A soul star on the edge of a wider audience
By 1967, Otis Redding was already one of the leading figures in Southern soul. Born in Georgia in 1941 and based in Macon, he recorded for Volt, a label distributed by Stax in Memphis, and his sound, built on horn parts and a tight rhythm section led by Booker T. & the MG’s, had earned him a large following among Black audiences and a smaller but growing number of white listeners. Songs such as “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” and his own “Respect”, written and recorded in 1965, were well known within the soul world.
The early months of 1967 helped him expand beyond it. A Stax/Volt package tour of Europe in the spring brought him to British and continental audiences, and the recordings from those shows were later released as an album. He also made a duets album, King & Queen, with Carla Thomas, released that year. What he had not yet done was win over the audience of the new rock scene, and that is where Monterey came in.
Monterey, June 1967
The Monterey Pop Festival was held in California in mid-June, and Redding played on the Saturday night, 17 June. The festival’s lineup was mostly rock and folk acts, and soul was a small part of it. Redding was backed by Booker T. & the MG’s and the Memphis horn players.
He played a short set, with songs including “Shake”, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” and “Try a Little Tenderness”. Accounts agree that it was a powerful performance and that it won over a crowd that had not necessarily come to hear soul. Filmmakers captured the set, and the film of the festival helped carry it to later audiences. The same weekend also featured Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, which gives some idea of the unusual mix of performers present.
It is easy to overstate what Monterey changed for him. He was already a major star, and the festival was best understood as an introduction to one group of listeners rather than a first breakthrough. Even so, the reaction suggested that he could find a rock audience if he wanted one.
Sausalito and an unfinished song
Redding also played engagements in San Francisco in 1967, including at the Fillmore. While he was in the area, he stayed on a rented houseboat in Sausalito, across the bay. It is generally reported that this is where he began writing “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”, a slower, more reflective song than his usual material. He reportedly worked on it with Steve Cropper, the guitarist of Booker T. & the MG’s and a regular collaborator.
The song’s mood, a man watching the tide roll in and feeling that he has gone as far as he can, is unlike the driving performances for which he was known. He was reportedly interested in moving in new directions and had been listening to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, though how much it influenced the song is a matter of later speculation.
The December sessions
Redding recorded “Dock of the Bay” with Cropper at Stax in Memphis in early December 1967. He also recorded other songs during those days. The song was not finished when he left Memphis. In particular, it is widely reported that the final verse had not been written, which is why the recording ends with Redding whistling. Cropper completed the mixing after Redding’s death, and the sound of waves and seagulls was added to the track.
The plane crash
On 10 December 1967 Redding was flying from Cleveland, where he had performed, to Madison, Wisconsin, for another engagement. His chartered twin-engine aircraft crashed into Lake Monona, near Madison, in cold and poor weather. He was 26 years old. Several members of the Bar-Kays, the young Memphis band that was backing him, also died. One member, Ben Cauley, survived. The cause was not definitively settled in the immediate aftermath, and accounts focus on weather conditions, though readers should treat any single explanation with caution.
His funeral in Macon was attended by many people, and the loss was keenly felt in the soul community.
Release and legacy
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was released in January 1968. It became a number-one hit on the American pop chart in the spring, and is generally described as the first posthumous number one in the United States. It also sold well in Britain. An album of the same name followed in 1968.
Redding’s death came at a point when he appeared to be heading toward the wider audience that Monterey had shown was available to him. He did not live to see the success of his last single. In the longer view, he is often placed with Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin among the figures who defined soul in the 1960s, and his songs have been recorded many times by others. That he died in the same year as Monterey, the Summer of Love and the rise of FM radio gives his final months a particular sadness, as the music world was being reshaped around him.