"Stax to the Max Festival" Kicks Off This Saturday in Memphis

"Stax to the Max Festival" Kicks Off This Saturday in Memphis
April 22, 2013

For the third year in row, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music is taking it to the streets with its "Stax to the Max Festival" - an all-day, outdoor, FREE music and arts festival. This year’s event, billed as "ArtsMemphis Presents Stax to the Max," takes place this Saturday, April 27, from 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.

In July and December of 1973, Elvis recorded three albums at Stax Records. The albums include "Raised On Rock," "Good Times" and "Promised Land," which produced four Top 20 hits on the charts. This year’s festival, held behind the Stax Museum, features all-day live music, arts performances, vendors, nonprofit booths, food trucks, children’s activities and more, plus visitors from all over the country and even Canada participating. In celebration of the Stax Museum’s 10th anniversary in 2013, the event promises to be bigger and better than ever before. 

Musical acts include:

• The Soulsville Charter School Jazz Ensemble
• The Vic High School R&B Band from Victoria, British Columbia
• The Monophonics (psychedelic soul and funk from San Francisco)
• Swingtime Explosion (17-piece big band from Memphis)
• Stax Music Academy
• Headline Act: For the headline act beginning at 5:30 pm on the main stage, Stax to the Max is having an old-school Stax and soul throw down, with the Garry Goin Band backing Stax legend William Bell, longtime Memphis soul singer Toni Green, and Kirk Whalum, with rare Memphis appearances by Stax legends the Temprees, the Mad Lads, and the Astors, the latter of which hasn’t performed together in 40 years.

Arts groups performing include:

• Prizm
• Southern Word
• Heal the Hood
• Opera Memphis
• Collage Dance
• New Ballet
• Women’s Theatre Festival

“We have a junket of 25 European journalists traveling to Memphis to cover the Stax Museum’s 10th anniversary and we wanted to give them and the crowd a real Stax experience. With the young people of the Stax Music Academy and the performances by the Stax veteran artists, we hope we will convey to everyone that the Stax Museum is more than just a museum, but also a community, a family if you will, that uses the legacy we preserve to bring things into the present and take them into the future,” according to Stax Museum communications director Tim Sampson. 

Learn more about the "Stax to the Max Festival" by visiting StaxMuseum.com.

source: Elvis.com