Naturally, there was some trepidation concerning what this might mean for his voice. Under doctors’ orders, he was forbidden to sing or talk for six weeks after the procedure. He had to have surgery to remove polyps from his vocal cords. “We had our own Woodstock,” says wife, Zelma Redding.Īt this high point of his career, there was only one cloud on Otis Redding’s horizon. In the wake of his success on the worldwide stage provided by the Monterey festival, he hosted a huge barbecue for about 300 guests involved in the music industry at his 300-acre Big O Ranch about 25 miles north of his former home in Macon, Georgia. As the only soul music act at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Otis gave a scintillating performance that, according to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, “stole the show from Janis Joplin, the Who, and Jimi Hendrix.” He now became an ascending star, not just among African Americans, but with pop music fans all over the world. Almost two-thirds of Americans are now saying snarls will impact their Black Friday shopping, according to research firm Toluna.īut the snarls, port directors, officials and specialists alike say, are likely to last way beyond this Friday.Then came the event that catapulted Otis Redding to fame with an audience he had never reached before. But these increased shipping costs will likely translate into fewer discounts for consumers.Īs the holidays approach and once-abstract supply-chain issues materialize as lower inventory and higher prices, consumers who barely noticed ports before the pandemic grow wary of the impact disruptions are having on their daily lives.
has been relying on alternative gateways, from California’s neighboring port of Oakland to as far as Houston in the Gulf Coast. began chartering their own vessels, fueling all-time high holiday inventories. In a race to beat supply-chain bottlenecks, some big-box retailers including Walmart Inc. While smaller businesses get caught-up in the southern California port snarls, larger companies are coming up with alternatives to avoid the twin hubs.
Southern California has some 2 billion square feet of nearly full warehouse space. Trucks unload goods at a warehouse in Redlands. Containers “just keep coming in and coming in,” Martinez added. The 54-year-old says the majority-Hispanic community has been grappling with truck traffic since at least the ports began expanding a decade ago, but that the ongoing supply-chain issues have made things worse. “It’s like the Wild West,” said Gina Martinez, co-chair of the Wilmington Neighborhood Council. In Wilmington, a blue-collar community located in the ports’ backyard, more than 400 illegal parking citations have been issued so far in November, according to the Los Angeles Port Police.īut residents say the citations, which range between $73 and $98, aren’t enough. Sometimes, truckers will go as far as abandoning containers and chassis in those same streets. As a result, heavy-duty trucks often drive by residences and schools to avoid the congestion. Three decades later, the corridor can’t fully accommodate the thousands of trucks that navigate the region every week.
Truck congestion during the wait to enter and exit the Port of Los Angeles.