_When thrifter and collector Patrick Barbour took a flyer on visiting an antique mall near Lexington, Tennessee, he had one thing in mind: a new synthesizer. “The shop had some instruments, amps, tape machines, and the synthesizer I specifically went out there for. I had never been to the shop or heard of it before, so of course I have a look around,” said Barbour. “I see in the showcase a reel tape in a box that is addressed to Stax Records. That caught my attention immediately. Inside the box was what appeared to be a demo tape from a group from Florida and a handbill where they had opened for Eddie Kendricks. So, I asked the guy where he got the tape from and if he had anything else like it. He tells me they came across several storage bins at auction or estate sale, something like that, and proceeded to search the back room. He returned with the one that had Bettye’s stuff in it.”

The Bettye in question is none other than Bettye Crutcher, one of the greatest songwriters to ever walk through the doors at Stax Records, and what Barbour had discovered was a treasure trove of handwritten song lyrics, songwriting contracts, and greeting cards from her long-distance lover, and eventual husband, Bill Barnes. After going through the bin, Barbour knew that what he had should not stay with him. It should go to the only museum in the world dedicated to telling the unique story of Stax Records: the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, where I served as the executive director from 2015 to 2024. “I got to know Bettye a little bit by going through the bin—her career, her uncommon love story, which I’m sure you appreciate,” said Barbour. “Definitely a movie there.”

Between 1959 and 1960, when siblings Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton moved Satellite Records to the old Capitol Theater in South Memphis, they embarked on a journey that would transform the music industry in their city. Just a few miles north, Sam Phillips and Sun Records had proven that there was plenty of raw talent in Memphis, but professional doors remained closed for many Black musicians. Like Phillips, Stewart and Axton saw Memphis music as an incisive way to deconstruct racial barriers in the city.

Stewart and Axton were not necessarily looking for a particular sound, but rather allowed the talent that flowed through the doors to dictate where their new business would take them. Eventually changing the name from Satellite to Stax Records (“St” for Stewart, “ax” for Axton, and NEVER in all caps), the brother and sister kept their ears open for the sound of South Memphis. It came from the Black churches, which provided the bedrock sound for r&b and rock & roll. It came from the Black high schools, like Booker T. Washington, Manassas, and Hamilton, whose world-class band instructors were seasoned Memphis musicians. It came from Beale Street, the home of the blues and the central business district for the Black community. As Stewart and Axton combined these influences with a group of starry-eyed, eager, white teenagers from East Memphis—Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Don Nix, and others—the uniqueness of the Stax sound came together and created widespread opportunity for an entire generation of Memphis musicians and songwriters.

In 1966, at the height of the first era of Stax Records—think blue record label, “falling” records logo, Carla Thomas, and Otis Redding—Bettye Jean Crutcher walked through that open door. A single mother of three young boys, Crutcher worked a full-time job as a nurse’s assistant at John Gaston Hospital and wrote stacks of poetry as a hobby. A friend, amazed at Crutcher’s prodigious writing ability, “dared” her to audition as a songwriter at Stax Records. She met with head songwriter David Porter, who felt her initial attempts were not “bluesy” enough. She returned a few days later with “Somebody’s Sleeping in My Bed,” which soon became Johnnie Taylor’s sixth single for the label. Porter, along with songwriter and Stax’s director of publicity Deanie Parker, advocated strongly for Crutcher to become part of the staff songwriting team.

Coming up with the songs was not Crutcher’s biggest challenge; it was finding acceptance in the male-dominated world of r&b music. It was not until after 1964 that Stax would expand its number of solo female artists beyond Carla Thomas, signing Mable John, Wendy Rene, Ruby Johnson, Judy Clay, and the Emotions, among others. At the time, Crutcher and her close friend Deanie Parker were the only female staff songwriters for a label—and genre—dominated by male artists. A key member of the Stax team since first coming to the label after winning a high school talent show, Parker had recorded two singles before accepting an office job at age nineteen, becoming the first full-time Black employee of the company. She remembers that, to convince the label to take her seriously, Crutcher had to fall back on another one of her many talents: cooking. Every weekend, Bettye would prep dinners for the week ahead for her three hungry boys. “She would put on an extra pot of spaghetti, ‘mood food,’ if you will, for the studio crew and other writers. She used her culinary skills to her advantage,” Parker said. With their bellies full, their ears and minds opened to the creative genius in their midst. Crutcher’s lyrics, maturity, and life experience added a strong dose of femininity to Stax’s releases.

“When Bettye and I wrote together, we always started from scratch. She was so prolific and creative. After Dr. King was killed, we huddled in the studio, frightened, angry, and emotional. The National Guard was right outside,” said Parker. “We were trying to write for Albert King, and a big old cockroach crawled across the floor. We started to imagine what his life was like. It was just comical, and we needed levity. And it was perfect for Albert. So, we got to work, and we took it to ‘nut city.’ That was ‘Cockroach.’” Stax issued the song as a single in 1969, and it was an A-side cut on King’s Years Gone By album.

The label encouraged Crutcher to work with Homer Banks and Raymond Jackson to form We Three, which became Stax’s top songwriting team after Isaac Hayes and David Porter dissolved their partnership. “Who’s Making Love,” recorded by Johnnie Taylor in 1968, was a monster hit for Stax, which had just severed its distribution agreement with Atlantic Records. We Three penned gold record after gold record, accumulating songwriting awards and winning the praise of an unlikely fan, John Lennon, who once called Crutcher his “favorite songwriter.”

The success would not last, though, as Raymond Jackson died in a tragic accident at his house in 1972. Banks continued writing for Stax, but with Carl Hampton instead of Crutcher. Undeterred, Crutcher continued writing apace and became a mentor to up-and-coming songwriters like Bobby Manuel, who credits much of his success at Stax to Crutcher’s encouragement and willingness to take a chance on him.

It was a partnership, though, with fellow Stax songwriter “Sir” Mack Rice that set Crutcher’s career on a different course: recording artist. Encouraged by Rice, Crutcher released one album, 1974’s Long as You Love Me (I’ll Be Alright). Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with the famed “Swampers,” and released on Enterprise Records, the album showcased her formidable vocal talents—but that was never Crutcher’s real aim. “It was fun doing the LP, but mainly I looked on it as a means to expose my material,” said Crutcher in a 1974 interview. “I don’t really see myself as an artist.”

Listening to two of the twenty-three Crutcher-penned songwriting demos collected for the Grammy Award–winning compilation Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos, one would certainly disagree with Crutcher’s self-assessment. On “Too Much Sugar for a Dime,” she is confident, is soulful, and means every damn word she sings. But the real proof is “Do You Want Me to Lie to You,” an almost fully developed “demo” recorded in 1974–75. It is a powerful blast of contemporary r&b: mature and nuanced, and written and performed from a man’s perspective. With a quick switch of pronouns, it could have been a hit for any number of mid-1970s Southern female r&b singers.

Hearing Crutcher sing one of her own compositions certainly reflects the intense and formative love shared between her and Bill Barnes, both of whom poured their hearts into a long-distance relationship that culminated in their August 1975 marriage. Deanie Parker said of Barnes, “He was tall, slim, intelligent, respectable, and he loved him some Bettye Jean.” Barnes, who lived and worked in Indianapolis, bared his soul to Crutcher through letters on New York Life and Indiana Pacers stationery and countless greeting cards, some of which just say, “I LOVE YOU.”

After Stax closed in 1975, she threw herself into other creative pursuits: making lampshades and costume jewelry and finding antiques to decorate her home in Nashville. She proudly supported her son Perri’s floral business and could often be seen in the crowd cheering on her grandson, Devin, a Memphis-based r&b performer. She was a longtime mentor at the Stax Music Academy, training a new generation of songwriters.

Yet, it will always be Bettye Crutcher’s words, from the poems that got her foot in the door to the gold records she cowrote as part of We Three, that we remember. For the Stax Museum, a Rubbermaid bin full of one-of-a-kind lyrics and documents were the reminder we needed that “Ms. Bettye,” who passed away in 2022, would always be a voice that we should elevate as an institution. Examples of Crutcher’s handwritten lyrics—as well as her decoupage purse—are on display in the museum’s songwriting section, and the entire collection has been processed, conserved, and safely stored in the museum’s archives. In the male-dominated genre of r&b music, Crutcher asserted herself as a powerful voice with a story to tell. Some sixty years after her song found its way onto a Stax record, her words still resonate, and her legacy continues.

Bettye Crutcher’s “Do You Want Me To Lie To You” is Track 10 on the Memphis Music Issue LP. Click here for full song credits and liner notes.