On the release of a new singles collection, Jack Hamilton pays tribute to Otis Redding:
Like all of the greatest singers, Otis Redding was utterly unique. He lacked the technical virtuosity of his idol, Sam Cooke–another ’60s musician whose death came much too early–but made up for it with flawless taste and musical intellect. Despite his well-earned reputation for incendiary live performances–most famously on display in his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival [seen above], six months before his death–Redding was never the frenzied pyrotechnician of later “soul man” parodies. In fact, his greatest gift may have been his command of restraint and understatement.
The best singers are also masters of silence: The moments that Ray Charles doesn’t sing–when he’s just about to sing, just finished singing, or taking a breath (especially when he’s taking a breath)–can be as electrifying as any notes coming out of his mouth. Otis Redding understood and used this power as well as anyone. Critic Dave Marsh once wrote that Redding’s performance of “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)” sounds “as though each line is coming to him only the instant before he sings it, quavering notes as if in the grip of an undeniably exquisite passion that must be consummated–now!” a description that itself dwells in pauses, anticipation, the thrill of ensuing discovery.
Stephen M. Deusner marvels at the voice:
“The Glory of Love” is not a very good song. … With its twin melodic lines—“That’s the story of, that’s the glory of love”—and its oppressively chipper tempo, it’s certainly catchy in a nursery rhyme sort of way, yet it’s supremely saccharine and just plain dopey. So why would someone like Otis Redding, at the height of his esteem, choose to cover this song out of the thousands in the American pop canon? It’s hard to imagine anyone save [songwriter Billy] Hill himself thinking it was worth the great singer’s time, even if they didn’t know how limited his time was.
But here’s the catch:
Otis Redding absolutely kills it. He transforms “The Glory of Love” into something moving and even sublime. As Steve Cropper’s guitar traces tears down your cheek, as Isaac Hayes and Al Jackson Jr.’s snare clicks out a tempo about twice as fast as the song demands, and as the horns offer sympathetic punctuation, Redding testifies mightily to the glory of love. It’s soul music, but the process of repetition, variation and elaboration is more akin to jazz. He teases out the song’s central ideas, however corny they may be, until they yield something meaningful, but as the song builds and builds, it never reaches a climax or epiphany. Rather than cut loose, the musicians hold back.
This is why Redding was such an immense figure in pop music in the 1960s and why his death was such a tragedy: He could plumb even the fluffiest pop song and locate a kernel of honest-to-God wisdom.
Heard here:
The Dish 