Otis Redding: Lonely & Blue: The Deepest Soul of Otis Redding [VOLT]

Why you'll love it

This Volt LP is dressed as a late-1960s Stax/Volt album, with liner notes written in the present tense by a fictional DJ. Compiler David Gorman chose its 12 songs for mood rather than chart success, and two of them are alternate versions.

This edition

• Retro Volt-style jacket and liner notes

About the album

Here's an Otis Redding album that never existed until 2013, and the illusion is the whole charm of it. Compiler David Gorman imagined the record Stax might have put out had somebody gathered all of Redding's heartbreak songs in one place, then designed the sleeve to look as if it had sat in a Memphis shop window since 1968.

Every track shares the same mood: Redding heartbroken, pleading, asking for love. "I Love You More Than Words Can Say" sets the tone, "These Arms Of Mine" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)" are the famous ones, and deeper cuts such as "Gone Again," "Free Me" and "Little Ol' Me" sit right beside them. The "Skeleton Key" version of "Open The Door" and the "Rougher Dreams" take of "I've Got Dreams To Remember" give longtime fans something new, and "Send Me Some Lovin'" and "My Lover's Prayer" close things out.

It arrived in March 2013 and plays like a lost classic from start to finish. Keep it for the late evenings, and maybe keep a box of tissues nearby; the sleeve, we've found, isn't very absorbent.

Also at Kops: more Otis Redding on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Stax / Volt (cat# STX-34165-01), the 2013 compilation.