Stax Music Academy executive director and longtime local arts advocate Pat Mitchell Worley is set to head the Memphis music foundation Soulsville, the organization announced Monday, July 25.

Mitchel Worley will begin her term as Soulsville’s president and CEO Aug. 1, replacing Richard Greenwald, who made a five-year commitment to the organization in 2017. Greenwald will stay on the foundation’s board, per the release.

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Soulsville is the umbrella organization that oversees the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the music academy Mitchell Worley currently heads and a music-focused charter middle and high school.

Located on McLemore Avenue, Stax Records was home to influential artists including Otis Redding, Carla Thomas and Booker T. & the M.G.'s. The Soulsville Foundation received a $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in January as part of the American Rescue Plan.

“It is very exciting to take the helm of an organization that means so much to Memphis’ past, present, and future,” Mitchell Worley said. “The legacy of Stax Records is in this city’s DNA and has been since the late 1950s. Now, an entire generation of young people are still being influenced by that legacy more than 60 years later and, hopefully, will continue long after my work is done.”

Like the organization she will head, Mitchell Worley has a long history in the Memphis arts scene. She has co-hosted the radio show Beale Street Caravan for nearly 20 years and is the former development director for the Memphis Music Foundation.

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Isaac Daniel, the Stax Music Academy’s current production director, will replace Mitchell Worley in her current role, the release said.