stewart, because Jim Stewart was my 50/50 partner then. And Melvin didn’t have enough to complete the production of the film. So we contributed—without any equity ownership in it, we contributed to the final dollars that he needed to complete the film, so you have a film to market.
And, what we did was, even though we were going from market to market across America four-walling, the consumer or the people didn’t know, because when we were to come in that market and show the film, we were marketing it in that city as thought it was a national release. In other words, we would advertise in the print media, radio media, and some television media and what they call at the street level out amongst the people.
We were spending the dollars at the time marketing it so as to popularize it with the local community and do it in such a manner where those locally didn’t know it was just being released in that city and not a national release like any other film. We had the creative minds to pull that off and ran the risk of investing the dollars required to cause that to happen. And we made our money back, because we had a product that the people wanted.
Brandon: I wanted to jump to one more film. You spoke about it earlier, Shaft, which also released in the same year, 1971, the soundtrack.
Al: Right.
Brandon: What was so unique about Isaac Hayes sound? I mean, he’s an absolute legend. But what he was able to bring to that soundtrack specifically, but just his sound, what you remember of what he was able to do and create.
Al: Well, Isaac came out of a production facility called Stax. And, at Stax, our mentality and attitude was about, if it was a recording artist, if it was a commercial for radio or television, was from a musical standpoint to not do anything to change the motion picture or the artist, but look for the authenticity in the motion picture soundtrack and the motion picture script and the performances and the artists singing.
And, once we zeroed in on or focused on or felt the authenticity of the artistry that was coming out of that artist or that motion picture was to create music that embellished and enhanced the authenticity of it, our music was born. I mean, it was born—I think, as I mentioned earlier, we couldn’t sing in America as slaves in the cotton fields and the tobacco fields. I’m sorry, we couldn’t talk.
But what we did was we learned how to talk through our singing. So the singing became words and became our way of communicating with each other. And it carried over as we evolved until today. It carried over in the way that we recorded, wrote, sang, and played our music. I hope that made sense, because it’s subtle, but it’s profound.
Brandon: 100%, and I mean, like—and I love just your breakdown. I was thinking of—one of my, you know, questions was going to be, what were some approaches you used to produce the music that ultimately led to the song’s mainstream success? But what I like about it is you’re like it’s authentic.
It was something real that we used in the moment, but also digging from a very real well, culturally, a very real lineage that’s within the people, and just applying that to these films that also live in authenticity. Even though many of them are fictional, it’s capturing authentic energy.
Al: Yes.
Brandon: Capturing authentic feeling and heart of it to tell these new stories and create this new music. I vibe with that 100%, 100%.
Al: Well, that’s what we were about. That’s how we thought, how we felt at Stax. And keep in mind now, when you deal with the musicians there, the rhythm section was Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the mixed group, two black guys and two white guys. So it had to do with the music that’s indigenous to this country, the music that came from our culture. But it was about us working together, feeling each other.
We were human beings and we could feel each other, even though we came from different cultures and lived in different environments in America. But we were still, you know, just human beings, and none of that other stuff in there. And, as you listened to Shaft, when you listened to that soundtrack, I mean, you’re really seeing, hearing, and feelings in the music and the arrangement that character itself.
You’re feeling that character as that character was portrayed in the film itself. It’s just not some music there that’s being played as that particular scene is being shown. You’re seeing from scene to scene a continuation of that character called Shaft. And that music was designed, as I repeat, to enhance and embellish what you were seeing coming from that character, the emotion, the expressions, the feelings, and all of that. That’s what it—that was us.
Brandon: I love that. Well, Mr. Bell, I’ve only got one more question for you. And we’ve been asking every guest of this podcast the same question. What are your top three must-watch blaxploitation films? And we’re going to use the term. But what are your top three films from that era to watch?
Al: Uptown Saturday Night, “Banana Boat Song.” For 30 minutes I may say something different, but... [Laughter.].
Brandon: Well, Mr. Bell, thank you for all this. I’m not lying to you when I tell you this is my favorite interview of all the ones we’ve done. Extremely thankful for your time.
Al: Wow, thank you. I’m humbled by that. Thank you very much.
Brandon: Before we get out of here, I also had the chance to speak with the composer of Dolemite Is My Name, Scott Bomar. We talked about what it was like to create original music for the new Netflix film.
Scott: The score that I wanted to create was one that felt like it was—it could have been the score for the film that they’re making in the film. So I wanted it to feel like it belonged in that era and in that time, but also support the actors, support what’s happening on camera.
The cue in the film that I’ve had the most people comment on is the one that’s called “Put Your Weight On It,” which is the music that is during the infamous sex scene. Everyone I know who’s seen the film, after the screening, it’s the first thing they come up and say, is like, “That music in the sex scene is amazing. I love it.”
That cue is very, very Quincy Jones inspired, particularly the bass. There’s a great bassist named Chuck Rainey who Quincy used on a lot of his scores and a lot of his recordings. And there’s a figure in the bass in the beginning of that that is very, very Chuck Rainey influenced.
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Brandon: Make sure to check out Dolemite Is My Name out on Netflix now. Share your thoughts about the show by tweeting our friends @strongblacklead. This show is a collaboration between Netflix’s “Strong Black Lead” and Pineapple Street Studios. Special thanks to executive producers Jasmine Lawson, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Max Linsky.
A shout out to my producers, Agerenesh Ashagre and Jess Jupiter. And our original music is by Dau Anthony [phonetic 00:31:18]. Tell your friends about the show, and make sure to rate and subscribe to There’s Something About Dolemite on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. And that’s it. That’s our show. We’ll see you all next week.
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