#music, An Oldie but Goodie for a Saturday Evening…

«(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay«

What can I say about a song that I heard when I was just a wee lad and that I have loved all my life. Well, one thing I can say is that I really miss soul music! During my childhood that was one of the great genres of music and, lamentably, now it does not exist. But I am so glad that in those years Black musicians, and whites too, made some phenomenal soul to last forever.

«(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay» was co-written by Otis Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper (guitarist for Booker T and the MG’s). As it turned out Redding recorded the song just three days before his death. He died in a plane crash on the 10th of December of 1967. Stax Records’ Volt label released the tune in 1968, and it became the first posthumous #1 single in the US. It also reached #3 in the UK… Otis Redding began writing the tune on a rented houseboat in Sausalito, California, and finished it in Memphis, at Stax Records where he went to record it.

In an interview with Terry Gross (Fresh Air/NPR), Cropper, said:

Otis was one of those [guys] who had 100 ideas. […] He had been in San Francisco doing The Fillmore. And the story that I got, he was renting a boathouse, or stayed at a boathouse or something, and that’s where he got the idea of the ships coming in the bay there. And that’s about all he had: «I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again.» I just took that… and I finished the lyrics. If you listen to the songs I collaborated on with Otis, most of the lyrics are about him. […] Otis didn’t really write about himself but I did. Songs like «Mr. Pitiful,» «Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)»; they were about Otis and Otis’ life. «Dock of the Bay» was exactly that: «I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay» was all about him going out to San Francisco to perform.

For sure «(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay» is one of the most performed songs in history. It has been covered by so many artists, including Glenn Campbell and Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66. It is a phenomenal song that I love and that I think you do too. I am including a cover by The Reddings (1982) a soul/funk group with two of Otis Redding’s sons. What do you think?

CHEERS