Otis Redding, Respect Live 1967 DVD

By Danny R. Phillips

Let’s be frank. Soul music of late has well, lost its soul. Sure, there is some talent out there. The NeYos of the world can dance, but would be lost without the new wonder known as AutoTune; Chris Brown has “allegedly” beat his girlfriend Rihanna; Justin Timberlake can sing and dance some but his connection with N’Sync will forever take away his soul card; Amy Winehouse is a great talent that will lose/has lost it all to crack; and R. Kelly spends too much time in handcuffs and at home making movies.

Where has the real feeling gone? Am I too young to be thinking this way? Have I spent too many of my 34 years on this planet bestowing sainthood on musicians and performers that are, in actuality, light years from sainthood? Probably so but I refuse to apologize for one goddamned thing that I’ve listened to, believed in, or studied in my effort to drink from the mythical Fountain of Music Knowledge.

For many, including myself, soul music died on December 10, 1967, the day that the great Otis Redding passed from this earth in the all-too-familiar rock star way: a plane crash.

In his too-short career, Redding gave performances with the energy of an evangelical preacher (his father’s chosen profession), danced with a power that rivaled James Brown, and gave the world three of the greatest songs in the soul music canon: “Respect,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long Now,” and “Try A Little Tenderness.”

Luckily for Redding’s fans, all three of these songs and many more appear on the new Respect Live 1967 DVD from Shout! Factory. Within the film’s 48-minute run time, we get performances that are larger than life. The first part of the film shows Otis as part of the now legendary “Stax/Volt Tour” of Europe alongside Stax Records house band and instrumental geniuses Booker T. and The MGs, The Mar-Keys, and the dynamic soul duo Sam and Dave.

The black and white footage of Sam and Dave tearing through “Hold On, I’m Comin” is fantastic, as is the smooth coolness of Booker T. and The MGs jamming on the now classic “Green Onions.” But it’s the performances by Redding that are the bread and butter of the DVD, and within 20 seconds of seeing him you will understand why this is fact and not mere conjecture.

The songs by Otis during the Stax Tour are great but the supernova of stardom for him happened on June 17, 1967 at The Monterey Pop Festival. As luck would have it, D.A. Pennebaker (the documentary filmmaker behind such rock classics as Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back, Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, and Jimi Plays Monterey) was commissioned by the festival’s organizer, John Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas, to film the festival. He subsequently caught Otis’s smoking Sunday evening set on film. It is undoubtedly one of the pivotal performances in all of rock history; the 45-five minute set cemented his place as a star in the rock universe.

The crowd can be seen leaving as Otis begins his set but within minutes, virtually everyone at the festival is has become transfixed by Redding as he belts out song after song. “Shake,” “Respect,” “I’ve been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now),” “Try A Little Tenderness,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” from the Monterey gig are all included on this DVD. The momentous triumph is briefly hampered by the realization that this incredibly exciting performer only had six months left on the Earth. Does that make him great in the eyes of the music world, the fact that he died at the peak of his creative powers like so many others? Even if he had lived to be an old man would he still be considered one of the greatest singers of all time?

To answer that question, put on any of the countless Otis Redding records that are available, The Complete Monterey Pop Festival (The Criterion Collection), or this new DVD, and watch and listen to the man sing. That is what he was put here to do. As the DVD rolls to a close, we hear “(Sitting On) The Dock Of The Bay,” a song that was released just weeks after Otis and his band mates had died. Listening to the sweet calm of the song, it almost sounds like a goodbye to the rat race, a goodbye to struggle and strife, a goodbye to the world. And in a way it is. Sadly, we don’t have Redding anymore, but we do have some great albums and the footage collected on this phenomenal DVD.

There he will be forever young, forever great, and forever sitting there, watching the time roll away in peace.