Memphis 68: A soulful evening with Stuart Cosgrove

On Saturday 7th October, Stuart Cosgrove will launch his brilliant new book Memphis 68 at the Admiral bar in Glasgow.
We’re chairing the earlier part of the evening when Stuart will read from and answer questions about Memphis 68.
From 10pm, djs Lenny Harkins and Andrew Divine will crank up their irresistible Northern Soul club night.
Stuart has put together a storming playlist for us, and once again the lovely people at Polygon  have given us 2 copies of Memphis 68 for a competition — check out our Facebook page for details on how to enter.

Memphis 68: The Tragedy of Southern Soul
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.

Photograph by Kris Kesiak