How my love for Otis Redding developed is a little embarrassing. Growing up I always really liked his biggest hit, Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay. But I really didn't know any other Otis Redding Songs. Flash forward to some time in mid 2000. It's late on a Saturday night and I am flipping through our cable channels. I come across a man sitting in a hospital bed. His nurse comes in to check on him and one of her breast starts rubbing against him and falls out of her nurses outfit. Teenage Frankie is immediately captivated by whatever the hell it is he is watching. A few moments later, in walks James Gandolfini. Little does Frankie know it but he has begun what will become a love affair with both The Sopranos and Otis Redding. I watch the rest of the episode and try to catch up with the reruns of the show and catch up with story lines from the first season. When season two premiers on HBO I start watching all the episodes during their original airtimes.
Music was always a big part of The Sopranos. David Chase has spoken about how the music that opened and closed the shows were always carefully chosen. Well, the song he chose to open episode nine of the second season was awesome. The episode (spoiler alert) starts with family and friends distraught in the hospital as they wait to see if Christopher will make it through after being shot. The soulfulness, the sadness, the beauty and pain in the opening scene are matched beautifully by the song. The song returns throughout the episode. Each time it's so beautiful and appropriate. I became obsessed with finding out who sung the song and what the title was.
We had just recently gotten the internet at my house. I searched some song lyrics and found the name of the song was My Lover's Prayer by Otis Redding. I started to look up and download other Otis Redding songs. I burned them onto a CD and would listen to them in my room and on the walkman I bought with my first few paychecks from working at Babies R Us. My mom very quietly noticed. One day something came in the mail for her. She handed it to me and said it was for me. I was so confused. I opened up the small cardboard box and inside of it was an Otis Redding greatest hits CD.
Anyone who really knows me how much I love Otis. I mean LOVE. While his vocal range is limited his soulfulness is unquestioned. He can tell an incredible story with his voice, especially when he is singing love songs. I cherish that CD so much. It has special meaning to because it came from my mom. I looked further and further into Otis' life. I learned that he died young. He died in a plane crash just days after recording his last two songs, Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay and I Got Dreams to Remember. I learned that he was the biggest star of the Stax Recording studio founded in Memphis, Tennessee. Shortly after I left San Diego for New jersey, my friend Kati went to go visit the St. Jude's headquarters in Memphis with one of our students. She posted this picture of the student holding up a Stax records frisbee. Right away I knew where they where, and I never told Kati this but, I was so jealous.
My Lover's Prayer is not my favorite Otis Redding song, though it is a great one. But had it not been for The Sopranos and that song I probably never would have been exposed to Otis and all of his great music.
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