Jim Stewart, the co-founder of R&B label Stax and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, died on December 5, 2022, according to longtime Stax songwriter David Porter. Stewart was 92 years old.
Jim Stewart died “peacefully, surrounded by his family,” according to a statement released by Stax Museum of American Soul Music, which confirmed his passing.
“No way a poor kid from a housing project’s picture in Memphis would be on a bus rolling through Memphis if it were not for this man, JIM STEWART the ST of the word Stax,” Porter wrote in a social media caption with a photo of the Stax Museum bus (the museum is located at the original location of Stax Records). “I love and acknowledge him and his memory. RIP my dear benefactor to American Soul music.”
Stewart co-founded Satellite Records, later known as Stax Records, in 1957 after convincing his sister, Estelle Axton, to take out a second mortgage on her home and join him.
From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, the record label and recording studio on McLemore Avenue in South Memphis became a haven for a new generation of Memphis R&B hitmakers.