Crime Hunter: Stax Bolt Murder, Music, Memphis Sounds
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Murder has been a musical pursuit since classical composer Alessandro Stradella stabbed a knife into his stomach in 1682.
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Sadly, that sourness won’t be the last. Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Little Willie John who was executed in a Washington prison for manslaughter, country star David “Stringbean” Aikman, Tupac Shakur and countless others have been murdered Participated in event collection.
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One of the musical murder mysteries that continues to this day is the unsolved murder of revered Stax Bolt drummer Al Jackson Jr.
Jackson was dubbed the “Human Timekeeper” for his intuitive beats contributed by Stax Soul legends such as Sam and Dave, Otis Redding and Eddie Floyd Cook.
He was the rock behind the famed Stax house bands Booker T and the MGs. The Stax band was an anomaly in his turbulent 1960s in the segregated South. It featured two black men and two white men, Steve “The Coronel” Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn.
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“Al Jackson was the best single-stroke player I’ve ever heard in my life,” Cropper told Jim Payne in the book. Give the drummer a present! “He’ll just throw something in there every now and then and you go, wow! Or he’ll do the little Tom thing that comes out of nowhere.”
Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream came true at his studio at 926 E. McLemore Avenue in Memphis.
By 1970, however, Cropper and Jones had left, and Dunn and Jackson were in high demand as sidemen. Jackson worked extensively with another Memphis legend, Al Green, and co-wrote many hits.
The quartet that formed MG missed each other’s chops.And in 1975, to the world green onion Plan to meet again.
This is where the mystery of Al Jackson’s murder becomes ambiguous. It remains unsolved, and Memphis homicide detectives guard its secrets like the jewels in their crown.
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On September 30, 1975, Jackson was scheduled to produce a recording session in Detroit. But who missed the “Thrila in Manila” slugfest between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali on air at the South Central Coliseum?
It will be a welcome respite for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer, who has faced a constant stream of chaos on the domestic front.
Jackson and his wife, Barbara, are estranged, and to underscore the point, she shot Jackson twice the previous July, but he skipped the charges. , was going to move to Atlanta.
When he returned from the fight, there was an intruder at his house who allegedly told the Seoul superstar to get on his knees. The killer then shot him five times in the back. His wife later ran into the street, screaming for her help.
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The problem for detectives was that nothing was missing. Jackson’s purse and jewelry were still on his cold body.
At the time of Jackson’s murder, Stax Bolt was drowning in a cesspool of federal indictments and the company was bankrupt. Did Al Jackson Jr. Know Too Much?
Given that his estranged wife had parked two bullets in Jackson a few months earlier, you’d think detectives would take a closer look at the new widow. Barbara was making time with an unnamed Memphis cop when Jackson was murdered.
Additionally, Barbara Jackson was close friends with blues singer Dennis LaSalle. The singer was spotted that day at her Central Avenue home in the Jackson family in Memphis. Also at the drummer’s house was LaSalle’s boyfriend, Nate Doyle.
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LaSalle is suspected of telling Doyle, who is on the run from a robbery in Florida, to meet him at Jackson’s house.
Doyle was wanted by the FBI for a series of violent bank robberies. Ten months later, in July 1976, he collapsed in a hail of bullets in a shootout with police officers in Seattle.
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LaSalle, now establishing herself as Queen of the Blues, is indicted by the federal government for hiding Doyle.
Who killed Al Jackson and why remains a musical mystery.
“I’ve had my own thoughts about Al’s death, but that’s just speculation,” Donald “Duck” Dunn told The Guardian in the 1990s.
The deceased bassist still lived in Memphis, was close to Jackson, and was well aware of his marital problems.
“I think it was the guy who got killed in Seattle who actually did it. I’ve heard rumors of Dennis LaSalle and others, but… Hell, I just miss Al.”
To learn more about Stax Records, read Soulsville USA, The Story of Stax Records, by York University professor and musicologist Rob Bowman.
bhunter@postmedia.com
Crime Hunter: Stax Bolt Murder, Music, Memphis Sounds
Source link Crime Hunter: Stax Bolt Murder, Music, Memphis Sounds