Otis Ray Redding Documentary

[Music] was a genius he wasn't good he was fantastic there's nobody that sounds like my dad he was clearly about achieving something great he would treat every musician like a brother oh this had more than magnetism he was just a magnet himself [Music] a loving kind caring person that just love life [Music] the plane had crashed and they didn't think that there were any survivors our world was wiped out in that moment we just suck the energy in the spirit out of us that was a tremendous loss for the entire world but he left his mark unparalleled untold unsung the story of otis ready i've been [Music] loving you too long it's gonna be very difficult for you to find a singer that's seen with as much conviction as otis ready [Music] like this is what living is this is what singing is this is what music is otis redding was a force like no other a magnetic stage performer a skillful songwriter and a singer of towering emotions [Music] my father's style is just something natural it just comes from the heart [Music] they're really two sides towards reading one is this very vulnerable balance singer yeah there's this freight train i was always putting some energy on top of already energy already he never did anything but 100 of his talent he is seeing your hair straight [Music] and otis's impact resonated far beyond the stage he would draw people from all races and all different kinds of situations into his little camp he'll embrace him this is the love crowd right [Applause] he just uplifted everybody's spirits and made them really feel important and feel like somebody now i know she's waiting just anticipating he was just a gentle giant humanitarian a loving father son brother just a little bit of tenderness he gave one-third to family he gave one-third to the industry and he gave one-third to being a really great guy and then at the age of 26 otis redding's life came to a sudden tragic end leaving fans family and future generations to lament all that might have been there's not a day in my life that i don't think that pray for those not a day you can only just imagine what would have been coming from him in the future had he lived he just didn't get to finish it but it was all in his vision his vision was just way ahead of his time [Music] otis redding jr grew up in macon georgia the fourth of six children and the oldest son his mother fanny was a housekeeper his father otis senior was a sharecropper and a preacher and from the start young otis made his presence felt he walked he talked and he talked very loudly you could hear him a baseball field away and everybody he heard on the radio he could mimic and he could sing just like them as otis was growing up his family settled into an all-black housing project called tyndall heights by that time his father was serving as a minister at the local baptist church where otis performed as well singing in the choir playing the drums in the choir and all of that by the time he was seven he was singing in a spiritual quartet and actively in making georgia was singing gospel as a teenager [Music] otis was also singing popular songs and local talent shows deeply influenced by another young church singer from macon turned rock and roll star sounds like little richard that's what they were saying and he's winning talent shows until they ran him off they wouldn't let him come back because he kept winning the prize money otis would sneak out and take his dad's car probably got in big trouble when he got back but he did it anyway his dad of course wanted otis to go in another direction however otis's determination said no i'm gonna have to do it my way or no way at all otis's talent caught the ear of a local guitar whiz named johnny jenkins who hired him to sing with his band the pine toppers one night while performing at macon's douglas theater otis turned his attention to one particular fan he said like hey baby and i'm real defensive and i'm still that way i said i'm not your baby you don't even know me it was about two weeks later i saw him again i said that's that same damn food that i saw at that talent show so we started talking again and fell in love it was obvious that this was a man that any and every woman would love to have the opportunity to put their fangs into but otis redding loved himself already it was beautiful to see there was a lot of girls that he was stable when he met me but uh i come out to be the winner [Music] by 1961 otis and zelma had married and were raising the first of their three children by that time otis was determined to make it as a singer even traveling to los angeles in hopes of cutting a record there he thought that he could get famous in california because of course everyone became famous in california he did record some songs that did not do well and went back home he worked different places on well drilling he worked at the hospital for why he never could keep a job otis never ever kept a job you know that was just not in his way his dream was to be a star otis confidence was shared by a young manager from macon named phil walden so in 1962 when johnny jenkins traveled to stax records in memphis to record walden arranged for otis to come along as jenkins driver with the hope that otis could somehow record a song of his own there johnny jenkins pulls up the driver otis reading gets out to jim stewart steve crawford to booker t jones all the stacks guys who's this guy must be the valet then in fact otis helps unload the equipment from the trunk of the car otis was a quiet kind of guy that was not intrusive with his attitude and spirit but he did want someone to take a listen to him and he made that connection through al jackson jr who was the core drummer for stacks al jackson came to me and he said you know i told you about the tall guy if do you have time he's driving me nuts do you have time to take two minutes and just hear him saying for a second i said well okay i started playing i think in b-flat or something and he come out with these arms of mine and i promise you the hair on my arms because it was so perfect [Music] it was artistic it was emotional he was only saying these arms of mine but he was making these um the label was run by the brother sister team of jim stewart and estelle axton and a family in more ways than one stacks really was a unique organization because the stacks philosophy was one of inclusiveness jim stewart purchased an old recording studio in a predominantly black community there was a unity and a bond that was created that was significant for those times because all of the bigotry and hate and all those kinds of energies were outside of our world in that facility it was just not the case stacks didn't have a strong male singer we just walked in there right at the correct time he energized the whole studio from the moment he walked in there for all that otis's first flurry of singles after these arms of mine didn't do much but while touring in 1964 otis had a fateful meeting with fellow singer and songwriter jerry butler got the guitars out and they're talking about songs i was going i got the song i can't finish trey goes well it's funny i got one i can't finish either jerry started singing the beginning of i've been loving you too long and i said this great song jerry got to the bridge don't didn't know where to go with it so i said you know what put on tape for me i'll just finish that song and call what jerry said hey i finished the song he said you won't do it you want me to do it and he said well let me hear it so oh this thing he said oh that's a song for you my love is growing stronger as you become a habit to me released in 1965 i've been loving you too long became otis's signature ballad and a concert showstopper [Music] [Music] and he is so emotionally building it up to the plateau by the time he gets to the end that you not only get the meaning of the song you get the emotional connection that he has to the song [Applause] otis was taking care of business literally in other ways he and manager phil walden set up two companies jodis and redwall to protect his song rights and to develop artists to record his music the way money gets paid out for songwriting is half the money goes to the publisher half the money goes to the actual writer so yours was smart enough to know there's more may be made if you do it this way he was i think goal driven he knew what he wanted and i think that that was incredible for a person as young as he was especially in the industry he was trying to do everything he possibly could to take his career to the next level so he just was real serious about that growing up in the projects in macon georgia having little education and getting to that point i think is emotionally powerful but it's also culturally powerful and economically powerful i don't think otis was naive to any of that and for this man to write produce work with other artists and tour we're in 365 days a year there's just not enough time to get that done as i've been loving you too long rose up the singles charts otis returned to memphis and in a legendary session recorded an entire album otis blue in less than a day's time otis was going to depart go back on his tour in 24 hours and that's how much time we had to submit an album [Music] i mean we worked hard for many fans otis blue would stand as redding's greatest album due in part to a song written by otis and later immortalized by aretha franklin titled respect [Music] [Applause] that song was right on time because this was telling uh the woman and the man that we are together we love each other and uh i'm gonna give you respect when you come home and you bring respect with you you sound like old pastor you know i mean preacher preach [Music] it becomes a clearing call of black empowerment and yeah aretha's version is great and it's unbelievably important to block history but it doesn't exist without otis [Music] not only did he realize he was a great performer but he realized that hey i'm a great songwriter and uh he proved his point with that one one situation where a promoter wouldn't pay him guy took a knife and cuddles his towels so you gonna sing baby you're gonna sing oh that's the pistol knocked him out of that combo broke his wrist the policeman arrested him and noticed that i can't believe you're gonna arrest me for defending myself and then he said oh if i don't arrest you they're going to tear your ass up before you can leave him he says i'm trying to get you out of here safely and uh uh he did oh i'm actually respectful by 1965 otis redding had emerged as a leading light at stax records and a favorite there among musicians as well [Applause] [Music] would treat every musician and and build their confidence he just treated him like a brother he was a fun guy to be around he gave you respect he gave you conversation it was amazing to be a part and around otis reddy otis spread the good vibes in other ways back home in macon he bought his dad a new car then moved his family including his parents to a 300-acre spread outside the city called the big old ranch there's just lush trees and grass and animals everywhere and there's this beautiful ranch house that's a red color my dad's parents were up the driveway and then my mom's parents were in the house with us and horses there were cows there was tom and jerry the peacocks there were dogs um so it was just full of life this whole circular area was the swimming pool and uh dad loved that pool he he spent most of his time at home vacuuming on that swimming pool and he come out and vacuum on the pool and then go back in and write a song it's just so peaceful and so serene and i think that's what my dad was looking for that kind of serenity he comes home and he's a father you know that's my dad and when he leaves it's like he's going to work you know and he's going to take care of his family [Music] with his star on the rise otis returned more frequently to sax he recorded two albums there in 1966 while developing a songwriting partnership with guitarist steve cropper it was two of us in a hotel room he would bring ideas to the table and i'd bring ideas to the table sometimes we didn't even go to bed we'd stay up all night long writing songs i'd say oh boy we better get the studio the band's already going to be there and once in the studio otis took charge of those sessions even arranging horn parts by singing out the melodies well this was a natural musician a natural horn player he sang horn lines as naturally as i would and we'd play them and they come out great like they did on all those records we always said otis reading was a genius when it came to music it just he was he was just he had it the combination clicked on a string of songs written by reading and cropper including mr pitiful any old wade and a ballad called just one more day [Music] just one more day it's like a it's pretty much the whole gospel song was just a way of just uh man just one more day [Music] one of the neat things that i like about the song is in the end otis says i gotta have all my days [Music] [Applause] [Music] just one more day sold respectably peaking at number 15 on the charts but it was the flip side of that single written by otis that really took off hey turn your loose it's like it's on a totally different level from every other song that he did [Music] it's like look okay i'm i'm going at it you know what i'm saying that song is kicking you right in your behind making you get up and do what otis was doing he would make his band work until he got that crowd worked up to dance he was a big guy he weighed a lot and he would just bound you know across the floor he wasn't just this old somber dude who had a heartache but he had a little party in him yeah i mean this is a grown man getting his groove on and making everybody believe that the day was good i thought it was on the hunt he shot a deer one time and went over to look at his field and the deal got up started chasing him and chased him up a tree now i got up the hillside that was loading stuff in the tree and the rifle laying down on the ground and i said what the hell is going on he says man i shot that song it's a nitty-gritty [Music] by the mid-60s with hits like respect and i can't turn you loose otis reading was a top r b star with serious ambitions to do more [Music] it had been a long time plan of phil walden's and otis redding's to try to break through to white america there's that much more money to be got if you got both why wouldn't you want both he was concerned about recording the next record the next album doing the next tour the next everything he wanted his name to be like it ended up being worldwide otis had already been recording rock and pop songs on his albums but in the spring of 66 he went further taking his show to the whiskey on la's sunset strip it was the first time i got to see him on stage and i couldn't believe the audience [Music] more gigs followed at rock halls like the fillmore in san francisco then came a trip to england where otis was greeted as royalty [Applause] we did not know how ready they were for us the beatles sent their personal limousine to pick him up at the airport you know uh tom jones and mick jagger and all these guys are hanging out backstage every night just to see all this right well i still say he was crying in the audience [Music] he did call me and say you know they really love me here the rolling stones it's the beetles he said i've never been treated this way at home as his tour schedule heated up otis bought his own airplane to keep pace with it otis idea of owning his own plane was so that he could enhance his career he could stay close to his family and he could do it all otis wanted to build a runway on his ranch it was important to otis and his family because he could just land right at home and hey just get out the plane and just walk up to the house by the spring of 67 otis was heading back to europe headlining a review of top stacks artists and with plans to record a live show there we had sam and dave we had eddie floyd we had carla thomas we had bought 10 mgs but the anchor for those shows was odish ready [Music] i don't think we expected that type of reception and from the very first big show that we did it was like wow [Music] people in europe never reacted to nobody that much but otis became a part of them [Music] he was like a revival going on from country to country when you consider that people didn't necessarily understand the words but they felt the music [Music] he felt the artistic creativity that the breeders of oldest writing brought to every stage every gig [Applause] a few months later otis was invited to what would be the first major rock festival in america performing alongside jimi hendrix janice joplin and the who in monterey california monterey pop festival was an ideal spot be able to capture the new white audience of the hippies and the long hairs and and the people that are really into music from the time we stepped off of that bus i could tell you that the smell in the air knew that it was going to be different than any other concert we'd ever played here's a guy coming to a hippie party with a three-piece suit on everybody says shank let me have the whole crop there we were seven young musicians without us ready and we knocked their asses off [Music] shake was a song that really tore the place apart [Music] we played so good and so hard so long we just wore them out [Music] when we talk about the monterey pop festival it's one of those situations where you're glad that you were there to do it you're glad that you're closing the show but i would have liked to have been sitting in the audience watching that show [Music] after his show-stopping performance at the 1967 monterey pop festival otis redding was primed to take his career to another level when that was done he had double spread esquire magazine we made time magazine proles zone all of a sudden there were movies starting to pile up on his desk for him to consider i mean everything was starting to happen and notice his life but there was a catch literally in otis's voice years of giving his all as a singer had created polyps in his throat which required surgery and with an uncertain prognosis for recovery he was just a strong guy and he was going to get through it either way it goes you know so he just did what he had to do [Music] he was home for like six weeks and he had this label like a ring ring like a servant i'm like you need to put that damn bear back are you going to this bear but it's never expressed to me that he had any fears about not being able to sing again but i'm sure that had to cross his mind you know during that time i remember him being in the room and strumming his guitar you know nothing coming out but just strumming his guitar could talk for two weeks couldn't sing for six all during that those weeks in his mind he was writing songs we hadn't spent that kind of time together in a long time and i look back on it and think about it it was just it was a blessing just a blessing [Music] returning to stacks in november of 67 otis embarked on a spree of recordings that would ultimately fill several albums including new songs he'd written and others that had been on the shelf for years on the first session back in the studio we looked at each other and said is zoda singing good or what that's the best we'd ever heard his voice and you just kept putting them down putting them down putting them down i'll just put down 26 songs in one week imagine them all these other entertainers today take a year to make 26 songs you know after three weeks at stax otis was ready to hit the road by now he had his own tour band a group of talented memphis teenagers called the bar-kays the barcades were it's this little band from memphis tennessee that had aspirations of uh being big time [Music] they had a great band and they had a good following and they were season two and so otis just fell in love with him he was really concerned about us and it just was like one big old happy family that was his babies they were just his kids he loved having them i mean they learned a lot from all this ready i think they enjoyed every moment [Music] [Applause] in early december otis and the barques flew to cleveland for a series of shows including this one on their final day together oh she may be wearing them young girls they do get weary so we didn't have any idea that that would be the last time that we'd be performing together on stage [Music] there was a certain feeling about that it you know everything just seemed to fall in place [Music] all of his performances were great but this one had something a little special about it i mean it just was like it was more energy it was more it was more everything [Music] the next day december 10th otis and the band flew from cleveland to madison wisconsin the plane could only carry a certain amount of people two people always had to fly commercial and on this particular day myself and a guy by the name of carl sims happened to be the two guys to take the commercial flight people at the airport told us he should not fly said the weather's too bad and you should not go i said you know you need to counsel this gig and notice that man i ain't ever missed a date in my life and i'm not gonna start now [Music] the plane never made it to madison crashing into a lake five miles from the airport bar-k's trumpet player ben cauley was rescued from the icy water four members of the barcase avalon the plane's pilot and otis redding died when they called they said otis plane went down and i'm like somebody playing on the phone you know you just you don't put that in your brain and uh then the cause just start coming coming and um you know it had happened that evening was like just a just blank what you can call it i just remembered the emotions um watching my mom just go through um pure hell because that's what it was mean she was a strong woman but that tore her apart zelma she said i don't have the strength to go and identify my husband would you would you please identify him for me the thought and the concept of knowing that i would have been on a plane and then knowing that all your friends were gone i mean it's it's hard to process something like that we were all so devastated so torn in fact it was like uh pieces of us uh just disintegrated [Music] that was worst pain i ever felt in my life i didn't hurt that much when my father died or my mother died all my brothers died i remember praying that she would be found alive my father was a minister you had to believe in god and you have to believe that prayers were answered and in this particular instance you know the prayer was not answered for me [Music] a few days after the plane crash that took his life otis redding went home to macon georgia four thousand people came to the funeral phil walden was his manager he said we want to bury him in rose hill i said no he's going home he's going home and put him in the front yard and nobody's going to do anything about it so he's at home in the front yard i love having him there [Music] our world was wiped out in that moment as was tax records tax never recovered really the loss of oldest running to the music industry i think set the industry back years because he was the trailblazer for amplifying the artistic creativeness that comes through the african-american people and you can only just imagine what would have been coming from him in the future had he lived as it happened one of otis reading's last recordings gave a strong hint of where his future might have led even while crowning his legacy we wrote sitting on the dock of the bay funnily enough in a houseboat in sausalito in san francisco he actually was sitting at sort of at the dock of the bay he was so excited about bringing me that song that he called me from the airport to make sure i was at the studio he said i'm coming right down i've got a great idea otis reading feel very very strong about sitting on the dock of the bay i was surprised because he was so different from what i was accustomed to hearing him saying i was setting up to do the guitar overdub on the song the last time i saw him he poked his head in his death sitting on the dock of debate became otis redding's first number one pop hit [Music] i've often wondered if he had a premonition without knowing sometimes we know and maybe that song was also designed to prepare us for what was to come [Music] one moment i just wanted to be the guy that came from the ghetto that reached all the way to the top and he didn't get there in an angry way he got there by making people love him [Music] he left me three beautiful kids i love my husband so much why would i remarry i could have but i won't never ever [Music] people ask me where would he be today if he was still alive probably on stage somewhere because he was the king of soul period and we'll always do that [Music] you

Channel: Ethic Radio Archive Reels

Views: 674,509

Keywords: Johnny Jenkins Life and Legacy Film (Trailer), Johnny Jenkins and the pinetoppers, Phil Walden

Id: Jizy4iKrxtw

Length: 38min 49sec (2329 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 01 2022