Otis Redding is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues.
69 Facts About Otis Redding
2.
Otis Redding's singing style influenced many other soul artists of the 1960s.
3.
Otis Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, and at age two, moved to Macon.
4.
Otis Redding quit school at age 15 to support his family, working with Little Richard's backing band, the Upsetters, and by performing in talent shows at the historic Douglass Theatre in Macon.
5.
Otis Redding later performed at the popular Los Angeles night club Whisky a Go Go and toured Europe, performing in London, Paris and other major cities.
6.
Otis Redding performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
7.
Shortly before his death in a plane crash, Otis Redding wrote and recorded his iconic " The Dock of the Bay" with Steve Cropper.
8.
When Otis Redding was three, the family moved to Tindall Heights, a predominantly African-American public housing project in Macon.
9.
Otis Redding's passion was singing, and he often cited Little Richard and Sam Cooke as influences.
10.
At age 15, Otis Redding left school to help financially support his family; his father had contracted tuberculosis and was often hospitalized, leaving his mother as the family's primary income earner.
11.
Otis Redding worked as a well digger, as a gasoline station attendant, and occasionally as a musician.
12.
Pianist Gladys Williams, a locally well-known musician in Macon and another who inspired Otis Redding, often performed at the Hillview Springs Social Club, and Otis Redding sometimes played piano with her band there.
13.
Williams hosted Sunday talent shows, which Otis Redding attended with two friends, singers Little Willie Jones and Eddie Ross.
14.
Otis Redding's breakthrough came in 1958 on disc jockey Hamp Swain's "The Teenage Party", a talent contest at the local Roxy and Douglass Theatres.
15.
Johnny Jenkins, a locally prominent guitarist, was in the audience and, finding Otis Redding's backing band lacking in musical skills, offered to accompany him.
16.
Otis Redding was then hired by the Upsetters when Little Richard abandoned rock and roll in favor of gospel music.
17.
Otis Redding was well paid, making about $25 per gig, but did not stay long.
18.
In mid-1960, Otis Redding moved to Los Angeles with his sister, Deborah, while his wife Zelma and their children stayed in Macon, Georgia.
19.
Around this time, Otis Redding met Phil Walden, the future founder of the recording company Phil Walden and Associates, and later Bobby Smith, who ran the small label Confederate Records.
20.
Otis Redding signed with Confederate and recorded a single, "Shout Bamalama" and "Fat Girl", together with his band Otis and the Shooters.
21.
Otis Redding drove Jenkins to the session, as the latter did not have a driver's license.
22.
In November 1963, Otis Redding, accompanied by his brother Rodgers and an associate, former boxer Sylvester Huckaby, traveled to New York to perform at the Apollo Theater for the recording of a live album for Atlantic Records.
23.
Ben E King, who was the headliner at the Apollo when Redding performed there, gave him $100 when he learned about Redding's financial situation.
24.
Moohah Williams accordingly labeled him "Mr Pitiful", and subsequently, Cropper and Otis Redding wrote the eponymous song.
25.
Around 1965, Otis Redding co-wrote "I've Been Loving You Too Long" with Jerry Butler, the former lead singer of the Impressions.
26.
Otis Redding's success allowed him to buy a 300-acre ranch in Georgia, which he called the "Big O Ranch".
27.
Walden signed more musicians, including Percy Sledge, Johnnie Taylor, Clarence Carter and Eddie Floyd, and together with Otis Redding, they founded two production companies.
28.
Since Afro-Americans still formed the majority of fans, Otis Redding chose to perform at Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
29.
Otis Redding was one of the first soul artists to perform for rock audiences in the western United States.
30.
Otis Redding's performance received critical acclaim, including positive press in the Los Angeles Times, and he penetrated mainstream popular culture.
31.
Bob Dylan attended the performance and offered Otis Redding an altered version of one of his songs, "Just Like a Woman".
32.
In late 1966, Redding returned to the Stax studio and recorded several tracks, including "Try a Little Tenderness", written by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly and Harry M Woods in 1932.
33.
Otis Redding returned to Europe to perform at the Paris Olympia.
34.
In 1967, Otis Redding performed at the influential Monterey Pop Festival as the closing act on Saturday night, the second day of the festival.
35.
Otis Redding was invited through the efforts of promoter Jerry Wexler.
36.
Until that point, Otis Redding was still performing mainly for black audiences.
37.
Otis Redding was happy to be included and it brought him a new audience.
38.
Otis Redding was hospitalized in September 1967 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York to undergo surgery.
39.
However, Otis Redding wanted to expand his musical style and thought it was his best song, correctly believing it would top the charts.
40.
Otis Redding whistled at the end, either forgetting Cropper's "fadeout rap" or paraphrasing it intentionally.
41.
Otis Redding was described as vigorous, trustworthy, full of fun and a successful businessman.
42.
At age 18, Otis Redding met 17-year-old Zelma Atwood at "The Teenage Party".
43.
In mid-1960, Otis Redding moved to Los Angeles with his sister, Deborah, while Zelma and the children stayed in Macon, Georgia.
44.
Otis Redding maintained or worked at the janitorial service Maids Over Macon, several nightclubs, and booking agencies.
45.
Otis Redding spent about $125,000 in the "Big O Ranch".
46.
Otis Redding then found himself in frigid water, grasping a seat cushion to keep afloat.
47.
Otis Redding's body was recovered the next day when the lake was searched.
48.
Otis Redding was entombed at his ranch in Round Oak, about twenty miles north of Macon.
49.
Otis Redding had at least two television appearances booked for 1968; one on The Ed Sullivan Show and the other on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
50.
Dreams to Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding featured 16 full-length performances and 40 minutes of new interviews documenting his life and career.
51.
Otis Redding had proposed to record an album featuring cut and rearranged songs in different tempos; for example, ballads would be uptempo and vice versa.
52.
Early on Otis Redding copied the rock and soul style of his role model Little Richard.
54.
Otis Redding studied the recordings of the Beatles and Bob Dylan.
55.
Otis Redding's hallmark was his raw voice and ability to convey strong emotion.
56.
Otis Redding received advice from Rufus Thomas about his clumsy stage appearance.
57.
Jerry Wexler said Otis Redding "didn't know how to move", and stood still, moving only his upper body, although he acknowledged that Otis Redding was well received by audiences for his strong message.
58.
Otis Redding often worked on lyrics with other musicians, such as Simms, Rodgers, Huckaby, Phil Walden, and Cropper.
59.
Otis Redding was the sole copyright holder on all of his songs.
60.
Otis Redding favored short and simple lyrics; when asked whether he intended to cover Dylan's "Just Like a Woman", he responded that the lyrics contained "too much text".
61.
Otis Redding authored his recordings' horn arrangements, humming to show the players what he had in mind.
62.
Otis Redding has been called the "King of Soul", an honorific given to Brown and Cooke.
63.
Otis Redding remains one of the genre's most recognized artists.
64.
Otis Redding stated that she learned "to push a song instead of just sliding over it" after hearing Redding.
65.
Otis Redding loved it, and he was going to "cut it", as Barry put it, on his return from his final concert.
66.
Otis Redding posthumously won two Grammy Awards for " The Dock of the Bay" at the 11th Annual Grammy Awards in 1969.
67.
Otis Redding was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994, and in 1999 he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
68.
Music critic Robert Christgau said that Otis Blue was "the first great album by one of soul's few reliable long-form artists", and that Redding's "original LPs were among the most intelligently conceived black albums of the '60s".
69.
In 2007, Otis Redding's widow founded the Otis Redding Foundation in her husband's honor.