Though
his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis
Redding was a singer of
such
commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music
in its purist form. His
name
is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience
in America through
the
transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular
testifying. Redding left
behind
a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first
sessions for Stax/Volt
Records
in 1963 until his death in 1967. Ironically, although he consistently impacted
the R&B charts
beginning
with the Top Ten appearance of "Mr. Pitiful" in 1965, none of his singles
fared better than #21
on
the pop Top Forty until the posthumous release of "(Sittin' On) The Dock
of the Bay." That landmark
song,
recorded just four days before Redding's death, went to #1 and stayed there
for four weeks in
early
1968. It marked a new direction for the singer toward a soul-folk-pop synthesis
that drew from
such
influences as Bob Dylan and the new breed of performers at the Monterey
International Pop
Festival,
at which Redding had performed.
Redding's
relatively unspectacular showing on the pop charts at a time when he was
laying down some
of
the most titanic soul ever recorded - classics like "Respect" (a song he
wrote, later covered by Aretha
Franklin),
"Try a Little Tenderness" and his terse, funky deconstruction of the Rolling
Stonesí
"Satisfaction"
- may mean that he was too intensely soulful for the mainstream market
at that time. He
was,
in many ways, larger than life. Redding, a proudly self-professed country
boy from Macon,
Georgia,
had it all: a big, gravely voice, an enormous natural talent for songwriting
and arranging, and a
hard-working
nature and generous disposition. As a singer, he styled himself after Little
Richard (a fellow
Macon
native) and Sam Cooke in the early days, but he gradually acquired his
own voice, imparting
gruff,
syncopated inflections to ballad and uptempo material.
Redding
was discovered while singing with Macon guitarist Johnny Jenkins' band,
the Pinetoppers, and
first
recorded as a member of that group for the tiny Confederate label in 1960.
When Jenkins was
booked
to cut some sides at Stax Records in Memphis in October 1962, Redding was
given an
opportunity
at the end of a session, and he recorded "These Arms of Mine," a stately,
self-penned
ballad.
Redding thereupon embarked upon a fruitful recording career as a staple
of the Stax roster,
collaborating
with Booker T. and the M.G.s (house band at the Stax studio), especially
guitarist Steve
Cropper.
Redding himself was a guitarist, and he integrally involved himself with
the arrangements of his
songs,
whistling parts he envisaged to the horn section. His recording sessions
were galvanic,
impassioned
and intense - the very apotheosis of soul. Donald "Duck" Dunn, bassist
with the M.G.s,
recalls:
"Otis would come in, and he'd just bring everybody up. You wanted to play
with Otis. He
brought
out the best in you."
There
was earthiness and candor in his every performance, be it slow, soulful
ballads like "I've Been
Loving
You Too Long" or fast-paced numbers such as "I Can't Turn You Loose." Such
albums as Otis
Blue/Otis
Redding Sings Soul - which was recorded in a single 24-hour period in 1965
- is a virtual
soul-music
primer. In concert, Redding routinely incited pandemonium through the thunderous
intensity
of
his performances, which included vocal ad-libs and false endings - devices
that were evident in his
memorable
rendition of "Try a Little Tenderness" at the Monterey International Pop
Festival on June 17,
1967.
Redding stole the show at Monterey, as a wide-eyed new audience - the youthful
counterculture -
enthusiastically
opened up to him. Given that launching pad and his songwriting breakthrough
with "Sittin'
On
(The Dock of the Bay)," Redding was poised for superstardom at the time
his twin-engine
Beechcraft
crashed into Wisconsin's Lake Monona on December 10, 1967, killing him
and four
members
of his touring band, the Bar-Kays.
