Pain in My Heart by Otis Redding

Pain in My Heart, Otis Redding's debut album, arrived in 1964 on Atco, the label that handled Volt's albums while the Memphis Stax offshoot pressed the singles. By then the Georgia singer had already worked with Little Richard's backing band, the Upsetters, and toured the South with Johnny Jenkins' Pinetoppers, and an unscheduled turn at a Stax session had produced "These Arms of Mine", the aching ballad that launched him.

That song is here, along with "That's What My Heart Needs", "Security" and the title track, which Allen Toussaint wrote and arranged under the name Naomi Neville. Four singles from 1962 and 1963 make this less a statement than a gathering-up, but what a gathering. Redding sings with a pleading, church-born ache, leaning on every word until it cracks, and the backing stays lean and Southern. It's a young man's record, and the voice is already enormous.

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