Otis Blue / Otis Redding Sings Soul by Otis Redding

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, Redding's third album, hit the racks on Volt on September 15, 1965, and it's the sound of a Georgia man tearing the roof off the Stax studio in Memphis. Jim Stewart produced, and all but one track was cut in two sessions on July 9 and 10, with Booker T. & the M.G.'s grooving underneath, horns drawn from the Mar-Keys and the Memphis Horns, and Isaac Hayes at the piano.

Most of it is other people's hits, and Redding takes them like he owns the deed: three songs by Sam Cooke, gone only months before, and a horn-stabbed "Satisfaction" that turns the Rolling Stones' sneer into a shout. His own songs stand tall beside them, from the aching slow burn of "I've Been Loving You Too Long" to "Respect", long before Aretha Franklin made it hers. It was his first album to top the US R&B LPs chart, and it reached 6 in Britain. Rolling Stone later put it at 178 on its list of the 500 greatest albums.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.