I just want to " sit on the dock of the bay" with Otis Redding

Hello Everybody

Today I would like to talk about one of my favorite soul singers, Otis Redding Junior. I think he was one of the most influential singers just like Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke or Ray Charles.

Redding was born in the small town of Dawson, Georgia. His early influences were Little Richard and Sam Cooke. In 1960, Redding began touring the South with Johnny Jenkins and The Pinetoppers. In 1962, Redding made his first real mark in the music business during a Johnny Jenkins session when, during studio time left over, he recorded "These Arms of Mine", a ballad that he had written. The song became a minor hit on Volt Records, a subsidiary of the renowned Southern soul label Stax, based in Memphis, Tennessee. On December 9, 1967, Redding and his backup band, The Bar-Kays, made an appearance in Cleveland, Ohio on the local "Upbeat" television show. The next afternoon, Redding, his manager, the pilot, and four members of The Bar-Kays were killed when his Beechcraft 18 airplane crashed into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 10, 1967. The cause of the crash was never precisely determined.

His best known song "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was recorded only three days before Redding's death

Redding had recorded a massive amount of material in late 1967 just before his death (it was from these sessions that "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" emerged. A number of successful singles emerged from these LPs, among them "Amen" (1968), "Hard to Handle" (1968), "I've Got Dreams to Remember" (1968) (one of my favorites), "Love Man" (1969), and "Look at That Girl" (1969).

Redding was inducted in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994, and in 1999 he posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed three Redding recordings ("Shake," "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," and "Try a Little Tenderness") among its list of "The 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll." [12] Rolling Stone ranked Redding #21 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In November 2008, Rolling Stone Magazine placed Redding at number 8 in their list of "100 Greatest Singers of All-Time".

I really like Otis Redding .Actually I’m almost listening everyday to at least one of its songs. Also we can see its influence through all the references made to him in movies, live shows or with all the existing covers either official or unofficial of its songs (check it on YouTube it’s amazing).When I began writing this post I was thinking about telling you my favorite Otis’s song but I just can’t.I can make it a top 5 or 10 but there are too many beautiful songs for me to choose. So I’d like you to tell me what is yours?

This is the last television peformance by Otis Redding less than 24 hours before his death