St. Louis Wing Week Returns April 8-15, 2024

Top 10 Bad-Ass Stax Records Covers

The Top 10 (plus a few more) coolest LP covers put out by Memphis label Stax Records, plucked from the Euclid Records dungeon (basement), home to 60,000 neatly alphabetized records.

Scroll down to view images

The sign on the door to the Euclid Records dungeon, taken from Lou Reed's farm.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

1 of 16

There are more than 60,000 records in the basement of Euclid. Joe Schwab plucked his favorite, the coolest covers in the Stax Records catalog.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

2 of 16

Johnnie Taylor's Who's Making Love... Taylor has an electric-blue soulful halo.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

3 of 16

Booker T and the M.G.'s tribute to the Beatles' Abbey Road. Photographed on a Memphis street.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

4 of 16

A very mod-looking cover for this Booker T and the M.G.'s record.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

5 of 16

Sam and Dave's Double Dynamite.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

6 of 16

The metallic sheen of this Staple Singers LP, City in the Sky, still shines 35 years later.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

7 of 16

This one is just Sam and Dave sitting on a cartoon turtle. It really needs no more explanation.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

8 of 16

Memphis Gold, Volume I, carries a Hindu influence. It was the first in a series of Stax compilations.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

9 of 16

Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign has all the signs of shitty luck -- black cats, skull & cross bones, Friday the 13th, the ace of spades and snake eyes. And who hasn't had those kind of days?

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

10 of 16

Otis Redding and Carla Thomas superimposed cartoon versions of their faces on these royal playing cards. And why not?

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

11 of 16

Another Booker T and the M.G.'s LP.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

12 of 16

Though this Isaac Hayes classic, Black Moses, wasn't on Stax, it came out on a Stax subsidiary, Enterprise Records.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

13 of 16

In this growing collage at Euclid, you can see the unfolded poster from the Hayes record, Black Moses.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

14 of 16

Shirley Brown -- though this record was not on Stax -- grew up in St. Louis and released her debut album, Woman to Woman, in 1975 on Stax.

Read "Voices Carry: Shirley Brown, the forgotten soul sister, sings on," by Roy Kasten.

15 of 16