Synopses & Reviews
When he died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, Otis Redding (1941-1967) had already become the conscience of a new kind of soul music. Sure, Berry Gordy might have built the first black-owned music empire at Motown, but Redding was doing something as historic: mainstreaming black music within the whitest bastions of the post-Confederate south. As a result, the Redding story--still largely untold--is one of great conquest but, sadly, grand tragedy. Now, in this transformative work, Mark Ribowsky contextualizes Redding's life within the larger cultural movements of his era, whisking us from the "sinful" clubs of Macon to the trendsetting studios in Memphis and, finally, to the pulsating stage of the Monterey Music Festival where, in a single set, Redding immortalized himself as a "soul legend." What emerges in is not only a triumph of music history but also a reclamation of a visionary who would come to define an entire era.
Review
"Ribowsky serves us some tantalizing what-if scenarios [and]...considers Redding in the context of racial justice and injustice, the civil rights movement, and, most important, popular music as it spread through a nation hungry for the message brought by the preacher's son who 'had precious little time to enjoy the air up there.' Excellent from start to finish." Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Review
"Evokes the fire of Redding.... Ribowsky tells the story with nonstop energy, while always probing for the larger social and musical pictures.... [H]is insightfulness and storytelling gift trump all. Helped by revealing quotations from musicians, he recalls a time of interactive music-making that seems worlds removed from today's computer-assembled, Auto-Tuned pop." James Gavin
Review
"Ribowsky has labored hard to get at [Redding's] emotional center. Unlike other performers who died far too young, Redding's death did not come out of abuse, and though he suffered, it was a universal human suffering--a pain in the heart that, partnered with unerring musical instinct, personal strength, and a little tenderness, he transformed into art. Ribowsky goes into the seamy side of the record business but also the sheer beauty and magic of the sixties soul music that Redding epitomized." David Kirby Wall Street Journal
Review
"Subtly passionate.... What Mark Ribowsky has done here is to describe someone who was, not divine, but as godlike as a human can be." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Ribowsky's meticulous biography makes it clear that Arthur Conley's 1967 hit 'Sweet Soul Music' (co-written by Redding) got it wrong. James Brown wasn't 'the king of them all, y'all.' Otis was." Mark Levine Booklist
Review
"A rousing storyteller, Ribowsky energetically chronicles Redding's rise from local singer to the King of Soul.... Ribowsky's book is a fast-paced and entertaining tale of a man, a time and a place where black and white musicians, in spite of the racial tensions swirling around them, came together simply by playing the sweet soul music that transcends any divisions." Bruce Jacobs Shelf Awareness
Review
"Ribowsky here has penned the definitive look at the life and career of Otis Redding thus far. More importantly, he offers a sort of parallel book about the political and social implications of 'Southern Soul' music in the '60s, as well as the story of Stax Records, Redding's label where he was also the undisputed marquee artist.... In , listeners can find a new appreciation for this "King of Soul" whose reign was all too brief." Henry L. Carrigan Jr. Bookpage.com
Synopsis
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, New York Times Notable Book 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. And what a quick rise it was. At the tender age of twenty-one, Redding needed only a single unscheduled performance to earn a record deal, his voice so "utterly unique" (Atlantic) that it catapulted him on a path to stardom and turned a Memphis theater-turned-studio into a music mecca. Soon he was playing at sold-out venues across the world, from Finsbury Park in London to his ultimate conquest, the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival in California, where he finally won over the flower-power crowd.
Still, Redding was not always the affable, big-hearted man's man the PR material painted him to be. Based on numerous new interviews and prodigious research, Dreams to Remember reintroduces an incredibly talented yet impulsive man, one who once even risked his career by shooting a man in the leg. But that temperament masked a deep vulnerability that was only exacerbated by an industry that refused him a Grammy until he was in his grave even as he shaped the other Stax soul men around him, like Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Booker T. and The MG's.
As a result, 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.
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Synopsis
A soul icon and the southern music he helped popularize come to life in this moving requiem.
About the Author
Mark Ribowsky is the author of books including Howard Cosell and the New York Times Notable Book Don't Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball as well as The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal and Ain't Too Proudto Beg: The Troubled Lives and Enduring Soul of the Temptations. He lives in Florida.