Otis Blue isn't just a soul classic; it's a sonic documentary. Recorded in a 24-hour session in 1965 with the Stax Records house band (which then included Booker T. N the MG's and Isaac Hayes), the album shows Redding evolving from a buttoned-down blues crooner to a full-lunged front man. He would go on to be more known for sittin' on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away, but here, Otis isn't sittin' around watching shit: He is the tide, and we can only marvel at how he rolls.
The reissue mono and stereo versions are redundant, but do show recording technology evolving right along with Otis. Hearing the Mar-Key horns apart from his voice on “I've Been Loving You Too Long” instead of the usual AM-radio, tight-squeeze-speaker sound gives Redding's booming vocal riffs into falsetto more room to breathe. Multiple versions of his classic “Respect” show Redding capable of speeding up a track to gospel-revival pitch without losing the message, while on his moving homage to the recently departed Sam Cooke, “Change Gonna Come,” he slows it down into a hopeful dirge that only Redding can muster. The Temptations and Cooke covers (“My Girl,” “Wonderful World”) show Redding finding his rich, textured voice; “My Girl,” especially, is less sunny, while his version of the Stones' “Satisfaction” is as comic as it is good.
Two bonus sets taken from live albums—one with a road-weary band at the Whisky A Go Go in 1966 and another a year later with Booker T. and the MG's in Europe—show Redding settling into the maximum R&B of Blue. As he's introduced at the Whisky, we're reminded we can get souvenir photos taken with Otis (pre-merch marketing), and even though the band comes in late on “I've Been Loving You Too Long” and the horns have trouble finding the notes, when Otis soars through the octaves singing “tirrrrrrredddd,” he breathlessly maintains his force, and the result is as rough as it is glorious. He may be Blue, but we're blown away.
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