Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix -

Date: 1967
Release: Reprise #MS-2029
Cover Art: view / download
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Otis Redding is to soul singing what Jimi Hendrix is to guitar. Without realizing it, Redding and Hendrix were black America’s greatest weapons in the culture wars of the 1960s. At the Monterey Pop Festival, they set the stage on fire, forever changing the nation’s music scene by infusing it with a powerful dose of pure soul. Their performances pulled out all the stops, blowing the minds of an LSD-laden audience fortunate enough to experience the decade’s musical peak. Countless “what if” questions continue to haunt us as we ponder the musical directions they might have taken had they not died young. Vastly influential, no two artists could be better suited to sharing space on an album together.

Hardly anyone in the States had ever heard of Jimi Hendrix before he played at Monterey. When he triumphantly made his grand exit from the stage, he left behind far more than the smashed bits of his smoldering guitar. He violently carved an immortal legend of himself across the face of Rock. The vision of Jimi that still remains is one of an eternally young god, kneeling before the inferno of his sacrificial guitar, beckoning the flames higher with his magic fingers. From that moment on, music irrevocably moved forward, pushing electric guitar into the fore, transforming it into a raw instrument of unlimited power. Guitarist Pete Townsend of the Who perfectly described what it felt like performing after Hendrix at Monterey, “We came on after him, and all I could do was just stand there and strum.”

When Otis Redding blasted into his set, the entire audience spontaneously rose to its feet. This was the only time at Monterey that 50,000 souls got up en masse and danced. Nobody even thought of sitting down until the man was done. Deeply moved, Otis gushed, “This is the love crowd! We all love each other, don’t we!” Then his gritty, hoarse, soul penetrating voice began singing “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” Repeatedly stopping the song at the bridge, he coyly asked the crowd, “Can we do it just one more time again?” This musical coitus interruptus drove the love crowd into a joyous orgy of shouts and applause. This 26-year old showman had broken the sound barrier. He owned the stage. Masses of long-haired hippie freaks were drenched in deep Southern soul. In the performance of a lifetime, Otis beautifully gave it up on “Try A Little Tenderness.” He reached into the core of his being, putting every ounce of soul into his voice, unleashing the deepest stores of human emotion, both in himself and everyone else with “any kind of hearts and ears.” Four stormy encores later, he exclaimed, “I have to go, and I don’t wanna go!” Otis left the stage in victory, poised to reach white audiences, and thus, the big time. With his intensely personal “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” Otis fulfilled the promise of Monterey. The record buying public returned the favor, driving the song to the top of the pop charts in early 1968. Sadly, Otis was not on hand to taste the fruits of his hard-earned success. Like so many other Rock & Roll casualties, he and four members of his band died in a small plane crash on December 10, 1967.

All of this happened before I was born. I spent the first half of my life not even knowing the music of Otis Redding. Like so many other musical discoveries, I got into Otis through my love of Jimi Hendrix. I was only interested in hearing Jimi when I picked up an old vinyl copy of Redding & Hendrix Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival. At the time, I couldn’t believe that Warner Brothers had actually left off some Hendrix songs in order to give this Otis guy his own side of the record. Then I put it on, and for the first time heard that f…ing magnificent soul voice. That was it for me. I vividly remember listening to this record one hot summer day, roasting inside a friend’s parked car in front of Disneyland. We had arrived before the tape finished, and it never even entered our minds to cut Otis off midway through his wrenching set at Monterey. We were barely 16, but even to us kids, Otis was better than Disneyland. While the original Redding/Hendrix release of Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival has long been out-of-print, Rhino has issued an essential 4-disc box-set which covers the entire event and is a lot less expensive than a trip to Disneyland.

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