In the summer of 1967, Otis Redding performed in front of a 200,000 capacity crowd at the Monterey Pop Festival, the biggest audience of his career.
Backed by the Stax Records house band, Booker T & The MGs, Otis gave the crowd a night of unadulterated down home Southern Soul. It blew the psychedelic cobwebs out of the hippies' minds. And they loved it. It was Otis's finest hour.
Five years after walking into Stax Records studio in Memphis as an unknown singer, he was now breaking into the mass white market and seducing its counter-culture, without diluting his music one drop.
Tragically, Otis didn't live out the year. But for a brief, brilliant time, he emerged as the very embodiment of the 60s soul music. With his music, Otis helped bring black and white together in the mid 1960s before the more racially divisive Black Power era arrived.
This episode tells the story of Otis, Southern Soul and how it evoked the sweet dream of freedom.
Interviewees include: Steve Cropper (the MGs), Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Jerry Wexler, David Porter, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham.
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