Several weeks of listening pretty solidly to these, the five studio albums released in his lifetime: Pain in My Heart (1964), The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads (1965), Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965), The Soul Album (1966) and Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul (1966).
The purchase was prompted by getting "These Arms of Mine" stuck in my head; it turns out to have been one of the first songs that Redding recorded, and one of his own compositions. There are familiar songs and sounds across all of these records - some more familiar to me through others' versions, but that doesn't detract from the easefulness with which they penetrate, nor the way they strike the emotions. "Stand By Me", "Respect", "My Girl", "Wonderful World", "A Change Is Gonna Come" - and then there are others that I haven't heard before but which strike a chord.
Also, pleasingly, from the reproduced liner notes to one of these, I learned the idea of 'worrying' a note - drawing out a note to find and create the feeling in it.
The purchase was prompted by getting "These Arms of Mine" stuck in my head; it turns out to have been one of the first songs that Redding recorded, and one of his own compositions. There are familiar songs and sounds across all of these records - some more familiar to me through others' versions, but that doesn't detract from the easefulness with which they penetrate, nor the way they strike the emotions. "Stand By Me", "Respect", "My Girl", "Wonderful World", "A Change Is Gonna Come" - and then there are others that I haven't heard before but which strike a chord.
Also, pleasingly, from the reproduced liner notes to one of these, I learned the idea of 'worrying' a note - drawing out a note to find and create the feeling in it.
