Necromancer

Redding could resonate pure emotion through his vocals.

Gavin B.

I own a 100 song 5 cd box set of Otis Redding's music plus six of his best studio albums he recorded for Stax/Volt. What was amazing about Otis' talent was he never recorded a throwaway track and he poured his heart and soul into every song he recorded.

By all reports Otis was a shy and humble man who was often unaware of the depth of his own musical talent. Early in 1963 Redding tagged along to the audition of one of his band members to audition for Stax Records in Memphis. At that time Redding was the singer for an unrecorded soul band that mostly performed for black audiences in rural Georgia. When Redding's band-mate completed his audition in the Stax studio he asked label owner Jim Stewart to record an audition song for Otis. Otis sang one of his own songs "These Arms of Mine" and halfway through the song Jim Stewart knew he had discovered the star he needed to keep his struggling record label from bankruptcy. Otis' single take audition tape of "These Arms of Mine" was so good it was included in his first album for Stax and has become a soul music classic.

Another Otis story: When Otis appeared at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the festival's producer Lou Adler had to coax a nervous Otis Redding to go onstage. Otis was the only soul music performer at Monterey and Redding was worried that his rootsy soul music wouldn't appeal to the nearly all white audience, who were blown away by the pyrotechnics of the Who & the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Adler told Otis to calm down and just be himself and Otis turned out to be the most talked about performer at Monterey. His show stopping performance at Monterey transformed Redding into soul singer who only sold records in the all-black R&B market into a crossover artist who appealed to both black and white audiences.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

reggular

There is nobody today who can hold a candle to Otis when it comes to taking you on a journey.

Uncle Vernon

I like Otis, but I'm going to take it a little easy with the praising here and share some of my thoughts. I have a friend that loves Otis, and at the time he was a soul artist that I hadn't heard much from. He showed me some of his stuff and I listened a lot to it, but I never really felt connected to the music in the way that I did when I listened to Sam Cooke or Aretha Franklin.

His voice is good, but I've never really felt it on a personal level. You how sometimes you can hear great singers but never really feel a connection to it? That's the way it is for me when it comes to Otis.

He's put out some GREAT songs and written many great ones too, but I sometimes feel that the songs tend to sound a little the same a lot. I don't know if it's the production or the arrangements, but many of the "mediocre" songs sound pretty much the same.

Otis Blue is the man's "essential listening" according to many, but personally I don't see what's so good about it. There are other soul and Rn'B albums that I hold much, much higher. But lets start with the positive things. "You Don't Miss Your Water" is a great song, and Otis does one of the best versions of it you'll hear. For me, it's the best song on the album.

There are a couple of other gems here too, but mostly it's just covers of famous songs that other artists have done better. "Shake", "Wonderful World" and especially "A Change Is Gonna Come" are much weaker than the originals. But then again, the only one who actually does justice to Cooke's original of "A Change Is Gonna Come" is Aretha Franklin's version which is more of a tribute than a cover. Speaking of her, "Respect" is a song on the album which she made her own. It's miles better than Otis' original.

Another thought - what's the obsession with covering a mediocre (at best) song like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"? And that goes for Aretha too. It's a boring song, and if I ever want to listen to it, I turn on the Rolling Stones.

So can anybody enlighten me - what's the hype around Otis Blue?

Sorry if I sound negative, because I truly have respect for Otis, and I like a lot of what he's done. But he's never really been good enough in my opinion to be one of my favorites in the genre.

CrazyVegn

Ppl keep telling me I'd like Otis Redding but I'm a little wary of it. Can someone recommend me one as a starter?

Urban Hat€monger ?

A song or a whole album?

If you mean a whole album you can't go wrong with this one...

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CrazyVegn

Thanks. Is he romantic, funk, soul, or what?

Urban Hat€monger ?

I would say half the album is ballads & half the album is fairly upbeat soul with a couple of covers thrown in.
The first time I heard it I was surprised at how uncheesy it sounded, unlike a lot of motown stuff from that time.

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CrazyVegn

The Dock of the Bay I do NOT like so much. It's overplayed Americana you have w a beer...

Gavin B.

The Dock of the Bay is a song that it's quite unlike any of Otis' other songs. I think producer/guitarist Steve Cropper selected Dock of the Bay for release on Otis' first posthumous album of original songs because the song had a quiet and introspective quality that signaled a new direction for Otis.

The singer's crisp vocals on Dock of the Bay are due in part to his recovery from throat surgery for removal of polyps from his vocal cords. In fact had Otis lived, his post surgical voice may have been closer to the smooth sound of his friend Sam Cooke.

The smoother sound of Otis' voice had a broader appeal to his growing crossover audience of white fans. Several MOR pop artists like Frank Sinatra, Sergio Mendes & Brazil '67, Englebert Humperdinck and Tom Jones rushed out to their own cover versions of Dock of the Bay, in the year following Otis Redding's death.

But Dock of the Bay was the only song that Otis was able to record using his smother polyp free vocal cords. It was recorded just three days before his death in December, 1967. The rest of the material on the posthumous Dock of the Bay album is collection of unreleased songs that date as far back as 1965 when Otis sang with his rougher pre-surgical vocal cords.

Dock of the Bay is an excellent Otis Redding album, even if you don't like the sound of his smoother post operative voice. The remaining cuts like Old Man Trouble, Don't Mess With Cupid, I Love You More than I Can Say, and Tramp (a vocal duet with Carla Thomas) are among the best sides Otis ever recorded.


Cover of Otis Redding's The Definitive Soul Collection (2006)

The best introduction to Otis' music is The Definitive Soul Collection issued in 2006. It's a two cd anthology of 30 studio songs carefully selected by producers Lou Adler and Isaac Hayes to cover the complete span of Redding's meteoric five year recording career with Volt Records.

The Definitive Soul Collection is the only available digitally remastered Otis Redding anthology, and there's a big improvement in sound fidelity compared to the previously issued anthologies of Redding's songs. The price of the 2 cd album is an affordable $13.99 (USD) which is lower than the price of many single cd album releases.

Unfortunately, The Definitive Soul Collection is not available in the MP3 format. I haven't found any MP3 downloads of Otis Redding's music that have been digitally remastered. Atlantic Records probably won't release any remastered issues of Otis' music in the MP3 format until all of his official album releases have been remastered in the cd format.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt