Soul music at Stax Records studio in Memphis (TV Documentary)

One day in the early 1960s, a young man who worked as driver and baggage handler for a group called Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers lugged its instruments into the studios of Stax Records in Memphis, where the band was scheduled for a recording session. As it happened, the young man sang too — in a husky tenor — and spent his idle hours that afternoon begging people to hand him a mike.

By the end of the day, no one had given him a shot, and the label’s founder Jim Stewart felt guilty. Mr. Stewart was simply that kind of guy. The task of hearing out the eager aspirant fell begrudgingly to Steve Cropper, guitarist for Booker T. & the MGs, one of the label’s popular bands. As Mr. Cropper tells it in “Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story,” a “Great Performances” documentary tonight on PBS: “He started singing ‘These Arms of Mine,’ and I know my hair lifted out about three inches. I couldn’t believe this guy’s voice.” It belonged to Otis Redding.