Very Best Of Otis Redding, The - Otis Redding

...of it produced during a very short period of time - during the mid-60s, until Redding died in a plane crash in 1967, aged just 26.

Redding himself wrote many of the songs, songs as good as:
# "These arms of mine" - his first single to chart, in 1963, it's a simple ballad, almost 50s crooner style. It's just a love song, about a guy pleading to his girl, but oh so persuasive.
# "Respect" - Aretha Franklin ...
...love is". But with any 'Best of' there's bound to be someone's favourite track missing, and this is such a strong collection that I can't really criticise the it for that.

Soul music at its very best, as it will never be performed again.
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A great party record, this one - plenty of cracking dance tunes, and a decent quota of slow tunes for later on.
It's also some of the best quality soul music ever produced, and all of it produced during a very short period of time - during the mid-60s, until Redding died in a plane crash in 1967, aged just 26.

Redding himself wrote many of the songs, songs as good as:

1. "These arms of mine" - his first single to chart, in 1963, it's a simple ballad, almost 50s crooner style. It's just a love song, about a guy pleading to his girl, but oh so persuasive.
2. "Respect" - Aretha Franklin recorded the definitive version, but it's definitely worth hearing the Otis original.
3. "Love man" - It might sound like a macho boast but I'm not so sure. When Otis stammers "cau cau cau cause I'm a love man" it sounds more like a man who's realized his power and is, well, OK with it.

Steve Cropper, Booker T and the MG's guitarist, was a regular writing partner, as well as playing on most of the tracks. How about these 3 Redding/Cropper songs:

1. "Mr Pitiful" - I can't remember whether this song features in the Blues Brothers or The Commitments movie, (it's probably in both) but this was exactly the 'feel' they were trying to achieve. But of course, Otis does it best.
2. "Fa fa fa fa fa (sad song)" - It's hard for me to see this as a sad song, as it feels quite uplifting, and is even a a bit of a singalong song, with Otis prompting "Our turn…" and "Your turn…"
3. "(Sittin' on) the dock of the bay" - the posthumous hit, and this was the first Otis Redding song I ever heard. One of his best songs, a gentle song that somehow makes your emotions swell. It's about loneliness and missing home, on one level, but is seems to touch on many other deeper subjects, in a meditative kind of way. The whistling at the end really doesn't sound as naff as it ought to have, either. Seeing the Reeves and Mortimer sketches (bad taste, yes, but so funny) never took the edge off the emotional power of this song, either - it will always stand the test of time.

There are some covers, maybe less than you'd usually expect from an artist recording in the 60s.
"My girl" is similar in some ways to the Temptations' original, but there's none of the sweet harmonies, and instead a vocal that is somehow more rasping and, yes, soulful, as well as the brassy Stax treatment.
The Sam Cooke songs, "A Change Is Gonna Come" and "Shake", are fairly faithful covers, injected with extra pazzaz by the instrumentalists.
"Satisfaction" - I'm a Rolling Stones fan and I love this song, but Mick Jagger always sounded a bit like a spoilt brat on it. Redding's version is completely convincing - things are bad for him, he can't get no satisfaction, and it's not just about not getting his girl, or something - it's about being black in an unequal world. The fuzzy guitar riff is more subdued, converted into a dirtier, bassier sound, and the extra horns inject something else into the song. In my view, this is probably the most successful cover of a classic song (by that I mean you don't immediately want to play the original version to hear it how it should be), notwithstanding even the Byrds covering Dylan.

"Tramp", sung with Carla Thomas, sounds like a real slanging match. Apparently Carla improvised her taunts, and for the most part Otis just accepts them - until she accuses him of having no money ("You probably haven't even got twenty-five cents"). He comes back with an empassioned response - a list of cars he owns, but also "I'm a lover". 'Nuff said. Much as I love Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's loving duets, this was the perfect antidote.
I think Ike and Tina Turner may have taken something from it too (musically, I mean, not in their troubled private lives!).

Then there's "I've been loving you too long", co-written with Jerry Butler, who sang with the Impressions.
The vocal performance on this song is amazing, he manages to sound extremely vulnerable, like he doesn't know where he is - and almost like he doesn't even know what he'll be singing in the next line.
I've left "Try a little tenderness" until last. Although it's impossible to choose a favourite track, this one and "I've been loving you too long" are the two that affect me most deeply. I first heard "Try a little tenderness" when I saw the movie of the Monterey festival. The song is a standard (made popular by Bing Crosby), but Otis made it his own, in one of the most soulful performances - no, the most soulful performance - I have ever seen. I'd rather watch the film version than hear it on record, but this a close second best.
Any album with these songs is a winner in my book, but there are 40 songs in total on this collection. So you can't really go wrong.

The only disappointment for me, was that there's no "That's How strong my love is". But with any 'Best of' there's bound to be someone's favourite track missing, and this is such a strong collection that I can't really criticise the it for that.

Soul music at its very best, as it will never be performed again.
 

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