Ebook: Dreams to remember: Otis Redding, Stax Records, and the transformation of Southern soul

Introduction. The Big O -- Prologue. "It was music" -- Son of a preacher man -- Heebie jeebies -- Rockin' Redding -- "It's something called soul" -- "A lousy singer" -- "Wait, we got time for another kid" -- Chops like a wolf -- Turning the knife -- The King of Soul -- Just one more day -- Crossing over -- The whole damn body -- Making the white feel black -- "The only son-of-a-gun this side of the sun" -- London calling -- Peace, love, and Otis Redding -- Hard to handle -- "So I guess I'll remain the same" -- Amen -- Epilogue. "Wouldn't that have been somethin'?";A soul icon and the southern music he helped popularize come to life in this moving requiem. When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music. The beating heart of Memphis-based Stax Records, he had risen to fame belting out gospel-flecked blues in stage performances that seemed to ignite not only a room but an entire generation. If Berry Gordy's black-owned kingdom in Motown showed the way in soul music, Redding made his own way, going where not even his two role models who had preceded him out of Macon, Georgia--Little Richard and James Brown--had gone. Now, in this transformative work, author Mark Ribowsky contextualizes his subject's short career within the larger cultural and social movements of the era, tracing the crooner's rise from preacher's son to a preacher of three-minute soul sermons. This requiem is one of great conquest but also grand tragedy: a soul king of truth, a mortal man with an immortal voice and a pain in his heart. Now he, and the forces that shaped his incomparable sound, are reclaimed, giving us a panoramic of an American original who would come to define an entire era, yet only wanted what all men deserve--a modicum of respect and a place to watch the ships roll in and away again.--;"A soul icon and the southern music he helped popularize come to life in this moving requiem"--