Happy 55th Anniversary to Otis Redding’s third studio album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, originally released September 15, 1965.
Macon, Georgia seems like any other city of its ilk. It was able to grow and thrive due to its position on the Ocmulgee River, which enabled it to become a trade and transport hub for the cotton industry. The fourth largest city in Georgia would appear, at first glance, to be fairly nondescript.
This standard, average southern city of the US though, has a couple of claims to fame that elevate it to a place firmly rooted in the history books of soul music. On December 5, 1932, Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon. The Innovator, The Originator and The Architect Of Rock & Roll changed the game with his flamboyant musicianship and undeniable talent, helping to forge a music that would shake the world to its core. Little Richard he may have been named, but there was nothing little about the man’s influence or impact.
Almost nine years later, on September 9, 1941, Otis Ray Redding Jr. was born in Dawson, Georgia before his family moved to Macon when he was aged two. Not only did Redding share Macon roots with Little Richard, but he would go on to share the stage with him as well; having left school aged 15, Redding worked with Little Richard’s backing band, The Upsetters, at the same time as performing in talent shows in Macon.
By 1958, Redding had joined Johnny Jenkins’ band, The Pinetoppers, and was touring the south of the US as a backing singer and driver. But four years later, his world changed beyond recognition when his stubbornness and refusal to be pushed aside finally paid dividends. Robert Gordon’s book Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion offers innumerable, great stories, but the story of Otis Redding’s big break is a gem to behold.
It began with Joe Galkin (a record promoter) wanting to record Johnny Jenkins in combination with Booker T. & the M.G.’s who were fresh from “Green Onions” success. It being a warm, humid day and air conditioning being a rare luxury at the time, the assorted musicians were waiting outside for Jenkins to arrive and record. Accompanying him was a thickset driver needlessly lugging equipment around—a driver who wouldn’t let up telling people that he was a singer.
The session did not go well. Jenkins’ flamboyant guitar pyrotechnics did not gel with the MG’s groove and nothing memorable came of it. Until, that was, Al Jackson spoke to Steve Cropper about the guy who had been bugging him all day about being a singer. As the day ground to a halt and musicians started to disperse to play the gigs that paid their bills, Cropper relented and began playing “church” chords for the driver to sing to. “These Arms Of Mine” was what came out of the driver’s mouth and he was no longer “just a driver,” but Otis Redding, soul singer.
The hairs on Cropper’s neck made it clear that something amazing was afoot, so hasty musician exits were halted and they cut the incredible debut single. Booker T. Jones said “It’s all heart and time gets frozen. I’d never been with anybody that had that much desire to express emotion. ‘These Arms Of Mine,’ it's the longing. And it translates to the listener and the player and anyone who hears it. When that happens, millions of people listen. There’s no choice.”
That was just the beginning of Redding’s career which begat Pain In My Heart (his 1964 debut album) and The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads (1965). His third album, however, was the peak of his tragically short life and career. Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul was released in September of 1965 but was recorded in a whirlwind on the 9th and 10th of July that same year.
The reason for that frenetic recording schedule was simply the way of the music world at that point (and now, given the pittances earned from streaming platforms). Though hit records were all well and good, the real money came from live performances, so the hit records produced the buzz that ensured concerts were sold out. Consequently, Redding spent much of the time zig-zagging across the country wearing out the road with his full thirteen-piece band in tow.
With that punishingly lucrative routine in mind, it became harder and harder to pin him down to recording for Stax—after all, every night spent in the studio was one less gig to add to the bank balance. An opening did however present itself in the shape of a Friday and Saturday in early July; it would be a marathon session that resulted in one of the greatest soul albums of all time.
It is very hard to read about Redding without seeing the words “gritty” and “raw”—indeed Gordon uses those very adjectives to draw the comparisons between Redding’s style and the “smooth and suave” delivery of Sam Cooke. My urge as a writer is not to replicate those adjectives, but it is practically impossible to avoid them—they resonate so clearly with Redding’s voice and delivery.
Isaac Hayes (who would eventually take Redding’s place as the tent-pole artist for the label) said (again, in Gordon’s excellent book) that Stax was “raw, very honest music that represented the common man—the common black man.” It was the countrified, down-home cousin to Motown’s slick, urbane, more pop-oriented machine, and Redding’s voice, along with the house bands, helped forge this identity as a funkier, down-to-earth entity. Both Redding’s and Stax’s identities and fortunes became intertwined—they were symbiotically linked.
The album’s timing was everything too. Just six months previously, Sam Cooke had been killed in Los Angeles, leaving a gap in the hearts and minds of soul music fans. Otis was wise enough to record three Cooke songs for Otis Blue in his own inimitable (and vastly different) style. By doing so he presented himself both as an acolyte of the late, great singer but also as the torchbearer who could carry soul music forward.
As well as the covers of songs by other artists, the album also contains original material penned by him—including the most famous song penned by him, one of the most recognized and loved songs of the 20th Century. His original version of “Respect” moves at a much brisker pace courtesy of Al Jackson’s surging, G-Force drums—it would be somewhat ridiculous to suggest that Redding’s version is better than Aretha Franklin’s epoch-defining version, but it stands as testament to Redding’s increasingly brilliant pen.
The choice of songs and artists to cover is a very interesting point—he manages to tip his hat to both the architects of soul music but also to those other strands of Black music that contributed to its development. It is almost as if he is providing a summation of the ingredients of soul music. By taking these ingredients and adding his own unique voice to them he further melds them together and reinforces what constitutes soul music.
Solomon Burke’s “Down In The Valley” is a case in point. By choosing another of those rock & roll originators, Redding places himself firmly in the tradition of black music. But whereas it takes Burke a minute or two to showcase the more soulful, gritty edge to his voice, Redding lets it go from note one. His voice is already at the point of emotional breakdown and it doesn’t let up. It is, as Booker T Jones said, as if he wrings emotion from every single syllable. He treats each of them as precious and none are wasted on anything less than his best.
Anyone who can take a B.B. King song and make it their own has to be special and nowhere is it truer than with Redding’s cover of “Rock Me Baby.” The combination of Cropper’s sharp yet restrained guitar and Redding’s scandalously indecent sexual roar is perfection—Redding is both the voice of dominant masculinity and a soulful plea to a partner. Once again, by choosing a blues man’s tune, he casts himself as the past, present and future all in one moment.
Of the Sam Cooke covers, one in particular stands out as one of my favorite covers of all time. “A Change Is Gonna Come” is an awe-inspiring song at the best of times, capable of sending shivers down the spine, but here Redding ekes every single shred of pain, joy and hope from the lyric. When he sings the opening lines (having been ushered in majestically by the horns) “I was born by the river / In this little old tent / Oh and just like the river, I’ve been running ever since,” it is almost too much to bear. The ripped emotion in his voice makes it both utterly believable and soul crushingly sad—it is one of my favorite moments in recorded music and guarantees that the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
Further evidence of Redding standing at the nexus of past, present and future is provided in his cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and it was typical of the Trans-Atlantic game of ping-pong that happened at that time. Redding (and others) had inspired The Rolling Stones in their brash, British version of blues music and had recorded many a cover themselves; Redding in turn took their hit and made it frenetic and dripping in more carnality than Jagger could muster in a month of Sundays.
Of course, beyond the music, Redding is most associated with his tragic early death, but he also provides a great example of an artist who was equally adept at the business side of the game. He was able to secure his legacy and his family’s future through a series of shrewd deals—in a business filled with tales of woe and financial mismanagement (to put it extremely kindly), he was able to navigate a way to succeed despite being a Black man in a highly racist society.
The lasting legacy of Otis Blue is the way that Redding embraces the past while creating a future with his unique set of talents. His voice has become synonymous with the very word “soul” and that has happened to very few artists—it's a fitting honor for someone with a voice as raw and gritty as his.
Note: As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism may earn commissions from purchases of vinyl records, CDs and digital music featured on our site.
LISTEN: