![]() ![]() The bigger picture, inescapably, is America’s midcentury civil-rights struggle. Opening on a detailed description of Redding’s Monterey set (“I was pretty sure that I’d seen God onstage,” noted Bob Weir), Gould unpacks how the history of Redding’s home state of Georgia was a crucible of black pop. Jimmie Allen Out of CMA Fest, Suspended by Label Following Sexual Assault Allegations An Unfinished Life takes a similar approach, with equally admirable results. ![]() (The first issue of Rolling Stone debuted just a month before his death.) The lack of first-person source material and the brevity of Redding’s life invite Gould to go long on context, something he does well: See his 2008 Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America. ![]() Rock journalism hadn’t truly taken off Redding’s only substantial print interview ran in the fan magazine Hit Parader. Released posthumously, it would become his only Number One and stand among pop’s greatest achievements.īut as Jonathan Gould notes near the start of his recent 500-page bio, Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life, Redding’s life story was barely known at the time of his death. ![]() And just three days before his twin-engine aircraft crashed into a Wisconsin lake, Redding finished “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” heralding a new chapter of his art. In June, he’d introduced his stun-gun soul to the Summer of Love crowd at Monterey Pop, alongside breakouts by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the Who. When Otis Redding died on December 10th, 1967, the 26-year-old was an R&B master cresting into superstardom. ![]()
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