Stax Museum offering virtual events for Black History Month

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The Stax Museum of American Soul Music and its music academy in Tennessee are once again offering an online concert and a virtual tour in honor of Black History Month in February.

The Memphis-based studio produced soul music by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, the Staples Singers, Booker T. and the MGs, Wilson Pickett and others in the 1960s and 1970s. The studio has been turned into a museum, and the adjacent Stax Music Academy teaches music theory, business and performance to young people.

The museum offered an online concert and virtual tours in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 130,000 students and adults viewed the programs, Stax said in a news release.

This year's online concert will have Stax Music Academy students performing videos featuring songs from B.B. King, the Pointer Sisters, Ike & Tina Turner, Rufus Thomas, Duke Ellington and Beyonce, Stax said.

“Even with the ongoing waves of the COVID virus and other events that continue changing the world by the day, our Stax Music Academy students still find a great deal of comfort and happiness in studying, creating, rehearsing, and performing music,” Pat Mitchell Worley, executive director of the Stax Music Academy, said in a statement.

The virtual tour will focus on the achievements of Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers, former label owner Al Bell, songwriter and singer Bettye Crutcher, and Al Jackson Jr., the drummer for Booker T. & the M.G.’s.

Study guides and other activities will accompany the productions. Registration is available at the Stax Museum website.