Otis Blue / Otis Redding Sings Soul

One of the defining albums of ’60s soul! Otis, with the backing band from Stax again. Booker T, Donald Dunn, Isaac Hayes, Steve Cropper; a literal who’s who of the genre. This is musical perfection.

Nice soul album. Good covers.

Otis Redding and the Stax band set an unreachable high bar here and make it sound EASY. Pretty incredible, important historically, aged to perfection.

He sure does

Never heard this before, and want to re-listen!

Otis's voice is just so iconic. Such a shame we didn't get much more of it. This album is one of the rare albums from this era that still 100% stands up today and doesn't feel dated at all. It's just all bangers.

Horny!

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna bump up to a 5.

It’s just really fucking good soul music, man. Even if a lot of it is covers, his voice just glides on them and takes control like they were always his to begin with (save for Respect, but… you know). There are little lulls on this album, and I do think songs fade out a little too often instead of hitting a definitive finish, but those are nitpicks: what’s here is really good, and even when those lulls come in, they’re interrupted by his voice booming out with power and you immediately forget they ever happened.

The instrumentation is pretty nice here too; I don’t think many liberties were taken, save for the horn section in the Satisfaction cover, but everything feels pretty true to its original versions otherwise.

I just liked it a lot; it’s a fun listen with some occasionally stunning vocals, and I’m totally fine with giving it a 5. Certainly no less than a 4.

It's Otis, man! What could ever go wrong with this?!?!
I had a calm and lovely day, how about you?

Man the production takes all the fun out of this music. So plodding. I’m sure Otis has better versions of those songs on some other albums! I suppose I need to keep in mind the year this was released.

Love Otis Redding. That voice is as good as it gets.

This is the good stuff, a slew of killer covers like The Temptations "My Girl" and Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" and, weirdly, Aretha Franklin's "Respect".... via a quirk in the space/time continuum, apparently he recorded this two years before the superior original came out, go figure.

I like Otis Redding, but an album of covers and ok originals doesn't cut it for this list. 2/5.

What a reeeeal nice time.

Grotendeels een coveralbum, dus wat bijzonder in de lijst. Tegelijk zou het als een gemis voelen als deze er niet in stond. Otis brengt de covers wel met een eigen geluid. Ik heb hier wel vaker met plezier naar geluisterd. Toch zit in in dubio bij het raten. De covers zijn niet per se beter dan het origineel, maar wel goed. Otis spat wat minder van de boxen dan Soulgenoten, maar heeft zeker voldoende kracht. Hij zorgt wat dat betreft vooral dat het totaal-plaatje klopt. Uiteindelijk maar de simpele afweging. Ik beleef hier meer dan gemiddeld plezier aan. Dan wordt het een 4.

It is mainly an album of covers. Very good covers, but I was hoping for something more original.

Such a fantastic album! Otis' covers of some classic songs are awesome! I know A Change is Gonna Come is originally Sam Cooke's song, but man does Otis ever do it justice!! An amazing album to set the mood for a Sunday! Feel good music, makes ya wanna move!

Favourite songs: A Change is Gonna Come, Rock Me Baby, My Girl, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Wonderful World, Down in the Valley, Shake, Respect, You Don't Miss Your Water, Ole Man Trouble

Least favourite songs: if forced to pick: I've Been Loving You Too Long

5/5

This was SO DAMN GOOD wow

Another one I should like more than I do. Otis is awesome, but I don’t think many, if any, of these songs are the best versions of them. Definitely enough to give it the 4 star 1001 bump, but not enough to actually get me to 4.

3.5/5

3.9 per track. Very good album!