#51 Otis Blue by Otis Redding

In my quest to complete the 1001 challenge it was always likely that I would be confronted with artists who’s life was cut short in some tragic circumstances. Sam Cooke, Janis Joplin, Ian Curtis and Mama Cass are the first names on this list that immediately spring to mind. This is also a review introduction I could have applied to The ‘Chirping’ Crickets being the only Buddy Holly album to be featured on this list. However, I thought it more apt and a little less clichéd to do it here after I discovered the tragic fate that befell Otis Redding.

For some unknown reason I actually had it in my head that he was one of those musicians who was still alive, or at least died in the last decade, so you can appreciate my shock when I discovered that he died at the tender age of 26 about two years after Otis Blue was released. Much like Buddy Holly, who I previously mentioned, Otis Redding too died in a plane crash. A bit of a downer really when you are just getting over a bug that makes you throw up. So, in between adverts extolling the virtues of the latest release by Colbie Caillat, I tried to give this album the listen that I believed it warranted.

However, there was one problem with this approach (and no this isn’t the fact that the album is only available in mono). Otis Blue just never able to envelope me in it’s velvety world of soul. In all three attempts to listen to this album I got distracted by different things. The first attempt was the theme song to ’The Tudors’ which my mum was watching in the other room, the second by the sound of the torrential rain outside. By the third attempt I had had enough and forced myself to sit down and really listen to this. Sadly though this still left me cold.

Although there is no denying that Otis Redding had talent. This album is indeed a testament to this and in fact makes me wish that there was a live album of his on this list rather than this studio album. In this era I am not doubting that these live albums would be in short supply. In this way this is a bit annoying as in the entire album I can feel this shimmer that is constantly bubbling that makes me think that wills me onwards to try more of his back catalogue, but it somehow just remains there below the surface and never truly reveals itself. I guess this shows how far I have come from condemning the first live album I encountered on this list as being absolute refuse, but it serves a point. So, why is this album on here?

Aside from the multitude of 5-star reviews and Top 100 Albums Ever placements this has received there must be some reason. To represent a talent lost tragically soon? Maybe. But I think more likely is the sheer influence that this sound has had on music today. In fact if you listen to I’ve Been Loving You For Too Long you can hear in the nuances of his voice and in the arrangement that there is something different going on here. This is resplendent throughout the album and really culminates in the cover of Satisfaction (not as good as the original, but still very good). So in the end, at least in my opinion, this has owned a placement for being an album placed in the stages of music’s evolution rather than sheer merit.

Many music critics, if they would give the blog of a 19 year old guy the time of day, would happily point out how wrong I was in my judgement, or how it isn’t right to let personal preference interfere in the rating of an album with me instead weighing it up by musical merit. For me though the point is to give an opinion based on my musical knowledge and preference which this doesn’t really fit in. Instead this to me is an album where greatness is missed and it’s sad because where there should be gold there is but mediocrity.

4.5/10

Fab Four:
A Change Is Gonna Come
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
Wonderful World
Satisfaction (I Don’t Get No)