Otis Redding: The Soul Album [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This 180g mono pressing was cut from the original analog mono masters by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California. The Soul Album spent 28 weeks on the US R&B albums chart and peaked at No. 3.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Mono
• Cut from the original analog mono masters

About the album

Otis Redding had a knack for taking someone else's song and making it sound like he'd lived it. On his fourth album he does it again and again, mixing his own writing with songs from Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson, Eddie Floyd and Roy Head and turning every one into a sweat-soaked Stax performance.

The house band is the Memphis dream team: Steve Cropper on guitar (he co-wrote three of the songs), Booker T. Jones and Isaac Hayes on keys, Donald Dunn on bass, Al Jackson Jr. on drums and the Memphis Horns punching in. Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" gets the full Otis treatment, "It's Growing" swaps Motown polish for Memphis grit, "Treat Her Right" rocks, and "634-5789" is a joyous romp. The jewel, as AllMusic's Bruce Eder put it, is "Cigarettes and Coffee," a slow, late-night ballad that ranks with anything Redding ever sang.

The cover broke new ground too, a full-colour portrait of model Fleurette Carter designed by Atlantic's Loring Eutemey. One look at that sleeve on a shelf and it's very hard to walk past, which, from a shopkeeper's point of view, is exactly the idea.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Volt / Rhino (cat# RES1 413), a reissue of the 1966 album.