178. Otis Redding, "Otis Blue"

 


Oh my God this is so great.  If this album were a person it would be your incredibly cool uncle who wears a porkpie hat and shows up every once in a while in a different car every time and smokes hand-rolled cigarettes.  If this album were a mood it would be sitting on the porch of a house at twilight on a warm humid night with a sweaty bottle of Miller High Life.  If this album were an animal it would be a lynx.  If you had to really pick desert island discs, for real this time, you should strongly consider this because it would sound great on a desert island.

Comprised mostly of covers, including three songs by the recently deceased Sam Cooke, this album was, incredibly, recorded in almost one straight 24-hour session in Memphis, with the Stax house band (Booker T., Donald "Duck" Dunn, Isaac Hayes, you know the gang), who backed Redding on the record, taking breaks to play gigs.  It also contains the original version of "Respect," a little song later popularized by Aretha Franklin.

Just pick any track.  "A Change Is Gonna Come," Cooke's prayer for equal treatment in America, gets a pleading read here, with Redding's incredible voice issuing a call for fairness and change.  Never once do you doubt the emotion in the man's voice.  He takes the Temptations' "My Girl" and turns it from sweet to sexy, making it clear that the song is just as much about lust as it is about love.  Then again, Redding could probably sing "Happy Birthday" in a way that would make an old lady blush.  

The Solomon Burke hit "Down In the Valley" gets a hip-shaking makeover.  Redding's voice is so distinctive - that smoky, gravelly, pleading voice that cuts through the sound and into your soul.  There's also a cover of the Stones' "Satisfaction" which is interesting on its own terms, made even more so when you find out Redding had never heard the original when he recorded it.

Redding's unique instrument is put to its highest use on the final track, William Bell's classic "You Don't Miss Your Water," which Redding somehow gives an even more desperate and lonely edge to.  I was driving on Sunday and I think I listened to it three or four times in a row, hearing something new every time.  

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yes, yes, yes.

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