WINNER OF THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 2018
In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with soul music. It was a deeply segregated city, ill at ease with the modern world and yet to adjust to the era of civil rights and racial integration. Stax Records offered an escape from the turmoil of the real world for many soul and blues musicians, with much of the music created there becoming the soundtrack to the civil rights movements.
The book opens with the death of the city's most famous recording artist, Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash in the final days of 1967, and then follows the fortunes of Redding's label, Stax/Volt Records, as its fortunes fall and rise again. But, as the tense year unfolds, the city dominates world headlines for the worst of reasons: the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
- ISBN13 9781846974137
- Publish Date 12 April 2018 (first published 1 October 2017)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Birlinn General
- Imprint Birlinn Ltd
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 326
- Language English