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

When he died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, Otis Redding (1941-1967) had already become the conscience of a new kind of 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 soul legend. What emerges in Dreams To Remember is not only a triumph of music history but also a reclamation of a visionary who would come to define an entire era.

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“Evokes the fire of Redding…Ribowsky tells the story with nonstop energy, while always probing for the larger social and musical pictures…[His] 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.”

— New York Times Book Review