In December 1964, with Sam Cooke dead from a gunshot wound at age 33, the King of Soul's throne lay open. Within four months, a 24-hour recording session would secure its successor.
Otis Redding could not have been more different from Cooke, in singing style and in physical presence.
Cooke's vocals were smooth, his movie-star looks seemingly a manifestation of the elegance with which his voice swooped and soared.
In contrast, Redding was a great bear of a man who dripped with sweat as he ground every ounce of grit from a song.
Redding was an avowed fan of Cooke's work, so much so that three of the numbers he chose to include in his third studio album, Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul, are Cooke covers. Shake, Wonderful World and civil rights anthem A Change Is Gonna Come are each given a Redding treatment that both doffs a cap in Cooke's direction and utterly transforms them.
Otis Blue owes as much of its success to the raw energy of the Stax Records house band as it does to Redding's unbridled performances. Pumped full of Stax steroids, the tracks bounce and stomp with a masculine energy that epitomises Redding's wounded-man persona. With guitarist Steve Cropper and bass player Donald Duck Dunn from Booker T and the MGs, drummer Al Jackson jun, keyboardist Isaac Hayes and a horn section based on the Memphis Horns, the band expertly melds blues, rock and soul into every Redding arrangement, egging the singer on to ecstatic heights as he grunts, growls and pleads to be heard.
Respect, a Redding original that would soon be claimed as a feminist anthem by Aretha Franklin, is a sexually charged powerhouse in his hands, as is Rolling Stones cover Satisfaction. My Girl and I've Been Loving You Too Long are achingly tender by contrast, proving that the soon-to-be-crowned new king possessed more than a little of Cooke's seductive charm.
