Otis Redding

Otis Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, in 1941 and grew up in Macon, and he learned his trade the hard way: talent shows at the Douglass Theatre, a stint with Little Richard's old band the Upsetters, then from 1958 touring the South as singer and driver for Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers. He turned up at a Stax session he wasn't booked for, walked out with a contract, and "These Arms of Mine" was his first hit, a slow, aching plea that announced a voice soaked in gospel and in no hurry at all.

Stax put out Pain in My Heart in 1964, and then the run that made him the King of Soul: Otis Blue, with "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and a breakneck "Shake", and Dictionary of Soul, whose "Try a Little Tenderness" starts as a whisper and ends as a revival meeting. He wrote "Respect" himself in 1965, a song Aretha Franklin later made her own. What began as a following mostly among Black audiences grew into a much wider one, from the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles to London and Paris, and in June 1967 to the Monterey Pop Festival.

That December he died in a plane crash. Just before, he had written and recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" with Steve Cropper, a wistful, easygoing change of pace, and it became the first posthumous number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the R&B chart. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 1989, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award followed in 1999.

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