FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Otis Redding – Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul
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FOR this Vinyl Corner…
I am investigating one of the best Soul albums ever released. Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul (often referred to simply as Otis Blue) is the third studio album by American Soul singer Otis Redding. It was first released on 15th September, 1965. Although the album largely comprises cover versions, there are some originals in the pack. It is amazing to think that, apart from one track, the album was recorded over twenty-four hours at Stax Recording Studios in Tennessee! The album became a huge hit, and it was his first to reach the top of the Billboard chart – it got to number-six in the U.K. Even though the majority of the album was other people’s work, some of the best songs were the ones Redding wrote himself – Ole Man Trouble, Respect, and I’ve Been Loving You Too Long are exceptional and delivered with incredible passion. Redding covered three Sam Cooke tracks, including A Change Is Gonna Come – Cooke sadly died a few months before Redding recorded his album. With superb backing by Booker T. & the M.G.'s, a horn section consisting members of The Mar-Keys and The Memphis Horns, and pianist Isaac Hayes, one feels a real richness and sense of physicality from the players. I think this is Otis Redding’s greatest work, and his voice is unbelievable throughout! My favourite cuts are My Girl, and Respect, but I also really love I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul is a magnificent album, and one that people should get on vinyl.
I want to bring in a couple of reviews for Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. It is an album that has gained so much respect from critics through this year. This is what AllMusic said when they tackled the album:
“Otis Redding's third album, and his first fully realized album, presents his talent unfettered, his direction clear, and his confidence emboldened, with fully half the songs representing a reach that extended his musical grasp. More than a quarter of this album is given over to Redding's versions of songs by Sam Cooke, his idol, who had died the previous December, and all three are worth owning and hearing. Two of them, "A Change Is Gonna Come" and "Shake," are every bit as essential as any soul recordings ever made, and while they (and much of this album) have reappeared on several anthologies, it's useful to hear the songs from those sessions juxtaposed with each other, and with "Wonderful World," which is seldom compiled elsewhere. Also featured are Redding's spellbinding renditions of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (a song epitomizing the fully formed Stax/Volt sound and which Mick Jagger and Keith Richards originally wrote in tribute to and imitation of Redding's style), "My Girl," and "You Don't Miss Your Water." "Respect" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long," two originals that were to loom large in his career, are here as well; the former became vastly popular in the hands of Aretha Franklin and the latter was an instant soul classic. Among the seldom-cited jewels here is a rendition of B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby" that has the singer sharing the spotlight with Steve Cropper, his playing alternately elegant and fiery, with Wayne Jackson and Gene "Bowlegs" Miller's trumpets and Andrew Love's and Floyd Newman's saxes providing the backing. Redding's powerful, remarkable singing throughout makes Otis Blue gritty, rich, and achingly alive, and an essential listening experience”.
I think there are a lot of people out there who have heard of Otis Redding but are not aware of Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. It is an album that anyone can appreciate and feel moved by. When they reviewed the album, Rolling Stone said the following (they reviewed the Collector’s Edition):
“This two — cd set doubles the pleasure of Otis Redding’s third album with B sides, outtakes, period live tracks and the entire record in mono and stereo versions. But Otis Blue was already perfect in its original 11 — song edition when released in September 1965 — an achievement that is even more remarkable because all but one of the tracks were recorded inside 24 hours, in two lightning sessions at the Stax studio in Memphis, on July 9th and in the early morning of the 10th. The reason for the intermission: The house band — including Booker T. and the MG’s, and the Memphis Horns — had to cut out for local gigs. The haste is evident: In his Dixie — heat treatment of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” Redding sings “satis — fashion.” But the urgency is all — natural. He barks and grunts in excited polyrhythm with Al Jackson’s off — the — beat drum breaks in Sam Cooke’s “Shake” and takes Southern — church liberties with the refined ecstasies of Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Redding had only two new originals ready for this record, the deep — wound blues “Ole Man Trouble” (with its great sobbing — brass lick) and the male — pride strut “Respect.”
A third included on the album, the majestic surrender of “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” (written with Jerry Butler), was cut earlier and was already Redding’s biggest single to date. But amid R&B — gig standards like the Temptations’ “My Girl,” the melodic invention in Redding’s songs and the emotional investment in his performances mark the point at which he stopped merely singing soul music. He now created his own, at a high speed reflected in the stereo rerecording of “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” Done at the July sessions, it is slower in tempo, magnificent in its anguish and even closer to genius”.
There are some albums that are beyond fault and deserve nothing but love and appreciation - Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul is one such album! It would have been easy enough for Redding to splice together a selection of songs by others and make them his own. It is the way Redding selected the tracks and their importance that makes Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul so compelling. In an article from September, Albumism discuss the importance of the cover versions and the legacy of the album:
“The choice of songs and artists to cover is a very interesting point—he manages to tip his hat to both the architects of soul music but also to those other strands of Black music that contributed to its development. It is almost as if he is providing a summation of the ingredients of soul music. By taking these ingredients and adding his own unique voice to them he further melds them together and reinforces what constitutes soul music.
Solomon Burke’s “Down In The Valley” is a case in point. By choosing another of those rock & roll originators, Redding places himself firmly in the tradition of black music. But whereas it takes Burke a minute or two to showcase the more soulful, gritty edge to his voice, Redding lets it go from note one. His voice is already at the point of emotional breakdown and it doesn’t let up. It is, as Booker T Jones said, as if he wrings emotion from every single syllable. He treats each of them as precious and none are wasted on anything less than his best.
Of course, beyond the music, Redding is most associated with his tragic early death, but he also provides a great example of an artist who was equally adept at the business side of the game. He was able to secure his legacy and his family’s future through a series of shrewd deals—in a business filled with tales of woe and financial mismanagement (to put it extremely kindly), he was able to navigate a way to succeed despite being a Black man in a highly racist society.
The lasting legacy of Otis Blue is the way that Redding embraces the past while creating a future with his unique set of talents. His voice has become synonymous with the very word “soul” and that has happened to very few artists—it's a fitting honor for someone with a voice as raw and gritty as his.
Anyone who can take a B.B. King song and make it their own has to be special and nowhere is it truer than with Redding’s cover of “Rock Me Baby.” The combination of Cropper’s sharp yet restrained guitar and Redding’s scandalously indecent sexual roar is perfection—Redding is both the voice of dominant masculinity and a soulful plea to a partner. Once again, by choosing a blues man’s tune, he casts himself as the past, present and future all in one moment”.
If you have not got the album already then go and buy it, as Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul is one of the most important of the 1960s. So long after its release and it still sound amazing and untouched! It just goes to show that Otis Redding was a…
TRUE master of any song he took on.