Stax Museum honors soul music

The Stax music record label -- famed for recording such venerable acts as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and Booker T. & the MG’s -- arose in a new incarnation in Memphis on Friday as the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, an exhibition space and music academy that honors soul music’s emergence in the midst of the turbulent civil rights era.

The centerpiece of the $20-million Soulsville, USA, revitalization project is a low-slung structure featuring a marquee topped by the word “Stax,” built on what had been a rubble-strewn, four-acre vacant lot.

Among the exhibits are a dance floor and large television screen where visitors can dance to 1960s and 1970s reruns of the “Soul Train” TV show.