Jonathan R Gould

Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life

A definitive biography of the soul singer Otis Redding, tracing his upbringing in the Jim Crow city of Macon, Georgia, during the early years of the Civil Rights movement, his musical education in the Baptist church and the segregated world of 1950s rhythm & blues, the rise of gospel-inflected soul music under the stewardship of Atlantic Records and its Memphis subsidiary Stax, and Otis's meteoric, tragically abbreviated career as one of the most distinctive, accomplished, and beloved popular singers, songwriters, and recording artists in what has come to be regarded as the greatest generation of African-American artists that popular music has ever known.