The one performer Otis Redding called the greatest: “My favourite singer now
Some people were born to perform, and Otis Redding certainly falls into that category.
One of the brightest musical sparks of the 1960s, Redding’s soul and R&B mastery became immediately evident, and even today his legacy still looms incredibly large within the landscape of American soul music, although his own musical tastes tended to stretch far beyond the confines of Stax Records.
Like virtually every great soul star of the 1960s, Redding honed his vocal craft in the church gospel choirs of the American south, particularly in his home state of Georgia, but the future ‘King of Soul’ wasted no time in pursuing that title. By his late teens, the young musician was a disciple of the R&B and rock ‘n’ roll sounds dominating the pop charts of the late 1950s, and he soon got his own chance to emulate the heroism of folks like Little Richard when he signed to Stax in 1962.
Stax was by no means the only soul-focused record label around during the early 1960s. Virtually every major city and town across the United States seemed to have its own distinctive soul landscape populated by countless independent record labels, with the likes of Motown in Detroit and Atlantic in New York looming out of the map like fantasy citadels where soul stars were born. Comparatively, Stax was relatively modest when Redding signed, but that quickly changed when the world began to take note of the singer’s otherworldly quality.
So much so that, by the mid-1960s, Redding was firmly on the upper echelon of America’s cultural landscape. Rubbing shoulders with Rolling Stones and cultural revolutionaries, the vocalist had a front row seat to the changing tides of society during the era of counterculture. It stands to reason, then, that Redding soon became a disciple of Bob Dylan, the definitive voice of America’s counterculture age.
Despite obvious musical differences in the output of Otis Redding and Bob Dylan, both artists shared the same influences, namely the blues, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll that had injected some much-needed colour into their adolescence back in the 1950s. Seemingly, these shared influences, coupled with the respective talents of both musicians, forged something of a bond between the pair. In fact, Dylan even offered the track ‘Just Like A Woman’ to Redding, although the soul star never properly recorded it before his death in 1967.
During a Melody Maker interview from back in 1966, Redding heaped praise onto his fellow songwriter, declaring, “Yes, I like Dylan – he’s my favourite singer now”.
Although he quickly added, “I love the Rolling Stones as well,” there was no disguising Redding’s undying appreciation for the folk hero. “Bobby is the greatest, though,” he said. “He gave me ‘Just Like a Woman’ to make as a record, y’know. But I didn’t do it because I just didn’t feel it. Mind you, I dig his work like mad.”
It is difficult to think of any performer who eclipsed Dylan during that period in time, just after the folk devotee had ‘gone electric’ and alienated half of his audience while simultaneously encapsulating the spirit of the 1960s in its entirety. For an artist of Redding’s ilk to call Dylan “the greatest” performer of the time, though, is incredibly telling.
That respect seemed to go both ways, too. In fact, Dylan once performed a cover of Redding’s defining track ‘Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay’ during a performance in Washington in 1990, exercising his respect for his fallen comrade and the still undisputed ‘King of Soul’.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.