Live Music Friday: Otis Redding

(Yeah, I know it's not Friday, but I'm taking tomorrow off from everything.)

Otis Redding is the greatest soul singer who ever lived. Fuck those other people you're thinking of, they ain't shit. Otis had an incredible voice coupled with a powerful spirit, which together conveyed a broad range of emotion, from casual depression to deep sorrow, from tenderness to intense sexuality. He also knew how to treat a song, which is what is so lacking in the wanna-be soul singers of today. He treated it like a sweet, sweet lady. He started off slow and tender, gently worked up a little sweat, gradually built up to an emotional climax and finally let it all come pouring out in the finale.

When you hear a douchebag like Michael Bolton singing "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," he's giving it 110% from the first line. Then, the whole song sounds the same...boring and overdone. Listen to Otis sing "Dock," it starts off very casual but sad, almost mumbling the lines. The sadness slowly grows and the longer he dwells on it the more intense it becomes, until he finally builds up to a howl with, "looks like nothing's gonna change, everything still remains the same..." The listener can feel it build, and Otis takes you with him on the emotional ride. That's fucking artistry, my friends. But, as demonstrated below, the Man could also deliver tremendous joy and celebration in a song with an energy that would make anybody want to get up and move. I am a cynical bastard, and even I crack a smile when Otis gets going with "I Can't Turn You Loose" as recorded on the British television showcase, Ready, Steady, Go!

Otis was also a legendary live performer. Piss on us for being born in the '70s and '80s, because Otis was a regular visitor to Madison in the '60s. He performed there frequently, and actually died when his pot-smoking pilot crashed the small plane into Lake Monona on the way to a performance at the Factory in Madison, on Sunday night, December 10, 1967. Madison party people were in line outside the club waiting for the doors to open when Otis's death was announced to the shocked fans. (The Factory was located on Gorham near State, in the building that currently houses Avol's Bookstore.) Sadly, those people didn't get to see Otis that night, nor on any other night ever again. They missed out on something great, as did our entire generation.

Incidentally, the opening act that night, a band from Rockford called the The Grim Reapers, decided that their morbid name was no longer appropriate after Otis's death. They later became Cheap Trick. Here's a taste of what those saddened ticket-holders might have seen if the plane had made it to the airport. The greatest soul singer of all time, who died a legend at the age of 26. I don't know what I was doing when I was 26, but nobody will be talking about it 40 years from now.