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Otis Redding - Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul [Collector's Edition]
| Rollingstones |
| This two—cd set doubles the pleasure of Otis Redding's third album with B sides, outtakes, period live tracks and the entire record in mono and stereo versions. But Otis Blue was already perfect in its original 11—song edition when released in September 1965 — an achievement that is even more remarkable because all but one of the tracks were recorded inside 24 hours, in two lightning sessions at the Stax studio in Memphis, on July 9th and in the early morning of the 10th. The reason for the intermission: The house band — including Booker T. and the MG's, and the Memphis Horns — had to cut out for local gigs. The haste is evident: In his Dixie—heat treatment of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," Redding sings "satis—fashion." But the urgency is all—natural. He barks and grunts in excited polyrhythm with Al Jackson's off—the—beat drum breaks in Sam Cooke's "Shake" and takes Southern—church liberties with the refined ecstasies of Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." Redding had only two new originals ready for this record, the deep—wound blues "Ole Man Trouble" (with its great sobbing—brass lick) and the male—pride strut "Respect." A third included on the album, the majestic surrender of "I've Been Loving You Too Long" (written with Jerry Butler), was cut earlier and was already Redding's biggest single to date. But amid R&B—gig standards like the Temptations' "My Girl," the melodic invention in Redding's songs and the emotional investment in his performances mark the point at which he stopped merely singing soul music. He now created his own, at a high speed reflected in the stereo rerecording of "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Done at the July sessions, it is slower in tempo, magnificent in its anguish and even closer to genius....full text |
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| Pitchforkmedia |
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On July 8, 1965, Otis Redding was a young soul singer of modest renown, less than three months removed from releasing his first Top 10 r&b hit single. By July 10, he had become something else entirely: It took only 24 hours to lay down 10 of the 11 songs that would make up Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul, arguably the 1960s' greatest studio-recorded soul LP. (The only track not recorded at that time was the #2 hit, "I've Been Loving You Too Long".) Friends and associates had noticed Redding's growing confidence as a singer, and once Otis Blue hit shelves it was clear he was poised enough to pick up the mantle of the recently slain legend Sam Cooke, up to that point the greatest soul singer in America. He was also prepared to take on the Temptations and the Rolling Stones and B.B.King on their own turf; the only way to top him would be to give one of his original compositions to Aretha Franklin ("Respect"). In the simplest terms: It's a hell of a record, the crowning achievement of a man who could sound pained and celebratory and tender and gritty and proud all at once, with a voice that everyone from John Fogerty to Swamp Dogg to Cee-lo owes a debt to. Rhino's 2xCD Collector's Edition of Otis Blue makes a good case for this 24-hour labor of love as a wide-reaching document that just gets better with context. A set this packed-- including rarities, alternate mixes, live versions of the album tracks, and the original LP in both mono and stereo-- could easily feel sprawling and overstuffed, but it does a great job illuminating every tweaked nuance and permutation that Redding and his top-notch band could come up with during the course of a song's lifetime. Considering the personnel involved in the original LP-- Booker T. & the M.G.'s guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, and drummer Al Jackson Jr.; keyboardist Isaac Hayes; a horn section (saxophonists Floyd Newman and Andrew Love, trumpet players Wayne Jackson and Gene Miller) filled with members of the Mar-Keys and the Memphis Horns-- it's a blessing to hear them both unified in mono and isolated in stereo. (Any concerns of redundancy can be allayed thusly: the mono version's for your speakers; stereo's for your headphones. You need them both.)...full text |
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| Musicbox-online |
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In the 1960s, artists were given little leeway until they could prove their worth. Everything revolved around scoring a successful single, and as a result, albums typically were made as afterthoughts. So, whenever an opportunity presented itself, it was imperative that everything humanly possible was done to take advantage of the situation. It was precisely within this scenario that Otis Redding’s third outing Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul was born. Yet, instead of sounding like an uneven set on which the hits stood out like sore thumbs, it became the model from which everything that followed now seems to have emerged. Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul ought to have been a mess of an album. When I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, a song that Redding co-wrote with Jerry Butler, lit up the charts, a studio session was crammed into his busy touring schedule. He only had two other original compositions to contribute to the collection — Ole Man Trouble and Respect — though he knew he also wanted to pay homage to Sam Cooke, who had been fatally shot just a few months earlier, by covering Change Gonna Come, Shake, and Wonderful World. The remainder of the material, however, was selected at the last minute, including a cover of the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction, which Redding literally learned on the spot....full text |
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