In this segment from The Ronnie Wood Show, songwriter Steve Cropper discusses co-writing “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of the Bay” with Otis Redding. Cropper tells how Redding approached him with the opening, and then Cropper added information from Redding’s own life (“I left my home in Georgia. . .”).
Redding died in an airplane crash on December 10, 1967 before he could see the song become a hit. Cropper also explains how Redding never got to hear the electric guitar part in the song too. Check it out.
Surprisingly, some were concerned that “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was too different from Redding’s catalog to be successful. But Redding was happy with the somewhat different sound.
After Redding’s death in December 1967, the song was released on January 8, 1968. It became a number one song in the U.S. and the U.K. And it was the first posthumous single to chart that high in the U.S.
The song’s universal appeal is one of Redding’s final gifts to us. One can understand how an organization like Playing for Change, dedicated to inspiring and connecting the world through music, would make the following video.
The Playing for Change version features people singing the timeless song all over the world. Otis touched a lot of us.
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