Otis Redding: Try a Little Tenderness

Otis Redding’s definitive southern soul voice resonates down the years as a sound of profound beauty and unfathomable emotional depth. His unique vocal delivery gave Motown’s pop artists a run for their money, while his stage presence matched that of pioneering funk magus James Brown for sheer entertainment value. Rising quickly from obscurity and poised for crossover success, he was tragically killed on December 10, 1967 — only a week after recording the single called “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay” — when his private plane crashed into Lake Monoma, near Madison, Wisconsin. In this, the first serious book on the soul legend, Geoff Brown talks to Stax illuminati Booker T. Jones, Isaac Hayes, and David Porter, plus many others, about Redding’s tragically brief life and incredible talent.