Dreams to Remember: Otis Redding, Stax Records, and the Transformation of Southern Soul

A soul icon and the southern music he helped popularize come to life in this moving requiem.When he died in one of rocks 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 Gordys 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 subjects short career within the larger cultural and social movements of the era, tracing the crooners rise from preachers son to a preacher of three-minute soul sermons.