Breaks: Otis Redding

At the end of 1967 rock and roll was in the throngs of upheaval. Long hairs were cranking their amps ever louder and the music was becoming less and less commercial. There were extended jams that lasted the better part of one side of a record and wouldn’t ever make it onto any radio station save for those late night spots.

Concurrently, one of the most important – and impersonated – soul singers of the decade was boarding a plane after a performance in Cleveland, Oh. Otis Redding and most of his band shortly wound up in the lake. Only one band member survived.

Redding was already a star, but at such an early age, there were inconceivable heights that he might have reached. And even while the singer was relegated to that soul thing, his music was as much rock and roll as anything else. Why else would the Rolling Stones pay him deference with “Satisfaction?”

In an all knowing nod to his British fans, though, Redding re-recorded the song for his third long player in 1966 – Otis Blue. The original and even the Devo version are so ubiquitous in American culture at this point that there’s really no reason to listen to those renditions. Redding’s version, though, is something different.

Spattered over the entirety of the disc are the marks of a performer that wasn’t satisfied with the status quo in his genre or any other for that matter.

The death of Redding’s avowed idol – Sam Cooke – a few months prior to the album’s recording prompted the singer to included more than just a single cover. So in addition to that Stones cop, Redding went in on tracks like “A Change is Gonna Come” and the all too danceable “Shake.”

Those tracks aren’t all of the covers here, though.

B.B. King’s “Rock Me Baby” gets a work out as well. But as gritty as the song is rendered here, in just a few years a rock and psych band called Blue Cheer would wind up turning the track into a stoned masterpiece. Of course, each different interpretation of the song warrants an individual examination, but Redding’s is just as soulful and well composed as any other rendition.

Part of what accounts for this album’s excellence – and pretty much everything else that was released via Stax Records – is the fact that the label’s house band included more than just a few of Booker T’s MGs. The keyboardist himself performs here, but also guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn.

Cropper, who was actually responsible for some of the more memorable cuts from the Stax single’s collection, goes in on “Rock Me Baby” with the same fervor that Redding sings. In tandem, the two sound just short of ferocious even if the Stones’ cover follows.

Redding will undoubtedly be most recalled for “(Sitting) On the Dock of the Bay,” which remained incomplete at the time of his death, but was nonetheless released. Otis Blue, though, should be considered the singer’s definitive statement of what rock and soul have in common.