With his hoarse tone and his imploring and passionate performance, born in Georgia Otis Redding rose to fame in the mid-1960s and quickly became one of soul music’s most iconic and beloved singers, in large part thanks to the release of albums such as Otis Blue and The Soul Album.
The son of a preacher who started singing in his local church choir, Redding worked hard on the infamous chitlin ‘circuit, performing poorly paid concerts in difficult venues before being signed by the co-founder of Stax Records, Jim Stewart, in 1962, after impressing during an impromptu recording of the audition. One of the songs he recorded that day was a song he wrote himself, “These Arms Of Mine”. It became Redding’s first single and set him on the path to stardom.
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The Soul Album was Otis Redding’s fourth long-player for Stax’s subsidiary Volt, by which time he had already racked up ten singles, including the 1965 Top 10 US R&B hit, the self-written “Respect,” which , in 1967, was famously transformed into a feminist anthem by Aretha Franklin.
Although The Soul Album, directed by Jim Stewart in Stax’s Memphis studio, yielded only one lone success (the slow, simmering ballad “Just One More Day,” which rocked America’s R&B Top 20 in December 1965), it was filled with classic Redding. performances which showcased not only his raw and primitive power, but also his delicate and nuanced sensitivity. Her beautifully craggy voice is framed by skillful musical arrangements performed by a fabulous rhythm section (consisting of Booker T & The MG’s, who enjoyed their own successes during the same period) augmented by The Memphis Horns, whose punchy brass interjections are a salient feature of the album.
Whether it’s singing craving deeply soulful ballads or crushing trendy numbers, Redding pours his heart and soul into everything. He possessed this rare ability to take other people’s songs and transform them to sound like utterances from deep within his own soul. On the Soul album, Otis transforms blues singer Bessie Smith’s Jimmy Cox ballad “Nobody Knows You When You’re Downstairs and Out” into a fascinating existential meditation whose intensity is almost cathartic. Jerry Butler’s “Cigarettes And Coffee” receives a similar treatment, but it shows a lighter touch on his dynamic revamp of Sam Cooke’s 1960 hit, “Chain Gang.” It also reuses Temptations‘ Smokey Robinson-co-wrote 1965 smash “It’s Growing”, giving the song a manly makeover that oozes excess testosterone.
Redding could also be playful, as evidenced by the jaunty cover of the 1965 hit from bluesman Slim Harpo, “Scratch My Back”. Significantly, this demonstrates the intuitive call and response interaction between the singer and his horn section, which was an important feature of Redding’s sound.
The Dawson-born singer also impresses as a songwriter, co-writing three of the ensemble’s tunes, including the slow-burning ballad “Good To Me” and “Any Ole Way,” the latter of which writes with MG Steve Cropper, who would go on to co-write Redding’s posthumous signature song, “(Sittin ‘On The) Dock Of The Bay”.
A few issues of Stax soul man Eddie Floyd also receive the archetypal Redding treatment: “Everybody Makes A Mistake” finds him putting his indelible mark on a redemptive ballad, while the loose-limbed groove shuffles “634-5789” illustrates that not everything he touched was defined by an intensity of life or death.
Released in July 1966, The Soul Album spent 28 weeks on the US R&B album chart, peaking at No.3. Perhaps more importantly, it also made it to the pop and rock charts. Americans, where it reached No.58, illustrating that Redding’s cross-appeal was widening. In an effort to capitalize on his growing popularity with white audiences (Redding had also toured Europe successfully with a Stax review earlier in ’66), the singer began performing in rock venues, culminating in his now legendary appearance. at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which catapulted him to stardom.
But later that year, on December 10, 1967, Otis Redding tragically died when his plane crashed into the icy waters of Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. He was only 26 years old.
Despite the fact that almost 50 years have passed since his death, Otis Redding’s music endures and continues to captivate and inspire. The Soul album, with its scorching ballads and energetic jerks, reminds us of what prodigious talent the world lost half a century ago. But perhaps more than anything else, it affirms the enduring magnificence of Redding’s music, which has lost none of its moving majesty and power over time.
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