Otis Redding: “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay”
From the album: The Dock of the Bay
Released January 1968
#1 Pop single, #1 R&B single

It rolls in with the sound and the rhythm of the ocean tide, a soft liquid hissing full of power and grandeur, irrepressible and timeless. It closes with an almost Chaplinesque silhouette, a solitary man whistling, at peace with himself and with his place in life, even as life moves on.

Otis Redding came to Stax in 1962 as a member of Johnny Jenkins & the Pinetoppers, who drove from Georgia to Memphis to record for Stax. Redding was also able to record a few songs of his own during this session and the results included his first single, “These Arms of Mine.” Redding’s gruff and strong voice, with resounding echoes of gospel churches and backcountry woods, was a Stax staple thereafter. “Tramp,” his famous 1967 duet with Stax labelmate Carla Thomas, even makes fun of the country roots that Redding never left behind: “You’re country! You’re straight from the Georgia woods. You wear overalls!” (You can hear his “Georgia” pronunciation of the line-ending words “in” and “again” to end the first verse of “Bay.”)

1967 proved the watershed year. His performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was rivaled only by the explosion detonated by the incendiary Jimi Hendrix. After this festival, Redding rented a houseboat on the Monterey Peninsula and contemplated his next move.

That next move was recorded the first week of December 1967. “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” reflected Redding’s geographic and spiritual circumstances, an exquisitely personal rumination upon both man and music co-composed with Redding’s frequent songwriting partner, guitarist Steve Cropper. It featured one of soul music’s most heartfelt bridges, turns a nearly perfect phrase with “This loneliness won’t leave me alone,” and rocks steady as that ocean tide by Duck Dunn’s loping, almost Bolero, bassline.

Performances were booked throughout 1968, including Constitution Hall (Washington, DC), Philharmonic Hall (New York), The Smothers Brothers Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, even Redding’s own television special.

Otis Redding was killed on December 10, 1967. The plane flying Redding and his band to a concert in Madison, Wisconsin, crashed into frozen Lake Monona. Redding, his manager, and four members of his band, the Bar-Kays, perished. Redding was 26.

“(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” won two Grammy Awards in 1968, one for Redding for Best Male Vocal R&B Performance and one for Redding and Cropper for Best R&B Song. It posthumously topped both the Pop and R&B charts.

As one of Redding’s dearest musical companions, Cropper compiled last year’s Stax Profiles: Otis Redding. “I have always said,” wrote Cropper in its notes, “if you took a half jar of Little Richard and a half jar of Sam Cooke and mixed them together, you would come out with a full jar of Otis Redding.”

When you hear that peaceful whistle today, full of quiet hope and resolve, it is nearly impossible to not wonder what other wonders might have been.

I was musing a couple of blogs about the 1967 Johnnie Taylor Stax album “Wanted: One Soul Singer,” thinking about some of the great music therein : “I Got To Love Somebody’s Baby,” a brilliant Hayes-Porter song delivered with bluesy intensity by Johnnie, “Blues In The Night,” “Toe Hold” and “I Had A Dream.” Stax had its share of great soul men – William Bell, Rufus Thomas and (on loan from Atlantic) Sam Moore and Dave Prater and each had his own style and sound and Johnnie Taylor was no exception. Musically nurtured in gospel music, the Arkansas-born vocalist had a heavy pedigree in that world having sung with the Highway QCs and the highly-renowned Soul Stirrers, whose ranks included Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls. Cooke was indeed much of a mentor for Johnnie, signing him to his own SAR label in 1961 and giving Johnnie his first stab at secular recording.

His SAR recordings show Johnnie’s developing style as a soul man but it was when he landed at Stax in 1965 (following Cooke’s tragic passing and the demise of the SAR/Derby stable) that Johnnie began to find his ‘sea legs’ as a bona fide R&B man with a smooth blues-flavored delivery. In fact, Johnnie’s first two charted singles, the afore-mentioned “I Had A Dream” and “I Got To Love Somebody’s Baby” were markedly different in their strong leaning towards a more bluesy approach to music, akin to folks like Bobby Blue Bland in particular.

While he made records that I personally loved during those two years (1966-68) when he was ‘blue’ label Stax man, it was only when Stax went ‘mainstream’ through its association with Gulf & Western and Johnnie began working with Detroit-based producer Don Davis (the main producer for The Dramatics) that his chart fortunes began to change. “Who’s Making Love,” a pithy tale of infidelity, began a giant massive hit in late ’68, a million-selling R&B chart and top 5 pop smash. Johnnie was on his way to regular chartdom (“Jody Got Your Girl And Gone,” “Love Bones,“ “I Could Never Be President,” “I Am Somebody”) and an established audience, earning the nickname “The Soul Philosopher,” whose origins lay in his perceived approach to life, love, relationships and fidelity (witness the mere title of his hit records).

I didn’t get to see J.T. in person until many years after his Stax heyday but listening to a recent Stax reissue (“Live At The Summit” recorded in Los Angeles in 1972 at the time of the great Wattstax shows), it’s obvious Johnnie knew how to get the crowd going even if it was, as the liner notes for this CD indicate full of “fur-lined players and ice cold hustlers.”

Johnnie was a Stax staple until he switched to Columbia Records in 1976 gaining another massive mainstream hit with the highly suggestive “Disco Lady.” His four-year spell with the label was not considered his most creative and after a one-off with L.A. based Beverly Glen, Johnnie called Jackson, Mississippi-based Malaco Records his recording home from 1984 until his passing in May 2000 at the young age of 62. A Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Awardee, he was a singularly great musical storyteller and obviously the winning applicant for that 1967 ad…”Wanted: One Soul Singer” should have had a subtitle: “No Other Applicants Need Apply”…

David Nathan
Aka the British Ambassador Of Soul
Owner, www.soulmusic.com

One of the great things about the Stax roster for Brit soul guys like me and the thousands of folks who loved their Stax music back in the day was the rich and varied roster that the label offered within the world of black music. There were male harmony groups – The Astors, Ollie & The Nightingales and of course, The Dramatics; the soul men – Otis, Johnnie T., William Bell, Rufus Thomas and others; the instrumental aggregations – The Bar-Kays, The Mar-Keys and Booker T. & The MGs; and the soul sisters – Carla Thomas, Ruby Johnson, Judy Clay, Mavis Staples…and Mable John.

Now I do have the slight advantage of having known the diminutive sister of the late great Willie John for many more years than she or I care to remember! Our friendship stemmed out of our professional, journalist/artist relationship when Mable made one of her first trips to the UK as a the leader of Ray Charles’ renowned Raelettes, circa 1972. By that time, I was ensconced as a regular contributor to Britain’s “Blues & Soul” magazine and excited at the prospect of meeting the lady behind “Your Good Thing (Is About To End),” the glorious Hayes-Porter song (which Mable would later recount was inspired by real life experiences she shared with the songwriter-producers). That had to be one of the finest pieces of Stax soul I had ever heard when it hit the streets in 1966.

Of course, Mable was no stranger to the recording studios. She had in fact been signed by Berry Gordy Jr. as the very first female recording artist at his fledgling Motown label and although those initial recordings didn’t take off chartwise, they did awaken those with ears good enough to hear that the sister of then-superstar Willie John was definitely a sho’ nuff soul singer in her own right. Her move to Stax confirmed it. Beyond “Your Good Thing” (later covered by Lou Rawls), Mable was a favorite with tunes like the follow-up to “Your Good Thing,” another slice-of-life from Hayes & Porter entitled “Taking Up Another Man’s Place” (recorded by Aretha Franklin and only available on an obscure Atlantic blues CD), “Same Time, Same Place,” “Running Out” (an Ashford & Simpson tune) and her Stax ‘anthem,’ the suitably-named “Able Mable.” Indeed, when I think of Mable, now an ordained Minister who runs the Joy Community Outreach program in Los Angeles (http://www.joyinjesus.org), feeding the homeless on an ongoing basis, I think of someone who is not only ‘able’ but certainly ‘willing’ to contribute her many talents and gifts. In 2006, she co-wrote her first novel, the excellent “Sanctified Blues” with noted author David Ritz and will be completing another two books in this same series.

Mable hasn’t recorded any secular music in a while: I remember when she came to London in the ‘70s to work with John Abbey, the editor of “Blues & Soul” magazine for a project for Contempo label that was never released and since then, aside from gospel and inspirational recordings, Mable hasn’t made any new soul music. Fortunately, she does still perform on occasion and we were graced with her presence at a Rhythm & Blues Foundation benefit a couple of years ago when she blew one and all away with her bluesy storytellin’ style.

Until we get some new soul music from Mable, there are Stax sides available on various compilations and “Your Good Thing” remains one of the highlights of the many standout cuts on the Stax 50th anniversary comp.

David Nathan
Aka the British Ambassador Of Soul
Owner, www.soulmusic.com

If you’re grateful for the music of Stax Records, you may at one time have wondered, “Boy, if I ever got to meet that Mr. Stax, I’d sure like to thank him for making such great music.”

Well, Virginia, there is no Mr. Stax for you to thank. But there IS an explanation for how the “Stax” name came about.

It all began in 1957, when Jim Stewart, a country music fiddler by disposition and a Tennessee banker by trade, set up a studio to record country music in a North Memphis garage that his wife’s uncle owned, and christened his homemade operation Satellite Records.

Stewart sought to relocate his recording studio the following year. His sister Estelle Axton was familiar with the Memphis music scene through her son (and Stewart’s nephew) Charles “Packy” Axton, who played saxophone in the Mar-Keys with guitarist Steve Cropper and other local musicians. She mortgaged her home to help pay for relocating and purchasing new recording equipment.

In 1959, Stewart and Axton moved their operations again and converted an abandoned neighborhood movie theater, the Capitol on McLemore Avenue in South Memphis, into their new studio. Stewart and Axton produced several rockabilly and country recordings for their fledgling label and optimistically converted the theater’s concessions stand into the Satellite Record Shop.

But they scored their first hit in 1960 with “Cause I Love You,” a duet by Rufus Thomas, a DJ for Memphis’ local R&B radio station WDIA, with his daughter Carla. This kept Stewart and Axton alert for R&B and blues sounds, which quite fortunately thrived all around them.

In 1961, the Mar-Keys released their infectious instrumental “Last Night” on the little label. As the single steamed up the national charts, Satellite took off like a rocket. Stewart and Axton learned of another company that was operating under the name Satellite Records, in California. They decided to change their own company’s name to avoid the risk of legal complications and confusion with the other.

Since his sister mortgaged her home to help get them started, Stewart combined the first two letters of his own last name with the first two letters of his sister’s last name and S-T-A-X Records was born!