Sometimes, in his sleep, Ben Cauley still hears their cries -- the ones of his friends and band mates.
In dreams, he feels the rush of the lake's icy water, the chill of fear, and the helplessness and hurt that followed. When those moments come, alone in the darkness, he tries to think instead of the music they made together; he tries to conjure the sweet sounds of soul and Stax, the things that have sustained him all the years since.
To some, Ben Cauley is the answer to a tragic trivia question: the trumpeter was the sole survivor of the plane crash Dec. 10, 1967, outside Madison, Wis., that claimed eight people, including Stax Records star Otis Redding, and Cauley's Bar-Kays bandmates Phalon Jones, Carl Cunningham, Jimmy King and Ronnie Caldwell.
But in a greater sense, Cauley is the ultimate survivor -- someone who's become the living embodiment of both the triumph and tragedy of the Stax legacy.
