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.
Memphis 68 : The Tragedy of Southern Soul - Stuart Cosgrove
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