otis blue: otis redding sings soul

Otis Redding earned a little respect with the soul reinvention of this landmark session.   With a couple of singles under his belt  ("Gettin' Hip"  and "Shout Bamalama" on Confederate Records),  Redding got to perform "These Arms of Mine" at a Stax session for his bandmate Johnny Jenkins and impressed studio head Jim Stewart so much he offered him a contract.  The song was a top twenty R&B hit and featured on his debut album Pain in My Heart.  Redding and Steve Cropper wrote "Mr. Pitiful" after a DJ coined the nickname for Redding.  It was a top ten R&B hit driving sales for his second album The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads released early in 1965.  

Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul was recorded in less than two days with  Booker T. & The MGs, Isaac Hayes, and members of the Mar-Keys and the Memphis Horns at Stax Recording Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.  The sessions were produced by Jim Stewart, Isaac Hayes, and David Porter and featured Otis Redding on vocals;  Booker T. Jones on keyboards and piano;  Isaac Hayes on keyboards, piano, and production;  Steve Cropper on guitar and production;  Donald Dunn on bass;  Al Jackson, Jr. on drums;  Wayne Jackson and Gene Miller on trumpet;  Andrew Love on tenor saxophone;  Floyd Newman on baritone saxophone;  and William Bell and Earl Sims on backing vocals.  

Redding would express:   "I guess it is a bit like a clique. We always have the same guys on the recordings. We don’t have contract trouble like you do here. I always have Steve Cropper on guitar; Al Jackson on drums – he’s too much; then a guy called Duck on bass guitar; and Isaac Hayes, who does the arrangements for Sam and Dave, plays piano...We all get up and down to the studios at 12, midday and work through until nine in the evening. All the songwriting is done in the studio...We don’t get it prepared outside beforehand, no. Then we quit. Go home and relax and sleep. Everybody has a good think about the things they’ve been doing and then comes back the next day at 12 – always at 12 – fresh and with a lot of new ideas. That’s it.”

Booker T Jones:  "It was [intense], but he [Redding] seemed to be possessed at that time. Nobody was quite sure what was going on with him. He just seemed to be in a hurry. Not a hurry – obsessed. And we didn't understand why. We just went along with it. If he wanted to go for 24 hours we just did it."

Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul  went to number seventy five on the pop album chart and was a number one smash on the R&B album chart.  





https://www.otisredding.com/












"I've Been Loving You Too Long" hit number twenty-one on the pop chart and number two as an R&B single.  





Respect was a top forty pop hit and a number four R&B single; but went on to become a smash for Aretha Franklin two years later.  

Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul
full album:


Side one

00:00 - "Ole Man Trouble"   Otis Redding 2:55
02:39 - "Respect"   Redding 2:05
04:48 - "Change Gonna Come"   Sam Cooke 4:17
09:04 -  "Down in the Valley"   Bert Berns, Solomon Burke, Babe Chivian, Joe Martin 3:02
12:06 - "I've Been Loving You Too Long"   Redding, Jerry Butler 3:10
Side two
15:03 - "Shake"   Cooke 2:35
17:45 - "My Girl"   Smokey Robinson, Ronald White 2:52
20:43 - "Wonderful World"   Cooke, Lou Adler, Herb Alpert 3:00
23:57 -  "Rock Me Baby"   B.B. King 3:20
27:23 - "Satisfaction"   Mick Jagger, Keith Richards 2:45
30:12 - "You Don't Miss Your Water"   William Bell 2:53









Ready Steady Go

(sitting on) the dock of the bay

Otis Ray Redding, Jr. 
(September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) 

The biggest hit of this soul legend's career was recorded three days before his death in a plane crash.  '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' was written by Redding with Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, guitarist for Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s.  Cropper remembers:  "Otis was one of those kind of guys who had 100 ideas. Anytime he came in to record he always had 10 or 15 different intros or titles, or whatever. He had been at San Francisco playing The Fillmore, and he was staying at a boathouse, which is where he got the idea of the ship coming in. That's about all he had: 'I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again.' I took that and finished the lyrics. If you listen to the songs I wrote with Otis, most of the lyrics are about him. He didn't usually write about himself, but I did. 'Mr. Pitiful', 'Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)'; they were about Otis' life. 'Dock Of The Bay' was exactly that: 'I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay' was all about him going out to San Francisco to perform."

Redding had begun writing the song on a houseboat at Waldo Point in Sausalito, California just after his legendary performance at the Monterey Pop Festival.  When he went into Stax Studios in Memphis, Tennessee to record the song, he still had not completed the third verse; so he whistled through it as a place holder, intending to dub the verse when he finally finished it.  Redding went to Nashville to appear on the 'Upbeat' television program and play three shows at Leo's Casino nightclub and had a show scheduled the next day in Madison, Wisconsin.  Despite the heavy rain and fog, Redding and his backing band the Bar-Kays flew anyway in Redding's Beechcraft H18.  The pilot radioed for permission to land at their destination; but for some unknown reason the plane crashed in nearby Lake Monona. Ben Cauley was the only survivor.  Redding, his manager, and guitarist Jimmy King, organist Ronnie Caldwell , saxophonist Phalon Jones, and drummer Carl Cunningham all died.  Trumpeter Ben Cauley was the only survivor of the crash and bassist James Alexander was on another plane because there wasn't enough room.  Cauley and Alexander found new members and kept the band going.  

In the wake of Redding's death, radio stations began playing his songs in earnest.  Stax Records chief Jim Stewart did not want to release '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' as a single because it was so different from the rest of Redding's material; but after he heard the version that Cropper produced in the weeks following the crash, Stewart agreed to put it out as a single in January of 1968.  It immediately garnished heavy radio airplay and shot to the top of the charts, making it the first Otis Redding single to break the pop top twenty and the first ever posthumous number one.  The song also became Redding's first number one on the R&B chart.  It went to number three in the UK.  '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' sold four million copies worldwide and won two Grammy Awards: Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for songwriters Redding and Cropper. 






https://www.otisredding.com/











Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the 'Frisco bay
'Cause I've had nothing to live for
And look like nothin's gonna come my way

So I'm just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes

Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just gonna sit at the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

(whistle) 

try a little tenderness

Otis Redding only recorded his signature song after being pressured by friends and record executives, and considered it to be a joke. 'Try a Little Tenderness' was written in 1932 by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly, and Harry Woods and had become a standard for crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Redding loved the version by the late Sam Cooke, and when he finally agreed to record the song, he was adamant about doing it differently. In his hands, this tender and sentimental ballad becomes a soulful sermon, building from a slow start of "soft words spoke so gentle" to a fevered pitch as Otis ad-libs, hollers, and testifies. He was backed by Booker T. & the MG's at Stax Studios in Memphis, with an arrangement by Isaac Hayes. 'Try a Little Tenderness' became the centerpiece of his next album, 'Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul', and made it to number forty-six in the UK, number twenty-four on the US pop chart, and number four on the R&B singles chart.

https://www.otisredding.com/

Oh, she may be weary

Young girls they do get weary

Wearing that same old shaggy dress, yeah yeah

But when she gets weary

Try a little tenderness, yeah yeah

You know she's waiting

Just anticipating

For things that she'll never never never never possess, yeah yeah

But while she's there waiting, without them

Try a little tenderness (that's all you gotta do)

It's not just sentimental, no no no

She has her grief and care, yeah yeah yeah

But the soft words they are spoke so gentle, yeah

It makes it easier, easier to bare, yeah

You won't regret it, no no

Some girls they don't forget it

Love is their only happiness, yeah

But it's all so easy

All you gotta do is try, try a little tenderness, yeah

All you gotta do is man, hold her where you want her

Squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her

Get to her drop drop

Just try a little tenderness, ooh yeah yeah yeah

You got to know how to love her, man, you'll be surprised, man

You've got to squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave

You've got to hold her and rub her softly

Try a little tenderness, ooh yeah yeah yeah

You've got to rub her gentle man, don't bruise her, no no

You've got to love her, squeeze her, don't tease her

Gotta drop nah nah nah drop

Try a little tenderness, yeah, watch her groove

You've gotta to know what to do, man

Take this advice