Personal Life and Wealth
Redding, who was 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and weighed 220 pounds (100 kg), was an athletic family man who loved football and hunting. He was described as vigorous, trustworthy, naturally full of fun and vitality, and a true businessman. Biographer Peter Guralnick has said Redding would even have been respected by the Ku-Klux-Klan. According to several people, Redding's personality was not fully matured neither on stage nor in public life. His brother Rodgers thought he was "confused", while Alan Walden described him as "naive". He was not only a musician, company founder, talent scout and record producer, but was also active in philanthropic projects. Through his keen interest for the black youth he intended to build a summer camp for disadvantaged people from urban slums and ghettos.
Redding was a very wealthy entertainer. According to several advertisements, he had around 200 suits and 400 pairs of shoes, and he earned about $35,000 per week for his concerts. For the "Big O Ranch" he spent about $125,000. As the owner of the Otis Redding Enterprises of Macon, he earned through performances, music publishing ventures and royalties from record sales more than a million dollars in 1967 alone. About his success in 1967, one columnist said, "he sold more records than Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin combined."
Read more about this topic: Otis Redding
Famous quotes containing the words personal, life and/or wealth:
“In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days. And even if only one good memory is left in our hearts, it may also be the instrument of our salvation one day.”
—Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)
“Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever:
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more;
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavour.”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)