It also indulges that counterfactual in which Redding survives: Bob Stanley’s sleevenotes for this album – a parody of the kind of breathless prose you used to get on the back of 1960s LPs – are written as if this was January ’68 and Redding is still alive, looking forward to his biggest ever hit. The Dock Of The Bay Sessions comprises 12 of the best recordings from this astonishingly fertile last few months of Redding’s life. That’s more than 40 tracks to choose from, putting Otis Redding up there with Jimi Hendrix and Tupac Shakur in the profitable posthumous vaults. Yet more were released in July 1970 as Tell The Truth, and even more 1967 recordings were unearthed on a 1992 compilation entitled Remember Me. It included three old soul covers, including a rambunctious reading of Jackie Wilson’s “ (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher”, but mainly featured stately, self-written soul originals. It was followed, a year later by, another collection of a dozen new recordings. The first batch were released in June ’68 as The Immortal Otis Redding – a dozen unreleased tracks, four of which became hit singles, including the deathless, horn-led funk of “ Hard To Handle”. It served as a rather unsatisfactory long-playing eulogy, especially as it emerged that Stax were sitting on a mountain of unreleased Otis sessions recorded throughout 1967. His record label Stax/Volt and its parent company Atlantic, understandably keen to satisfy a desire for a long-player, rush-release an accompanying album called Dock Of The Bay, a curious mish mash of recent singles, b-sides and the odd cover. A week later, Redding’s funeral in his hometown of Macon, Georgia attracts around 5,000 mourners, and his last ever recording ends up topping the charts the world over. In the real world, of course, Redding’s Beechcraft H18 crashed into Lake Monona, killing him and his touring band, with only trumpeter Ben Cauley surviving. Redding goes on to thrive, the star of the Monterey Festival becoming the thread that links 60s Stax, 70s Motown, flower power and the sonic advances of Hendrix, Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder. Justin and Shaun Bradley from Sydney band Brother Brad came in to The Music Show studios to cover this classic.There’s an alternate universe in which Otis Redding’s private jet lands safely on December 10 1967, where Otis returns to the Stax studio in Memphis, completes his single “ (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay”, and puts it at the centre of a radical album that transforms soul music as we know it. It went on to become the first posthumous single to reach number 1 in the US. Steve Cropper decided to leave in the whistling and released it a month later. He died in a plane crash in December 1967 while on tour. He was to return to Memphis to record the final verse, but never had the chance. Otis hadn't written the last verse by the time he recorded the song, he was supposed to ad-lib a rap during the fade out but forgot what he was going to say, so he ended up whistling a tune instead. "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. Songs like "Mr Pitiful" "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" they were about Otis and Otis' life. Otis didn't really write about himself but I did. If you listen to the songs I collaborated with Otis, most of the lyrics are about him. 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 the story that I got he was renting boathouse or stayed at a boathouse or something and that's where he got the idea of the ships coming in the bay there.
He had been in San Francisco doing The Fillmore. Otis was one of those the kind of guy who had 100 ideas.
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