Otis Redding playlist: ‘Stompers’ and heartbreakers from the King of Soul

Exactly fifty years ago on 10 December 1967, a light aircraft crashed into the freezing waters of Lake Monona, Wisconsin. On board were soul music pioneer Otis Redding and his backing band The Bar-Kays. Tragically, Redding, his 17-year-old valet, the plane’s pilot and four members of the Bar-Kays, the oldest aged just 19, were killed. The wonderful voice of the “King of Soul” had been silenced forever. He was just 26 years old and when an artist dies at such a young age, the temptation is to almost canonize them, but in Redding’s case, his exalted reputation is totally justified. A musical force of nature, in his short time as a recording artist – just over five years – Redding created a catalogue of some of the greatest soul music ever recorded and time has not lessened the importance and influence of his work.

Otis Redding came up the hard way, hailing from Georgia, experiencing everything that an upbringing in the South entailed for a black man, but such was his resolve, he allowed nothing to get in the way of his ambition and all-consuming talent. On signing for the Stax/Volt label in 1962, Otis discovered like every other artist on their roster, that segregation and racial bigotry stopped on entering the famed Memphis studio known as “Soulsville USA”. Redding forged an immediate rapport with Stax’s legendary multiracial house-band Booker T and the MGs, and with the peerless Memphis Horns backing them up, a signature Southern soul style which was more rooted in gritty R&B and gospel than the mellower, more pop based, Tamla Motown was created.

Taking early inspiration from the embryonic rock’n’roll sounds of fellow Macon resident Little Richard and the smoother soul sounds of Sam Cooke, Redding’s career would be informed by the contrast between the two styles at which he excelled – the frenetic dance numbers or “stompers” as he liked to call them, and the tortured, romantic soul ballad. He could have the listener fighting back the tears one minute and up on their feet the next, unable to resist the frantic dance beat inherent in many of his songs. And like all great singers, when Otis sang, you believed he was singing just for you and no one else.

In terms of artistic achievement, 1965 was Redding’s annus mirabilis, with the release of his seminal album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, recorded in one astonishing 24-hour session in the middle of a Memphis heatwave. No fewer than five tracks on this playlist come from Otis Blue, which remains a keynote recording in the history of not only soul but popular music as a whole.

A fine songwriter, producer and arranger, Redding’s talent was limitless. A dynamic live performer, he first wowed UK audiences in 1966, and a whole edition of the top music programme of the day, Ready Steady Go!, was given over to him. His performance became the stuff of legend and helped make him a bigger star over here than in his own country. Redding returned to the UK as part of a Stax/Volt review in the spring of 1967 and once again slayed not only his fans in the street with his inspirational live act, but other top stars of the day like Tom Jones as part of the audience at the rapturously received Stax shows. The Beatles, also in thrall to the sound of Stax and Otis in particular, laid on a fleet of limousines to ferry the label’s entourage from Heathrow airport to their hotel. The same year saw Redding peak as a live performer when he stole the show at the Monterey Pop Festival, massively crossing over to a white audience in his own country for the first time. Otis was at the absolute peak of his commercial and artistic success when he took that fateful plane journey fifty years ago, and such was his boundless potential that we can only speculate as to the glories that lay ahead for this essential artist. Here are just ten of his greatest songs.

10 These Arms of Mine (1962) The self-penned song that led to his breakthrough when Otis sang it at an impromptu audition for Stax Records. Recorded by the 21 year old Redding in 1962, “These Arms of Mine” didn’t become a hit until March the following year, but eventually sold 800,000 copies. For one so young and inexperienced, Redding’s unhurried performance is astonishingly controlled and mature and set the standard and template for the aching ballad that became his calling card.

9 Respect (1965) “That little girl stole my song” an awe-inspired Otis is said to have remarked in 1967 on first hearing Aretha Franklin’s sensational re-imagining of his own composition. He wasn’t wrong. Aretha’s version is the definitive call to arms for female empowerment and she owned the song for ever after. Otis’s version was recorded from a man’s perspective and a desperate one at that, as he calls for respect in his own home, no matter what it costs him. Aretha’s version is one of the most magnificent, extraordinary, inspired recordings of all time, whereas Otis’s original is merely great, and that’ll do for me.

8 My Girl (1965) Otis couldn’t have complained too much about Aretha Franklin usurping “Respect” as he had done much the same with the beloved Smokey Robinson song that the Temptations had taken to number one in the US. Simply by adding a few judicious “oohs”, Otis put his own inimitable stamp on it and with the multi-layered brass arrangement, this was the version of choice for UK audiences.

7 Change Gonna Come (1965) A tribute to Sam Cooke who, inspired by Dylan’s “Blowing in The Wind”, wrote this prescient plea for racial tolerance, a civil rights anthem nonpareil. Recorded after Cooke’s death in 1964, Otis gave his hero’s greatest song (original title “A Change Is Gonna Come”) the reverential treatment it deserved, perfectly capturing the uplifting, hopeful and personal message inherent in the lyrics.

6 I Can’t Turn You Loose (1965) Otis at his grittiest and most manic on a song that found its apogee as a live fixture and surely holds the record for the most number of “gotta gottas” in a single record. The horn parts are now part of soul’s DNA, Steve Cropper’s guitar riff has since been appropriated by God knows how many bands, and is an unsurpassed example of the fantastic chemistry between Otis and the MGs.

5 Cigarettes and Coffee (1966) A beautifully intimate recording and one of soul’s deepest cuts, the sophisticated self-assurance and easy grace of “Cigarettes and Coffee” is the supreme example of Redding’s absolute mastery of the soul ballad. The record’s ambience of relaxed bliss with a loved one, with barely any conversation necessary, is something we would all settle for.

4 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (1965) Black singer covers white boys who made their name covering black music in a complete role reversal of music etymology. Is it heresy to confess to preferring Redding’s version to the Stones’ epochal original? The raw, urgent intensity of Otis’s vocal is totally compelling as he takes “Satisfaction” at a much faster (ie furious) lick than the original in a performance of unremitting energy and originality. Recorded in such haste that Otis, unsure of some of the lyrics just made up his own, “Satisfaction” became a highlight of Redding’s incendiary live act. Keith Richards for one was chuffed to bits at Otis’s version, being particularly pleased with the Memphis Horns’ contribution as he had envisaged brass replacing the signature guitar licks when composing the music for “Satisfaction”.

3 (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay (1967) Otis’s best known song was recorded just three days before his death and hinted at a new folksy direction for the King of Soul but sadly the wistful, meditative direction of “Dock of the Bay” proved to be his epitaph. Otis composed the song literally at the dock of the bay in Sausalito, by the Golden Gate Bridge, the lyrics echoing his yearning to be back home in Georgia. A posthumous number 1 in the US and a number 3 in the UK, the song’s reflective lyrics make “Dock of the Bay” somehow prescient and unbearably poignant.

2 I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) (1965) One of the highlights of Otis Blue, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” became one of many live showstoppers for Redding and is a masterclass in controlled vocal delivery, with Otis as the spurned lover making an impassioned plea for his girl to return to him. Swooning horns are the perfect complement to Redding’s aching vocals as the raw intensity grows inexorably with each note until all that’s left for Otis is to get down on his knees pleading “I love you” over and over. The perfect Otis Redding heartrending ballad and a bona fide soul classic.

1 Try a Little Tenderness (1966) Dating back to the 1930s and covered by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, “Try a Little Tenderness” was considered a crooner’s song until Otis was let loose on it. Rarely could a popular song have been subject to such a radical re-imagining as Otis put his own inimitable stamp on things, making it unreservedly his own. And rarely has a record begun so smoothly and ended so frenziedly. From its deceptively tentative beginnings, “Try a Little Tenderness” doesn’t release its ferocious emotional hold on the listener for a second, gradually building in intensity as drummer Al Jackson Jr marks time, waiting for Otis to seize his moment in the heart-thumping, flesh-tingling finale amid a crescendo of swelling horns and Booker T Jones’s swirling organ. “Try a Little Tenderness” is Otis Redding’s greatest performance and greatest song, a case study in how to make a classic record, and remains the very definition of soul.