OTIS REDDING
SEPTEMBER 9, 1941 – DECEMBER 10, 1967
Otis was an American singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout, and international star. He is considered one of the greatest singers in popular music and a major artist in soul and rhythm and blues. His singing style was powerfully influential among soul artists of the 1960s and helped exemplify the Stax sound.
Born and raised in Georgia, United States, Redding left school at 15 to support his family, working with Little Richards’ backing band, the Upsetters, and performing at talent shows for prize money. In 1958, he joined Johnny Jenkins’ band, the Pinetoppers, and toured the Southern United States as a driver and musician. An unscheduled appearance on a Stax recording session led to a contract and his first single, “These Arms of Mine”, in 1962. Stax released Redding’s debut album, Pain in My Heart, two years later.
Initially popular mainly with African Americans, Redding later reached the broader American popular music audience. He and his group first played small gigs in the South, then debuted in the western United States at LA’s popular Whisky a Go Go. They later performed in Paris, London and other European cities.
After appearing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival Redding wrote and recorded the iconic “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” with Steve Cropper. The song became the first posthumous number-one record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts after his death in a plane crash. The Dock of the Bay became the first posthumous album to reach number one on the United Kingdom Albums Chart. It is very ironic that a song relating to water is how he actually died and eventually became an international more than before star.
Redding’s premature death devastated Stax. Already on the verge of bankruptcy, the label soon discovered that Atlantic Records owned the rights to his entire catalog. Redding received many posthumous accolades, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Note on the events prior and aftermath
Redding played three shows that Saturday night at Leo’s Casino in Cleveland. On Sunday, he and five members of the Bar-Kays took off for the short flight to Madison, Wis., to play a gig. They never made it. In cold, foggy and icy conditions, the plane plummeted into Lake Monona, three miles from shore. Trumpet player Ben Cauley was the only survivor.
Cropper was at the airport in Indianapolis with Booker T & the MGs, who were trying to get back to Memphis after a show. Singer David Porter called his wife to let her know they’d missed their connection.
As Cropper recalls it, Porter came back to them looking grim. “‘My wife just said Otis went down in a plane this morning and is dead,’” Cropper recalls him saying. “Everybody was just drained.”
Later, Cauley, who died in 2015, told Cropper that he remembered holding onto a pillow and spinning: “He said he was pulled from the water by some guys and he could hear the other band members screaming for help.”
When Redding’s body was found the next day, he was still strapped into his seat.
After Cropper returned to the recording studio, he got a call from New York asking what he had ready from Otis. He worked on finishing “Dock of the Bay” from Tuesday into Wednesday. “I handed the masters to a flight attendant at the airport, and that plane flew into LaGuardia, where she handed it to a rep from Atlantic, who took it straight to the record-pressing plant,” says Cropper. “He had records out in a few days.”
It was officially released in early 1968, but radio stations were playing the song by Christmas.
Back in Wisconsin, at the Factory, where Redding and the Bar-Kays had been scheduled to play, the opening act on the bill was a band called the Grim Reapers.