#254 - Otis Redding - Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul (1966)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

BACKGROUND – OTIS REDDING

Otis Ray Redding Jr.is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Nicknamed the "King of Soul" (along with others), Redding's style of singing gained inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the genre. His singing style influenced many other soul artists of the 1960s. 

Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia in 1941, and at age two, moved to Macon. At an early age, he sang in the Vineville Baptist Church choir and learned guitar and piano. From age 10, Redding took drum and singing lessons. A  Ballard-Hudson High School, he sang in the school band. Every Sunday he earned $6 by performing gospel songs for Macon radio station WIBB, and he won the $5 prize in a teen talent show for 15 consecutive weeks His passion was singing, and he often cited Little Richard and Sam Cooke as influences. Redding said that he "would not be here" without Little Richard and that he "entered the music business because of Richard – he is my inspiration. I used to sing like Little Richard, his rock 'n' roll stuff  My present music has a lot of him in it."

Redding quit school at age 15 to support his family, working with Little Richard's backing band  the Upsetters, and by performing in talent shows at the historic Douglass Theatre in Macon. Redding's breakthrough came in 1958 at a talent contest at the local Roxy and Douglass Theatres. Johnny Jenkins, a locally prominent guitarist, was in the audience. Redding was soon invited to replace Willie Jones as frontman of Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers, featuring Johnny Jenkins. Redding toured the Southern United States on the Chitlin' Circuit, a string of venues that were hospitable to African-American entertainers during the era of racial segregation, which lasted into the early 1960s. Around this time, Redding met Phil Walden, the future founder of the recording company Phil Walden and Associates. When Walden started to look for a record label for Jenkins,  a session was set up at Stax studio in Memphis. Redding drove Jenkins to the session, as Jenkins did not have a driver's license. The session with Jenkins, backed by Booker T. & the M.G.'s, was unproductive and ended early; but Redding was allowed to perform two songs. The first was "Hey Hey Baby", which studio chief Jim Stewart thought sounded too much like Little Richard. The second was "These Arms of Mine". Stewart later praised Redding's performance, saying, "Everybody was fixin' to go home, but Joe Galkin insisted we give Otis a listen. There was something different about [the ballad]. He really poured his soul into it." Stewart signed Redding and released "These Arms of Mine", with "Hey Hey Baby" on the B-side and charted in March the following year. It became one of his most successful songs, selling more than 800,000 copies.

Most of Redding's songs after "Security", from his first album, had a slow tempo. Disc jockey A. C. Moohah Williams accordingly labeled him "Mr. Pitiful", and subsequently,  Redding wrote the eponymous song. That and top 100 singles " Chained and Bound", "Come to Me" and "That's How Strong My Love Is"  were included on Redding's second studio album The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads, released in March 1965. That summer, Redding and the studio crew arranged new songs for the next album. Ten of the eleven songs were recorded in a 24-hour period on July 9 and 10 in Memphis.  The album, entitled Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul, was released in September 1965, which also includes a much-loved cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come". The success of Redding's third album, saw a rearrangement of the Stax company. Phil Walden, signed musicians including Percy Sledge, Johnnie Taylor, Clarence Carter, and Eddie Floyd, and together with Redding they founded the production companies "Jotis Records" (derived from Joe Galkin and Otis), on which only four recordings were released

Later on, Redding decided to perform at the legendary Whisky A Go Go nightclub  in L.A. in front of a predominantly white audience, becoming one of the first soul artists to play in the western United States. His performance received critical acclaim by the press, and musician Bob Dylan, who offered an alternative track of his hit song "Just Like a Woman" to him, but he declined his proposal  After his performance there he went back to the Stax studios to continue recording new songs. That brings us to today's album.

The spring of 1966 marked the first time that Stax booked concerts for its artists. When the crew arrived in London, the Beatles sent a limousine to pick them up. Later on, booking agent Bill Graham proposed that Redding play at the Fillmore Auditorium. The gig was commercially and critically successful, prompting Graham to remark afterward, "That was the best gig I ever put on in my entire life." Redding began touring Europe six months later. In March 1967, Stax released King & Queen, an album of duets between Redding and Carla Thomas, which became a certified gold record. It was Jim Stewart's idea to produce a duet album, as he expected that "[Redding's] rawness and [Thomas's] sophistication would work".. Three singles were lifted from the album: "Tramp" was released in April, followed by "Knock on Wood" and "Lovey Dovey". All three reached at least the top 60 on both the R&B and Pop charts. The album charted at number 5 and 36 on the Billboard Pop and R&B charts, respectively. In 1967, Redding performed at the influential Monterey Pop Festival as the closing act on Saturday night. After delivering one of the most electric performances of the night, and having been the act to most involve the audience, his performance at Monterey Pop was  a progression from local to national acclaim, the turning-point in Otis Redding's career." His act included his own song "Respect" and a version of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" In early December 1967, Redding again recorded at Stax. One new song was "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", which was inspired by the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and tried to create a similar sound against the label's wishes. His wife Zelma disliked its atypical melody. The Stax crew were also dissatisfied with the new sound; Stewart thought that it was not R&B, while bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn feared it would damage Stax's reputation. However, Redding wanted to expand his musical style and thought it was his best song, correctly believing it would top the charts. 

Around the same time, the band was traveling to performances in Redding's Beechcraft H18 airplane. On December 9, they appeared on the Upbeat television show produced in Cleveland. They played three concerts in two nights at a club called Leo's Casino.  Redding's next stop was Madison, Wisconsin; the next day. Although the weather was poor, with heavy rain and fog, and despite warnings, the plane took off. Four miles from their destination, pilot Richard Fraser radioed for permission to land. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed into Lake Monona. Bar-Kays member Ben Cauley, the accident's only survivor was sleeping shortly before the accident. He woke just before impact to see bandmate Phalon Jones look out a window and exclaim, "Oh, no!" Cauley said the last thing he remembered before the crash was unbuckling his seat belt. He then found himself in frigid water, grasping a seat cushion to keep afloat.  The cause of the crash was never determined The memorial service took place at the City Auditorium in Macon. More than 4,500 people came to the funeral, overflowing the 3,000-seat hall. Redding was entombed at his ranch in Round Oak. He died just three days after re-recording "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay".  It would be released in January 1968 and became Redding's only single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and the first posthumous number-one single in U.S. chart history. It sold approximately four million copies worldwide and received more than eight million airplays. The album The Dock of the Bay was the first posthumous album to reach the top spot on the UK Albums Chart. 

Redding received many posthumous accolades, including two Grammy Awards, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the RnR HOF in 1989, declaring his name to be "synonymous with the term soul music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm and blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. He is also a member of the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame. and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1988, he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Five years later, the United States Post Office issued a 29-cent commemorative postage stamp in his honor. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included three Redding recordings, "Shake", "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", and "Try a Little Tenderness", on its list of "The 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" 

Artists from many genres have named Redding as a musical influence. George Harrison called "Respect" an inspiration for "Drive My Car". The Rolling Stones also mentioned Redding as a major influence. Other artists influenced by Redding include Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Doors, and virtually every soul and R&B musician from the early years, such as Al Green, Etta James, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. Janis Joplin was influenced by his singing style, stating that she learned "to push a song instead of just sliding over it" after hearing Redding. The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb wrote the song "To Love Somebody" for Redding to record. He loved it, and he was going to "cut it", as Barry put it, on his return from his final concert. They dedicated the song to his memory.

ALBUM BACKGROUND – COMPLETE & UNBELIEVABLE: THE OTIS REDDING SOUL DICTIONARY

Complete and Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul found the rugged-voiced, deep soul singer continuing to expand the boundaries of his style while staying true to his rough and passionate signature sound. This was Redding's 5th album, and his ambitious interpretations of "Tennessee Waltz" and "Try a Little Tenderness" found him approaching material well outside the traditional boundaries of R&B and allowing his emotionally charged musical personality to take listeners to new and unexpected places, While Redding's experiments with covers on this set were successful and satisfying, it was on his own material that he sounded most at home, and "My Lover's Prayer" and "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" are deep Southern soul at its finest featuring Redding's forceful but lovelorn voice. This was his last solo studio album released before his death.

The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul was released on October 15, 1966 on the Stax label and peaked at number 73 and at number 5 on the Billboard 200 and the R&B LP charts respectively. The album produced two singles, "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" and "Try a Little Tenderness". 

Dictionary of Soul features the Booker T. & the M.G.'s—organist Booker T. Jones, pianist/guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, drummer Al Jackson, Jr.—pianist Isaac Hayes, and the Memphis Horns, consisting of tenor saxophonist Joe Arnold, trumpeter Wayne Jackson, tenor saxophonist Andrew Love and baritone saxophonist Floyd Newman.[ 

Side one features mainly cover versions, including country standard "Tennessee Waltz" and The Beatles' "Day Tripper", the latter of which was praised for turning "into a swaggering stomper" as opposed to the original. Side two is mainly composed of Redding songs, the exception being Chuck Willis' "You're Still My Baby" and "Love Have Mercy", co-written by David Porter and Hayes. .

The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul received positive critical reception. In a retrospective review Mark Deming of Allmusic said that it "found the rugged-voiced deep soul singer continuing to expand the boundaries of his style while staying true to his rough and passionate signature sound."