He is said to have sold more records in 1967 than Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin combined. At his peak, he was earning $35,000 a week for concerts.
Otis Redding (1941-67) was one of the most popular singers of The Day. So I did know a very little bit about Memphis and Stax and Booker T & the MGs, and how R&B got a makeover and evolved into Soul. But more often than not I do some research, both dedicated, careful listening to the artist’s oeuvre (gotta use some fancy words here to rehabilitate my reputation) and background reading. I admit that I do in fact know a song or two. You see, there are SoTWs that I pretty much have up my sleeve. From the underwhelming Rolling Stone list “ The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time”, I’ve never listened seriously to Bob Marley, U2, the Ramones, Nirvana, Prince, The Clash, David Bowie, Public Enemy, Patti Smith, Dr Dre, Funkmaster, Aerosmith, The Sex Pistols, Al Green, AC/DC, the Stooges, Eminem, N.W.A, Black Sabbath, Tupac Shakur, Guns ‘n Roses, Nine Inch Nails, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Roxy Music or Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Country swing, Chicago blues, The Carter Family, Richard Strauss, Burl Ives. There’s a long and very impressive list of major artists about whom I know virtually nothing: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber. (Maybe you could call that a glinge.) They couldn’t be more wrong. Like all insecure males, I enjoy being flattered (“The way to a man’s heart is through his ego”), but when some nincompoop occasionally tells me that I know everything there is to know about music, I glow for just a short moment and then I cringe. I’ll keep you in suspense as to the identity of the other two. We’re going to start this week with Otis Redding’s great “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of a Bay”. You might not think that’s a genre unto itself, but I know of three such songs, humdingers each, memorable, moving and eerily prophetic.
#Who sings sitting on the dock of the bay series#
This week we’re starting a series of postings on spookily existential posthumous hits. Otis Redding - ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’
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