Description
Otis Redding was on top of the world in 1967, highlighted by a career-defining performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Returning to Memphis that autumn, Redding began to explore different musical influences when he entered the studio to record his next album. Tragically, those sessions were cut short after only a few weeks when the singer died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, leaving his vision for the album unrealised. While there will never be a definitive idea of what Reddings next album would have been, this new collection is the first to show what could have been.
Dock Of The Bay Sessions was compiled with input from Roger Armstrong of Ace Records and Otis biographer Jonathan Gould and has the Redding familys full endorsement. Although the individual tracks have been previously released across a smattering of posthumous albums and compilations, this marks the first time they have been assembled to resemble what this album could possibly have been.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the albums opening track (Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay, one of the last songs Redding ever recorded. Released in January 1968, it soon topped the charts in March 16th in the US becoming the first posthumous #1 single in the history of the U.S. music charts. It also reached number 3 in the UK, and went on to sell more than four million copies worldwide.
In the liner notes, musician-journalist Bob Stanley writes: This album is the first indication of a new Otis Redding, one that has slayed audiences in Europe, one which won him a whole new crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival. You can hear it in the stripped-back funk of Hard To Handle, and the shades of Bob Dylan whose music Redding loved in the beautiful lyricism of Gone Again. Even so, his take on the Impressions hit Amen makes it clear that Redding hadnt abandoned his gospel roots. He hadnt forgotten how to get people dancing either. On the rave-up Love Man, The Big O gets things shaking with help from Al Jackson Jr.s propulsive beat, and rhythmic blasts of pure Memphis horn. And just to prove he can still provide heart-stopping ballads, theres his own Ive Got Dreams To Remember, with lyrics Redding adapted from a poem written by his beloved wife Zelma.
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