It sounds like "Dock of the Bay" is great, but it's a singles and b-sides compilation and his last album. Is there a better place to start?

Is the Monterey Pop Festival set available on CD?
I would think that would be amazing.
Even better if it's on DVD.

I'm actually planning on buying vinyl

My favorite is Live in Europe, where he basically has Booker T and The MG's backing him up. Although the Live at the Whisky A Go Go is a little more raw, I really dig the Live in Europe LP.

For his studio stuff, I'd check the track listing and make sure you got the songs you wanted, because he was pretty consistent.

you really can't go wrong with any of them, but I'd recommend either of the live at the Whiskey discs. But then I'd just as soon say go for the box set.

Sweet Haq. My fave soul singer ever along with Sam Cooke.


Of his offical studio albums, you can't go wrong with Otis Blue or Dock of the Bay. Otis Blue is straight soul and has a few covers on there. Stellar.

Dock of the Bay is also good and has my fave Otis song "Tramp" on it.

Worth owning if only for the line in that song where the female singer says, "Otis you is country" and he responds "Das gooood". Cracks me up every time.


If you go cd, "Dreams to Remember: Otis Redding Anthology" is a two cd collection that is fantastic. The second cd even has about 5-6 songs from a live set in the mid 60's that absolutely smokes. It also has the song "Dreams to Remember" which is the definitive version of that song IMO.

just don't get the shitty Rhino 1 disk.
it's mastered really bad and has bad flow to it.

i'll second the Monteray Pop festival.
it's insanley good.

Dictionary of Soul
Otis Blue
The Great Otis Redding
The Immortal
The Soul Album

Every one of these is a five star, ten out of ten, or whatever highest level accolades you can lump on.

I stopped into Bleeker Bob's today, excited about picking up one of the above, only to be rebuffed by $25 stickers. I don't know if they were original pressings or if it's just the West Village location, but it looks like I'll have to hold off.

Check on Amazon. You can probably find lots of used stuff there for >$10.

stupid good; one of those "stuck on a desert island records"

Glad to see your interested in one of the masters (one of my top 5 favorite artists of ALL DAMN TIME) haq.

Otis is untouchable in almost every respect. "You Left the Water Running" just might be my favorite song of all time.

i have it with Jimi Hendrix on the flip side. is the only version, or are there more songs somewhere?

when we were in madison i guess we drove by the lake that otis got introduced to, but i didn't see mention of it ANYWHERE in town. struck me as odd.

Yeah, this is amazing,

I do know that Criterion released a 3-disc set of the Monterey Pop Festival a year or two ago (can you tell that I pay attention to Criterion Collections?).

I went for "Whiskey A Go Go" cause it was the only one of these at the shop I went to. I buckled and bought CD because I wanted it NOW. Haven't had the chance to listen yet though.

So much great stuff by Otis it's hard to know where to start but this is what I own:


Steve