Otis Redding
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The liner notes describe this book as "the first serious profile of the soul legend" and "....... resulting biography is a wonderful testament to this greatly loved artist".  I am not really sure that I can go along with either description.  The text is one hundred and seventy Duke pages (7.5 x 5 inches) long and that includes a timeline, a bibliography, an American Discography and a British Discography.  It is also double line spaced.  I doubt that it would be possible to produce either a 'serious profile' or 'biography' of my humdrum existence let alone that of Otis Redding within this format and paperspace.   Of the two words 'profile' is undoubtedly the more accurate, but if the truth be known it barely scratches the surface.

The main reason why I am unhappy to concede that this is a biography is that we are given a bare skeleton of Otis life, and these are always of a factual nature.  We are told about his birth, his death, a little about his family, but nothing about his views, his relationships or even his personality.  In between there are a few diversions such as a potted history of Stax Records, but mainly the author gives a personal analysis of Otis music.  I have always said that Mojo books are invariably well written, and so it is with this one.  The author does a particularly good job on his track by track analysis of the 'Otis Blue' album.  I could not help but be inspired to play the album and listen to it again.   He was undoubtedly successful in raising my appreciation of a really good body of work.  At £9.99 it is a little overpriced for the volume of written material it contains, but there some tasty morselsto produce either a 'serious profile' or 'biography' of my humdrum existance let alone that of Otis Redding. to enjoy in it.  If its a biography you're after then give this a miss, I think there are much better about, but for a critical analysis of Otis music then it doesn't get much better than this.

Why Not visit the Authors other Website, 'The Alternative Blackpool Website' at

http://www.localdial.com/users/jsyedu133/bpool

This Site Last Updated 18/05/05