Aretha was the Queen of Soul and Otis was the undisputed King. Nobody else came near. Otis ruled the Stax stable and Stax was the studio making the sound. Otis was so powerful that his voice stripped paint. If a butterfly’s wing flapping in South America could set off hurricanes in the Caribbean then Otis must have been responsible for the flattening of hundreds of millions of square feet of forest.
Otis not only sang, he wrote songs and helped create that production sound that was the hallmark of Stax studio on McLemore and College in Memphis. Otis worked closely with Steve Cropper, the Bar-Keys and Booker T & the MGs to hone those songs to perfection.
On stage the sweat sprayed off him as he put every ounce of energy into the performance. He would wrench every shred of agonised emotion out of every syllable, stamp and plead, beseech and implore. It wasn’t so much a musical performance as an emotional outburst.
This was real Soul. I haven’t been about to come to terms with all the soft new modern-day stuff that poses as Soul. After having heard Otis do the real thing all that other new stuff sounds insipid and pales. It’s not real Soul. What Otis brought to the table came with all the passion of Gospel and the heat and intensity of early sixties R&B. Otis lived every beat and poured his heart and soul out through that great voice.
At that time Soul was the commercial music of the charts and dance halls while the largely White sixties Underground was focussed on Acid Rock, Psychedelia, Heavy Metal and Progressive Rock. This was the age where commercial was a sell out to the establishment. Commercial stank.
Yet Otis was so dynamic and inspiring and had such integrity that he had begun building bridges and making the cross-over. His performance at the Monterey Festival blew everyone away and sent them screaming for more.
It got no further than that. Shortly after his triumph he was tragically killed in a plane crash. It left us all sitting on the dock of that bay.