The autumn and early winter of 1966 were a whirlwind for Otis. The first order of business was a trip to England. The timing was auspicious, given that The Soul Album was selling briskly in England, as would Dictionary, and his singles now were almost always top 40 hits there: “My Girl” and “Day Tripper,” both of which failed to chart at home, would run to number 11 and 43. Phil Walden had also been itching to take the Redding brand to the far corners of the global market, one that had been opened for soul artists by Motown. In 1965, Berry Gordy exported his wildly successful Motortown Revue to England, planting soul in the breadbasket of the British Invasion and firing the imagination of British blues rock groups that until then were kept off BBC radio and only heard on stations broadcasting from “pirate” ships out in the English Channel.
Walden, who knew nothing of the turf, partnered with English promoter Harold Davison to arrange a two-week tour in September through midsize ballrooms and music halls of a few hundred to two or three thousand seats, with the intention of keeping it low-key in case England wasn’t quite ready to snap up tickets in bunches to see Redding. Indeed, Davison found that local promoters weren’t offering the moon; the dates he booked pulled on average around £500 to £600 pounds, or $800, each. When the Orchid Ballroom in Purley offered £300 against a percentage of the gate or £650 pounds outright, Davidson took the latter. Even so, Walden laid down the “Redding Rule”: His man had to be top-billed and close every show—a rule no one ever questioned, not even Ray Charles, who at a recent show with Otis in Miami, had been bluntly told he had to go on before Otis or lose the gig, which he needed. Charles was coming off a dreadful year in which he was arrested for the third time on heroin possession, given five years’ probation, fined ten thousand dollars, and forced to take a year off while at a rehab clinic. He finally kicked the habit with his own treatment, which, he once said, was “I vomited and vomited and vomited till there was nothing left to vomit. And then I vomited some more. I was heaving up poison.”1
Even though Charles would soon be back to elite status, winning a Grammy the next year for “Crying Time,” such was Redding’s prominence, and leverage, that he still could have pulled rank on Brother Ray. And when Otis arrived in London with nine pieces of his touring band, leveled expectations or not, he seemed like a visiting dignitary. He was met at Heathrow Airport by a limousine provided by Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, who had earlier in the year visited Stax to get a look at the place and possibly arrange for the Fab Four, who worshipped Redding, to record Revolver there. Epstein however backed off when he visited the theater and it became clear mobs would surround the place.2 In September of 1966, though, it was the mobs around Redding that became a security concern, and mitigated any chance that the Beatles could somehow meet him on their home turf.
As if an attempt to re-create and transfer some of that old Beatles voodoo, Redding was ushered into a room at Heathrow for a press conference with the Brit reporters, then driven in the limo, while the band bundled into a bus to his hotel, where a small cadre of fans milled about on the sidewalk. The tour itinerary was a checkerboard of venues, the Ram Jam Club in Brixton to the Gliderdrome in Lincolnshire to the Farnborough in Hampshire, as well as several London halls. At each stop, Redding’s intensity, a trait not often seen onstage by the phlegmatic English rock acts, lit up the room, but, despite the hype, not the box office of the outer areas. Barry Dickens, Davison’s assistant then and later the head of England’s biggest booking agency, recalled that Redding “went down well but the crowds weren’t huge.”
The London gigs however were more satisfying, prompting Soul Music Monthly—a newspaper not in America but England—to venture, “Otis should receive a mention in the Financial Times this year. The attendances on his recent tour, especially in the London area, were quite phenomenal. 6,000 people paid ten shillings to see him at Purley and it was later announced that 8,000 had forked out twenty-five shillings a head to see him at Tiles,” the Mod club in London where the Animals and the Who regularly played.3 Indeed, the Orchid show made Dickens grit his teeth. Had he made the percentage deal, he said, Otis would “have walked out with about 1,500 pounds. That was one of my worst deals ever.”4
Otis had no problem with the erratic attendance; he was more put off by the British food, which he and his band, who were all used to the soul food on the chitlin’ circuit, thought tasted like cellophane. Conversely, the Brits who accompanied him reeled at the cologne and deodorant Otis covered himself in, the strength of which could choke a horse, an example of what Europeans regarded as dainty American vanity. And yet Otis seemed to be lapping up adulation that felt different than the kind at home, never tempered by any racial complication. He must have felt like Josephine Baker, the sublime “Black Pearl” of the 1920s and ’30s who, untethered by racism or censorship, giddily danced almost nude in the Paris nightclubs and became a French citizen. If too many white American hipsters seemed like dilettantes, the fans of black music over there actually revered artists like Redding.
This was something that dawned on earlier blues travelers like Little Richard, who took advantage of the fact that British music tastes seemed to be fixated on black artists far more than the American music mainstream, even if the English crowds tended to see the roots of pain and slavery in the music as a quaint notion without real context. “It would be England that made Otis a star, a superstar,” says Floyd Newman. “They were not hung up on race there. In the U.S. a musician is just a musician. In Europe, Japan, France—they’re artistes! We signed as many autographs as the artists. They knew where you came from, where you were born, your whole life.”5
By far the highlight of the trip was Otis’s September 16 appearance on the ITV network’s popular Friday night TV show Ready Steady Go! Like the almost full roster of Motown that had been featured on the same show during the ’65 Revue tour hosted by Dusty Springfield, Redding was not just a guest; the entire program was built around him, and American soul music. Introduced as “the great, the one and only Otis Redding,” he came on with “Satisfaction” and “My Girl,” then introduced Eric Burdon for a British blues rendition of “Hold On I’m Coming.” He later returned with “Pain in My Heart,” “I Can’t Turn You Loose,” “Shake,” and “Land of a Thousand Dances,” intermingled with go-go girls and overheated audience members.6
The performance came as a revelation to many Brits who had never heard, much less seen, him, but now knew that, as Melody Maker noticed, “Otis Redding is unbelievably cool.”7 It was another pivotal soul milestone, such that it was clear—as with his brush with the L.A. in crowd—Redding would need to keep riding this wave, too. Almost immediately, Walden, knowing the next Europe trip was going to be legitimately a big deal, went to work on it, this time making room for the biggest of Otis’s Stax labelmates, but still with the proviso that everyone and everything else—and that included Jim Stewart’s interests—would be secondary to Otis and his interests. And if Stewart felt this was undermining his authority, he was hardly in a position to quibble about it. That was how excruciatingly cool Redding was.
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THE LESSONS of his latest conquest had the usual ripple effect across the soul board. That fall, other acts began crossing the ocean blue to play their own ballroom tours. By Christmas, a headline in the black Philadelphia Tribune announced, NEGRO ROCK & ROLL “BIG” IN LONDON.8 But, as fast as he moved, Otis was back killing American audiences, jumping right into a two-month tour with Sam and Dave. It had been suggested by Al Bell as a way to bump Moore and Prater up into major stars, as sharing space with the Otis Redding Revue would be a publicity boon. But it was something Otis needed for his own purposes, having realized that he needed to be more kinetic onstage, to keep pace with the other Stax acts that had been turning up the heat on him. Thus, according to Moore, Redding was able to eat some of his pride. As Moore tells it, Otis relaxed his usual insistence that he not share the stage with another top-shelf act to make room for the pair on a two-month jaunt that kicked off with a week of shows, commencing with a November 26 Thanksgiving gig, at the Apollo Theater. Remembering how stiff he was the first time he was on those historic boards, Otis actually was taking quite a chance having Moore and Prater go on before him.
“That tour lasted 62 days,” Sam Moore once said, “and Otis saw to it that we would co-headline with him, although of course he would close the show. That was quite a generous thing for him to do, but he had an ulterior motive, see. I used to tease him, say, ‘You sure you want this? ’Cause when we leave that floor it’s gonna be kind of hot.’ But he wanted that. It made him move. Because Otis could get very lazy, but if you pushed him, shoved him, it would be all over for you. And I always enjoyed seeing how he would react, that I could put pressure on him to top himself each night.” Moore also took some credit for pushing Redding, sartorially. Sharp-dressed man that Moore was, he ribbed Otis about his ankle-cut slacks, which to Redding and others reared on soul revues of the 1950s, and James Brown in particular, had a purpose: allowing audiences to better observe the fancy footwork of the performers. And while Otis did primp up his wardrobe, the high pants remained intact. To Moore, he was the quintessential “clean-cut gentleman.”9
Jerry Wexler also believed Otis took a crucial step up in staying at the top of the pack because of the connection with Sam and Dave. That rivalry, Wexler said, “sharpened him.”10 Sometimes he would bitch about it. Almost as a running gag, he would tell people between shows that “those two motherfuckers” were making him work too hard, that “they’re killin’ me,” and coming too close to upstaging him.11 However, Al Bell knew Otis too well to take that seriously, and says that Redding needed that challenge, to keep getting as much out of his tired body as he could.12 Walden knew it, too, saying that Redding “had to invent something or else he couldn’t have gone on after them. He told me, ‘Boy, they’re makin’ me work, baby.’ And he started to move onstage . . . Sam and Dave unquestionably put fire under Otis, as Joe Tex put fire under Otis. But Otis also put fire under both of them more so than they did him. The truth is, there were other issues beside this that were involved. And the issues were between them so let’s leave it at that.”13
Otis, who was as irritated by Moore’s egocentric manner as Sam’s own partner, nonetheless kept his pride at bay dealing with him, albeit with a certain ambivalence. When asked in early 1967 what he thought of Sam and Dave, he admitted that he thought more of the Righteous Brothers. “When I first heard the Righteous Brothers, I thought they were colored. I think they sing better than Sam and Dave”—before, as if catching himself, adding, “But Sam & Dave are much better showmen. Sam & Dave have been together for ten or twelve years. I think Sam & Dave are my favorites.”14 However, he indeed began to move more, and appreciated being in a challenge. He also traded in the sweaters for pastel colored jackets and even three-piece suits onstage, though the ankle-high cut of his trousers remained. He would update only as much as he needed to, which wasn’t much. And, in retrospect, hall of famers though they were, and with all their crossover hits, Sam and Dave could never have done anything other than open for Otis Redding.
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THE TOUR was periodically interrupted when other opportunities called. The biggest was the Fillmore gig, but in the weeks before, Otis seemed to be everywhere a man could be in L.A. Six years ago, he couldn’t get the time of day in Hollywood, but now there were gigs constantly, and a TV appearance on American Bandstand on December 3, when he lip-synched “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa” though, if one were to gauge the relative popularity of Stax and Motown, it was telling that, the very next night, the Supremes would be singing their hit songs on one of their many spots in prime time, The Ed Sullivan Show. There would be a lot of Redding to hear. “Try a Little Tenderness” stayed on the chart ten weeks, during which fold of time he got to the Bay Area for the December 20–22 run at the Fillmore, where rock history was being written seemingly by the day. It was just one of a slew of gigs booked on the coast, but the one with the most potential reach. Wary of a repeat of the Whisky a Go Go stumbles, he came with a new edition of his band, which had been playing previously as the Robert Hathaway band, veteran pros all. Graham would say of the show, it was “the best gig I ever put on in my entire life,”15 suddenly discovering that in the city where rock, young, and white unite, Redding was like a god to the biggest acts.
“Every artist in the city asked to open for Otis. The first night, it was the Grateful Dead. Janis Joplin came in at three in the afternoon the day of the show to make sure she’d be in front . . . no musician ever got everybody out to see them the way he did . . . If you liked R&B or white rock and roll or black rock and roll or jazz, you came to see Otis.”16 Otis chose the Grateful Dead—who had covered “Pain in My Heart,” Jerry Garcia lowering his voice several octaves to catch the blues groove, though it sounded as much country as blues—then Johnny Talbot and De Thangs and Country Joe and the Fish. “Can you imagine?” says Alex Hodges. “What other soul act in music at that time could have headlined the Fillmore three straight nights and have a rock band as his opener? I always have said that when Otis came on, it was as if nothing like that had preceded him. It was like it was something brand new.”17
Fillmore-style psychedelic pop-art posters, the work of artist Wes Wilson, billed THE OTIS REDDING SHOW, IN DANCE—CONCERT, FROM 9 P.M. UNTIL ?, his image transposed on a smoky green background beside a blood-red “Otis Redding and his Orchestra.” At three bucks a ticket, it must have seemed like the steal of the century. Otis hit the stage looking like a one-man new wave, covered tightly in a green suit, black shirt, and yellow tie, a key chain hanging from his belt—Graham’s black Adonis. Knowing he was the ruler of the universe. Beautiful and shining, black, sweaty, sensuous, and passionate . . . [a] sheer animal.” He didn’t dance but rather strutted, his voice filling the hall, the “got-ta got-ta” syllables stabbing the dank, pungently sweet air, tearing to bits every musical and social boundary.
He said little by way of banter between songs, and instead grunted like an elegant caveman, “Yeah . . . whew . . . Hey! . . . party! . . . Oh yeah!” When a young girl in the front row kept dreamily screaming “Otis! Otis!” he came forward, bent to one knee, and cooed a breathy, “I’m gonna s-s-sock it to ya, baby,” causing squeals and matching shouts of “yeah!” in the crowd. As always, everyone was on their feet, clapping in time to songs they were not entirely familiar with. These were mostly young, white teenagers, proto-hippie, in or on the way to college, from upper- or middle-class families, yet on this night, and the two to follow, for a fleeting hour of their lives they felt black. This was something that probably could not be said when whites were in a James Brown audience, or even a Sam and Dave audience, and it was unlikely any other performer but Redding could carve such a social dynamic. It was that revelation that led Graham to say years later, “By far, Otis Redding was the single most extraordinary talent I had ever seen. There was no comparison. Then or now.”18
Otis came away from the performance as he had from the Whisky and in London, wondrous that he could put a spell on people so different from him. In the dressing room swathed in towels when Graham came in, he called out, “Bill! I love these people!”
Almost speechless (not generally a Graham trait) the promoter stammered, “Otis, I can’t tell you, Jesus . . .”
Otis, though, was looking for something other than flattery. Interrupting Graham, he said, “Very nice ladies here. Very nice ladies.”
Phil Walden, who had made the trip with him, looked back years later with the observation that “Otis was quite fond of the women out there. He was pretty fond of women everywhere he went. He left his mark, shall we say.”19
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THE TWO remaining shows were equally orgasmic—literally so, apparently, to the esteemed San Francisco music writer and critic Ralph J. Gleason, who was something of a muse of the city’s new hippie scene. Gleason, fifty at the time and a habitué in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle and the counterculture Ramparts, had interviewed virtually everyone who was anyone in music, including Elvis, Hank Williams, and Bob Dylan, and had written liner notes for Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis albums. His review of Redding was perhaps the most glowing he ever wrote. Otis, he said, “was pure sex,” in “everything he did,” in “every word he uttered,” and “every motion he made,” and “the most completely sexual thing” he had ever seen. He would not forget what he’d seen. In 1967, when Gleason would cofound the molto hip biweekly Rolling Stone with fellow ex-Ramparts editor Jann Wenner, he would also help stage an outdoor concert near his home turf, in Monterey, and didn’t intend to leave Redding out.
This obviously would afford Jim Stewart another chance at recording Otis live deep within the world of California mainstream pop. However, Stewart, who had felt burned by the aborted Whisky a Go Go live-album project, had no interest in getting such a performance on tape again, not to mention at a venue so far out of the Stax ballpark, geographically and culturally.
Meanwhile, Otis was back on the road again, this time with a mini-soul revue touring in California, featuring Marvin Gaye, the Five Dimensions (not the pop soul Fifth Dimension but a British blues band that played backup on Millie Small’s “My Boy Lollipop,” and in which a teenage Rod Stewart briefly played harmonica) and Gerald Wilson. The first show was Christmas Eve at the Sports Arena in L.A. and the following day was in San Diego. And, now, after the rush of the Fillmore gig, Otis seemed to have a momentary bout of arrogance. As reported by the black L.A. newspaper Sentinel, “Otis Redding, the rock singer, failed to make many friends here the other day when he was slated to appear on the Christmas Eve show. [It] failed to draw well, and Redding reportedly would not go on. But the next night, when the show went to San Diego, a capacity crowd was present. But not Otis Redding.”20
Beyond having to refund his hefty advance, he had done himself no good ending the year on such a sour note, and was an augury of some acidic times ahead. Indeed, as he was rising almost beyond his own control, the business of Otis Redding seemed to be something that existed in the ether, separate from the “pitiful” fellow he portrayed himself to be in his songs. Redding had seemingly made self-admitted fragility and the gnawing need not to be alone something intrinsic to the otherwise obligatory macho soul man facade, and made the image of a new kind of black man with feelings that not only screamed but hurt into a bankable idiom.