David Porter

David Porter

From Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond by Pushkin Industries

September 1, 2026 · 1h 3m · Season 6 · Episode 222

About this episode

David Porter discusses his influential role in creating the Stax sound and shares stories from his career and memoir.

David Porter's story goes well beyond writing songs and releasing albums for Stax Records. His recent memoir, The Soul Man , tells how he and his partner Isaac Hayes helped invent a sound rich and enduring enough to define American music from the 1960s to today. Together they wrote and produced hits for Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor, and dozens of other artists, and in the process built what became known as the Stax sound, a sound Porter still describes as the pursuit of pure emotional connection. Porter grew up on a dead-end street in Memphis that also produced Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire and members of the Bar-Kays. He started out singing in church before eventually singing and producing music for Stax. He never learned to read music. None of the great names at Stax did. Instead, they built songs by ear, in the room, together, a process Porter calls “head arrangements,” and it became the foundation for some of the greatest songs in the history of R&B. Today, Bruce Headlam sits down with David Porter to talk about how he and Isaac Hayes built a signature sound to set themselves apart from Motown, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. He also recalls the…

People in this episode

Host: Bruce Headlam

Guest: David Porter

Topics covered

  • music history
  • R&B
  • songwriting
  • Stax sound
  • emotional connection
  • memoir

Keywords

  • David Porter
  • Stax Records
  • Isaac Hayes
  • R&B
  • songwriting
  • Hold On, I'm Coming
  • music history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stax Records, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bar-Kays

Books & works: The Soul Man, Hold On, I'm Coming

Places: Memphis

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