Album of the Day — May 20
Otis Redding — The Soul Album
20.May.2020
Otis Redding
The Soul Album
1966
Otis Redding is to music what peanut butter is to jelly…yea, you can have one without the other, but together? Perfection.
This fourth album is called The Soul Album, but that’s marketing…and while I understand it, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…and again…and again, there are two kinds of music, good and bad — both are subjective.
Stratifying some artists into specific genres can be pointless, Otis Redding is one of those artists.
As the story goes, in 1962, Redding drove guitarist Johnny Jenkins to a recording session at the Stax Records recording studio. Not bearing any fruit, it was cut short. Rather than lose the time, session producer Joe Galkin gave the remaining time to Otis, who recorded two songs — one of which was “These Arms of Mine” with Jenkins on guitar and Steve Cropper on piano.
Stax Records co-founder Jim Stewart signed Otis Redding, released “These Arms of Mine” as a single on Stax (then called Volt Records)…the single would go on to sell more than 800,000 copies.
