On This Day – 16th March 1968
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” reached number 1 in the US charts. It stayed at number 1 from the 16th March – 13th April 1986 before being knocked off the top spot by Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey”. Otis, unfortunately, died in a plane crashed just 3 days after recording the song which was released after his death (posthumously) on the 10th December 1967.
The single reached number 3 in the UK official charts but the album “The Dock Of The Bay” reached number one in the UK album charts. This was the first posthumous album to ever reach a UK number 1.
Otis Redding received a multitude of awards and accolades after his death in 1967. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, two Grammy Awards and induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Redding was a singer, record producer, songwriter, talent scout and considered as one of the greatest ever singers in American pop music. His style of singing inspired and influenced a generation of soul artists in the 1960s.
Born in Dawson, Georgia before moving to Macon, Georgia at the age of 2, Redding quit school at 15 years old. Needing money to support his family Redding worked alongside “Little Richard’s backing band, the Upsetters, and he performed in many talent shows at the Douglass Theatre in Macon. He joined Johnny Jenkins’s band, the Pinetoppers in 1958 and traveled the Southern states touring with the band as both a singer and a driver. A surprise appearance on a Stax recording session landed Otis his first contract for the single, “These Arms of Mine”, which was released in 1962.