Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life

Drawing on interviews with Otis Redding’s widow, Zelma, as well as interviews with Redding’s family, friends, and musical associates, Gould (Can’t Buy Me Love) brings tedious detail to the well-known story of Redding’s life and music. Gould begins with a tour of Southern history to illustrate, unsurprisingly, that Redding’s music reached across racial borders in a racially divided world. When Gould focuses on Redding’s music, the book comes alive, and he traces that music year by year from the singer’s early gospel influences, his early emulation of Little Richard, and his association with manager Phil Walden to his rise to fame at Stax, his energetic shows at the Apollo and the Fillmore West, and his career-defining show at Monterey Pop a few months before his death. Despite Redding’s growing popularity, his ambition, and the raw power he displayed onstage, he frequently displayed insecurity about his own abilities; Gould points out that the singer’s refusal to record his own version of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” illustrates not only Redding’s insistence that lyrics didn’t matter but also his defensiveness and anxiety. Gould’s often exhausting study, never sure whether it wants to be music history, social history, or biography, treads over territory already well covered by others. [em](May) [/em]