GOMMA BICROMATA
ART GALLERY

Since 1988 the Porretta Soul Festival Tribute To Otis Redding has become the most prestigious European soul and rhythm & blues event, with a special focus on the Memphis Sound, the musical school of the great Otis Redding, to whom the festival is dedicated. The festival was first held on 10 December 1987 at the initiative of soul music enthusiast Graziano Uliani who, after having attended the celebrations held on  the 20th anniversary of the death of Otis Redding in Macon, Georgia in the US, decided to organise a festival in his honour. In more than thirty years, some of the top soul music artists have visited Porretta, many of whom were visiting Europe for the first time specifically for the festival, with others, tucked away in some forgotten corner of the Deep South in the US re-presented to an audience and the international press, with articles citing the “miracle” of Porretta as the musical event of recent years. Music industry professionals also had to review the geographical landscape of black music to include Porretta in the itinerary of great musical
events. Porretta has therefore earned a place in the encyclopaedias and official biographies of the famous soul artists to the point that it gained a place in the prestigious Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis.