Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Stax Records president Jim Stewart had released Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine" as a single after hearing him sing it at an audition in 1962. When it charted, he signed Redding to the label. The moderately successful LP albums Pain in My Heart (1964) and The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads (1965) followed, with both performing well on the newly established R&B LPs chart (published by Billboard), although not on its pop counterpart. Preparations for a third album followed soon after, which would also serve as Redding's second to be released through Volt Records, a subsidiary label of Stax. == Recording ==

studio preserved at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis; house-band player Steve Cropper shown on an adjacent screen, 2013 Redding recorded the album with the Stax house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s (keyboardist/bandleader Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, drummer Al Jackson Jr.); Isaac Hayes on piano; and a horn section consisting of members of the Mar-Keys and the Memphis Horns. Apart from one track, the album was recorded in under 24 hours in two sessions within a 28 hour period between 10am on July 9 (a Saturday) and 2pm on July 10, 1965, with a break from 8pm Saturday to 2am on Sunday to allow the house band to play local gigs. ==Music and lyrics==

, engineer Tom Dowd, David Porter, Julius Green, Andrew Love, Floyd Newman, Wayne Jackson, and Isaac Hayes. The majority of the tracks on Otis Blue are cover versions, including three songs originally by fellow soul singer Sam Cooke, who had been shot dead in December 1964. According to Jason Mendelsohn of PopMatters, the album is a "set of soul standards, blues and rock covers, Motown hits, and original material". "Respect" was possibly inspired by a quote of drummer Al Jackson Jr., who allegedly said to Redding after a tour, "What are you griping about? You're on the road all the time. All you can look for is a little respect when you come home." An alternative story is told by Redding's friend and road manager, Earl "Speedo" Sims, who states that the song "came from a group I was singing with", and that even though Redding rewrote it, "a lot of the lyric was still there"; Sims adds: "He told me I would get a credit, but I never did". Sims also states that he sang the backing vocals in the chorus. Essentially a ballad, "Respect" is an uptempo and energetic song, which took "a day to write, 20 minutes to arrange, and one take to record", according to Redding. Redding shouted to a woman for more respect, while Franklin ironically countered the song and transformed it into a "feminist hymn". "Down in the Valley" is a funky cover of Solomon Burke's original, with whom Redding toured before the recording. Nate Patrin of Pitchfork felt that the song "ratchets up both the gospel beatitude and the secular lust". The song was described as "a hard-swinging, full-throated 2:40 of precision ferocity with a force that would flat-out explode during his live sets." The last five songs are all covers by popular artists: the Temptations' "My Girl", written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White; Cooke's "Wonderful World"; B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby"; the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction", on which Redding sings "fashion" instead of "faction"; and William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water", which was characterized as "sorrowful country blues", and has "one of the most devastating pleading-man lead vocals in the entire Stax catalog." "Satisfaction" sounded so plausible that a journalist even accused the Stones of stealing the song from Redding, and that they performed it after Redding. Music writer Robert Christgau describes it as an "anarchic reading" of the Stones' original. == Release ==

Otis Blue was released on September 15, 1965, with Volt issuing the album in the US and Atlantic Records releasing it in the UK. The woman in the image, a stock photo, has never been definitively identified, but is believed to be German model Dagmar Dreger. Although Otis Blue only reached number 75 on the Pop LPs chart in 1966, three of its singles charted on the Billboard Hot 100: "I've Been Loving You Too Long" charted for 11 weeks and peaked at number 21, "Respect" spent 11 weeks and reached number 35, and "Shake" spent six weeks and reached number 47. Both the stereo and mono versions of Otis Blue charted in the United Kingdom; the former spent 21 weeks and reached number six in 1966, and the latter spent 54 weeks and reached number seven in 1967. Two different pressings of the song "My Girl" also charted in the UK; a 7-inch single peaked at number 11 and charted for 16 weeks in 1965, and a reissued single in 1968 reached number 36 and charted for nine weeks. Summarizing its mainstream impact, Alan Lewis from Record Collector called Otis Blue "the soul album that sealed [Redding's] world reputation as the soul singer. The one whose title, with hindsight, probably did most to establish the use of the word 'soul' to define the music previously known as R&B." PopMatters journalist Eric Klinger added that it was uniquely successful as a soul LP, noting that "outside of rock music, the album was a basically untapped medium. LPs were almost an afterthought, with a couple of recent hit singles and enough filler to justify the $2.98 cost." In 2022 it was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry, indicating 100,000 equivalent-units in the UK. == Critical reception and legacy ==

Otis Blue has been regarded by music critics as Redding's best work. In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Paul Evans named it Redding's "first masterwork", and fellow Rolling Stone critic David Fricke called it "perfect". Writing for Blender, Christgau appraised it as "the first great album by one of soul's few reliable long-form artists", and Patrin deemed it the "greatest studio-recorded soul LP" from the 1960s. Harold, in PopMatters, also praised the diverse sound, which, according to her, is a mixture of "Motown pop, the blues, British rock, and Southern Soul", although she cited Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul (1966) as Redding's best album. and 405th on a similar list in 2013. The album was also ranked at number 74 on Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" (2003), number 78 in a 2012 revised edition of the list, and number 178 in a 2020 revised edition. Time placed it at number 92 on the magazine's "All-Time 100 Greatest Albums". It has also appeared in Q magazine's "Best Soul Albums of All Time" and Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. ==Track listing==

2008 collector's edition An expanded double-disc collector's edition of Otis Blue was released in 2008 by Rhino Records. It includes both the stereo and mono versions of the original album alongside bonus tracks in B-sides, live recordings, and previously unreleased alternate mixes. Christgau graded the edition with four out of five stars, saying it "comes with many useless alternate takes, but also with live tracks that preserve for history Redding's country-goes-uptown style of fun". ==Charts==

Musicians • Otis Redding – vocals • Booker T. Jones, Isaac Hayes – keyboards, piano • Steve Cropper – guitar • Donald Dunn – bass guitar • Al Jackson Jr. – drums • Wayne Jackson, Gene "Bowlegs" Miller – trumpet • Andrew Love – tenor saxophone • Floyd Newman – baritone saxophone • William Bell – backing vocals (track 2) • Earl Sims – backing vocals (track 2) Additional personnel • Tom Dowd – engineer • Jim Stewart – supervision • Yves Beauvais – reissue producer • Bill Inglot, Dan Hersch – remastering • Pete Sahula – cover photo • Haig Adishian – cover design • Bob Rolontz – liner notes ==See also==