Just 26, when he died in 1967, Otis Redding packed a lifetime of work into just seven years of recording, and five at Stax, which resulted in a series of unimpeachable singles and albums that, steeped in gospel fervour and grits and groove, came to define the label’s sound and Memphis soul itself with 45s Mr Pitiful, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, My Girl, Try A Little Tenderness, (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay and albums Otis Blue, Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary Of Soul and Pain In My Heart.
Raised in Macon, Alabama, Redding’s first stabs at recording cast him as a Little Richard wannabe, although he was equally influenced by Sam Cooke – Otis Blue sees him make three of Cooke’s songs his own.
He arrived at Stax in 1962 by chance, having driven singer and bandleader Johnny Jenkins to the studio for a session – Redding was in Jenkins’ band. When it ended early, Redding sang These Arms Of Mine, a plaintive ballad he had written himself. Stax co-founder Jim Stewart was impressed, signed him and released These Arms Of Mine; it hit the US R&B No.20 – selling 800,000 copies – and was the first of 21 US R&B Top 30 hits for him in his lifetime.
Redding was equally impressive on stage. Working himself into a real sweat, he wowed audiences through Europe on the 1967 Stax Volt tour, and thrilled at the Monterey Pop Festival, where he took soul music to a white audience. Prior to the show he wrote with and produced Arthur Conley, which resulted in Sweet Soul Music, a US No.2 pop hit for Conley.
Just after the festival, he wrote (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay with Steve Cropper, which was inspired by The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and looked set to take both Otis and soul music into a new direction. Tragically, he died in a plane crash on December 10, ’67 before the song was issued. When it was, in January 1968, it became his first and only No.1.
...and something to avoid
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Cover version (various artists, various years)
Between 1960 when he began his recording career and 1967 when he died, Otis Redding never put a foot wrong. Others most certainly have, however, when covering the singer’s songs.
Florence & The Machine completely wrecked Try A Little Tenderness in 2012; Harpers Bizarre ruined Hard To Handle in 1969; Sammy Hagar inexcusably massacred (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay in 1979, and nine years later Michael Bolton added insult to injury with his own horrific and vastly unloved version of the song.
