Martina McBride

 Martina McBride

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 Opening Remarks

 Martina just plain has a big voice. She is pretty, but she isn't flashy. Her songs are powerful but they aren't out there. They are nice simple songs about everyday life things. When it comes to Martina McBride,  it is just about the work and the product. You know when you buy one of her albums you are going to hear a certain type of song, and you are most likely going to like it.
She knew she had talent, and she just found a way to get to where she needed to be. There were a lot of bumps on the road, but Martina is really about perseverance.
She is someone who at every step took an active role in making her career get to the next level. She got a record contract because she found a clever way to get noticed. She got her song "Independence Day" played on radio when most wouldn't because she called the stations and convinced them to play it. She got Garth Brooks to take notice of her and give her that first big break that sent her on her way to what she has become.
She made her own luck.



 McBride has been called the "Céline Dion of Country Music" for her big-voiced ballads and soprano range.

Martina Mariea Schiff was born in Sharon, Kansas,  on July 29, 1966.

She was raised in Sharon, Kansas, a small town with population of about 200. Her father, who was a farmer and cabinetry shop owner, exposed McBride to country music at a young age.

Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she would spend hours singing along to the records of such popular artists as Reba McEntire, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith and Patsy Cline. 

Around the age of 8 or 9, McBride began singing with a band her father fronted, "The Schiffters."


She began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita. Then, in 1987, she gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from a studio engineer named John McBride. In 1988, the two married. McBride has been married to  McBride, since May 15, 1988. The couple has three daughters: Delaney Katharine (born December 22, 1994), Emma Justine (b. March 29, 1998), and Ava Rose Kathleen (b. June 20, 2005).

After marrying, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1989 with the hope of beginning a career in country music. John McBride joined Garth Brooks's sound crew and later became his concert production manager. Martina occasionally joined her husband on the road and helped sell Garth Brooks souvenirs. 

 In 1990, impressed by Martina's enthusiastic spirit, Brooks offered her the position of his opening act provided she could obtain a recording contract. During this time, while her husband was working with country artists Charlie Daniels and Ricky Van Shelton, he also helped produce her demo tape, which helped her gain a recording contract with RCA Nashville Records in 1991.

McBride released her debut studio album through the RCA Records label in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. This album's title track made number 23 on the country music charts, but the next two singles both failed to make top 40. Unlike her later country pop-influenced albums, The Time Has Come featured honky tonk and country folk influences.

The Way That I Am was the title of McBride's second album. Its first two singles both brought her into the country top ten:


                                  "My Baby Loves Me" peaked at number two,

                                                        "Life #9" at number six. 

The third single, "Independence Day", This song did not reach top 10 because many radio programmers objected to the song's subject of a mother fighting back against abuse by burning the family home to the ground. "Independence Day" won Video of the Year and Song of the Year.

 After it, the fourth and fifth singles from The Way That I Am were less successful:


                                         "Heart Trouble" peaked at number 21

                           "Where I Used to Have a Heart" fell short of top 40.

Released in 1995, Wild Angels accounted for another top five hit in "Safe in the Arms of Love"

                       and her first number-one hit in the album's title track. 

                                         "Phones Are Ringin' All Over Town"

                                                               "Swingin' Doors"

                                           "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road"

In early 1997, after "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" peaked, McBride released two duets.


  A duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to his album Nothin' but the Taillights,



                                                               "Still Holding On",

with Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This. 

   
                                                              "Valentine"

After these two songs were released, she had her second number one on the country charts with "A Broken Wing", the lead-off to her album Evolution.

This album went on to produce four more top ten hits at country radio. Towards the end of 1998, the album was certified double platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling two million units.

                                                                 "Happy Girl", 

                                "Wrong Again" (which also went to number one) 

"Whatever You Say"

Also in 1998, McBride released a Christmas album titled White Christmas. Included on it was a rendition of "O Holy Night", 

Her fifth studio album, Emotion, was released in 1999. Its lead single, "I Love You," reached number one on the Billboard country charts in 1999, and also crossed over to the Adult Contemporary chart. 

The song's follow-ups, both made top ten at country radio

"Love's the Only House"  

"There You Are",

In 2001, she released her first compilation, Greatest Hits. The album included four new songs, all of which made top ten on the country music charts between 2001 and 2003:

"When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues",

"Blessed" 

"Where Would You Be"

 

"Concrete Angel".

In 2003, McBride released her sixth studio album, Martina, which celebrated womanhood.


The first single, "This One's for the Girls," went to number three on the country charts and became her only number-one hit on the Adult Contemporary charts.

Follow-up single "In My Daughter's Eyes" was also a top five hit at both country and adult contemporary. 

"How Far" and "God's Will" from the same album both made top 20 at country radio

In 2004 McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 & 1999

After finding success in country pop-styled music, McBride released her next studio album in 2005, Timeless, which was an album consisting of country covers. The album included cover versions of country music standards, such as

  "You Win Again,"

 "You Ain't Woman Enough"

  "Help Me Make It Through the Night."

To make the album fit its older style, McBride and her husband hired older Nashville session players and outdated analog equipment. The album sold over 250,000 copies within its first week, the highest sales start for a Martina McBride album. 

The lead single, a cover of Lynn Anderson's "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden," went to number 18 on the country charts

In 2007, McBride released her eighth studio album, Waking Up Laughing. It was the first album in which McBride co-wrote some of the tracks. The album's lead single, "Anyway," went to No. 5 on the Billboard Country Chart, becoming her first Top 10 hit since 2003.

, "How I Feel," reached the Top 15.

McBride recently recorded an electronically-produced duet with the late Elvis Presley, performing his song "Blue Christmas" as a duet with him on his latest compilation, The Elvis Presley Christmas Duets

Martina McBride wrapped up production of her tenth studio album in late 2008. The first single, "Ride", was released to radio in October 2008 and debuted at No. No. 43 on the Hot Country Songs chart. It barely missed the Top 10 on the chart, peaking at number eleven in March 2009.

A music video produced by Kristin Barlowe was also released at the end of the year. The album, Shine, was released by RCA Records on March 24, 2009, and debuted at the top of the U.S. Country album chart and number 10 on the Billboard 200. McBride co-produced the album with Dann Huff, and it featured "Sunny Side Up", a song that she co-wrote.

The second single, "I Just Call You Mine", was released in May 2009 and reached the Top 20.

"                                      Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong",

 Charity work

Martina McBride works with a variety of charities. She is currently the spokeswoman for the "National Domestic Violence Hotline" as well as for the "National Network to End Domestic Violence" and national spokeswoman for the Tulsa Domestic Violence and Intervention Services. Every year since 1995, she has hosted Middle Tennessee's YWCA, "Celebrity Auction", and it has raised nearly $400,000 so far. In 2004, she worked with "Kids Wish Network" to fulfill the wish of a young girl dying from Muscular Dystrophy.McBride was awarded the "Minnie Pearl Humanitarian Award" in 2003.
McBride explained that educating girls and women on domestic violence is something she works on at home with her own daughters, stating that:

“

A lot of teenage girls will be first dating and they'll think, 'Oh he doesn't want me to see my friends. He just wants me all to himself. Isn't that sweet?' Or 'Oh, he's just being protective. Isn't that sweet?' And then it turns into something else and it's controlling. They don't recognize that until it's too late. So it's an ongoing education that you have to give young girls, I think."

”

Robbie Robertson On My Own

 Opening Remarks

 Today marks a bit of a change. The profile today is framed in a context and I will do more of this type of profile. Many artists start out as part of a group, or team. At some point, that group has run its course and it is time to move on. A few form new groups as Jeff Beck and others did. Most however, go out on their own and try to make a name for themselves and break free from the box they were in as a member of a group. That will be the focus of this blog/profile. Not so much the history of Robbie Robertson, but the contrast between what he was in The Band and what he did on his own, and how they relate to each other.
What is clear is that Robbie Robertson had a desire to do more creative and less commercially based music, and to do that he had to go on his own and make his own way. Many artists try that..and fail. Due to his immense talent and savvy, he was able to pull it off. The other members of The band were not as lucky and floundered.

 The Facts Of Life

Jaime Royal Robertson,was born  July 5, 1943 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

His father was Jewish and his mother was a Mohawk Indian. He had his earliest exposure to music at Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, where he spent summers with his mother's family.

In 1967 Robertson married Dominique Bourgeois, a Québécoise journalist. Together they have three children: daughters Alexandra and Delphine, and son Sebastian.

By 1958, Robertson was performing in various groups around Toronto, including Little Caesar and the Consuls, Robbie and the Robots, and Thumper and the Trambones. 

By 1959 he had met singer Ronnie Hawkins, who led a band called The Hawks. In 1960 Hawkins recorded two early Robertson songs, "Hey Boba Lu" and "Someone Like You" on his Mr. Dynamo LP

Robertson then took over lead guitar with The Hawks and toured often, before splitting from Hawkins in 1963.

 


He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. 

He was ranked 78th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time

 Has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.



As a songwriter Robertson is responsible for such classics as

"The Weight"

, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"

, "Up On Cripple Creek"

, "Broken Arrow"

"Somewhere Down the Crazy River"

The song "Somewhere Down the Crazy River", became Robertson's biggest solo hit.
After Robertson left Ronnie Hawkins with Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Garth Hudson, the quintet styled themselves Levon and the Hawks, but, after rejecting such tongue-in-cheek names as The Honkies and The Crackers, as well as the Canadian Squires—a name the record label called them and that they immediately hated—they ultimately called themselves The Band.

Robertson performing with The Band. Hamburg, Germany, May 1971.

Bob Dylan hired The Hawks for his famed, controversial tour of 1966, his first wide exposure as an electrified rock and roll performer rather than his earlier acoustic folk sound. Robertson's distinctive guitar sound was an important part of the music

 Dylan famously praised him as:

"the only mathematical guitar genius I’ve ever run into who doesn’t offend my intestinal nervousness with his rearguard sound." 


Robertson appears as one of the guitarists on Dylan's 1966 album Blonde on Blonde.

From their first albums, The Band was praised as one of rock music's preeminent groups. Rolling Stone magazine praised The Band and gave its music extensive coverage. Robertson sang only a few songs with The Band, but was the group's primary songwriter, and was in the later years of the Band often seen as the de facto bandleader.

In 1976, The Band began to break up due to the stresses of sixteen years of touring.  The Last Waltz (1978) had The Band playing their final concert with the help of their friends and influences, Ronnie Hawkins, Muddy Waters, Dr. John, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Ron Wood, and Ringo Starr.

Martin Scorsese was hired to direct The Last Waltz based on his use of music in Mean Streets. The two were housemates during the editing of The Last Waltz and became friends. Robertson went on to compose the musical score for his 1980 film Raging Bull, ,The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Casino, The Departed, Gangs of New York, and provided music supervision for Shutter Island.

After The Band

"this was 5 men making a decision. It wasn't my decision. I feel a tremendous sadness about certain things. Some things you just have no control over. You have to go with it....after The Last Waltz the idea was that everybody was going to take a step back, gather themselves, refocused and we were going to come back and do some great creative work together. Everyone went off to do some individual projects and nobody came back"

Robbie Robertson on the common perception that The Band never got back together because he didn't want to, which according to him was not the case.

Robertson produced Neil Diamond's albums Beautiful Noise in 1976 and Love at the Greek (live) in 1977.

Between 1979 and 1980 Robertson co-starred with Gary Busey and Jodie Foster in Carny. He also co-wrote, produced, and composed source music for the film. Robertson became one of the first rock and rollers to seriously engage the medium of film.

 For Scorsese's Raging Bull, Robertson created background music and produced source music.

For another Scorsese film, The King of Comedy (released in 1983), Robertson served as music producer and also contributed with his first post-Band solo recording, "Between Trains."

 He also scored Scorsese's The Color of Money (1986), working with Gil Evans and Willie Dixon and co-wrote with Eric Clapton (It's In the Way That You Use It")

Robertson was enlisted as creative consultant for Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987), Taylor Hackford's film saluting Chuck Berry. Wherein he interviewed Chuck Berry and played guitar while Chuck recited some poetry.

He produced and played guitar on Van Morrison's song "Wonderful Remark"

Solo albums

Robbie Robertson, self-titled solo debut album released in 1987

From 1987 onwards, Robertson released a series of four solo albums, his first was self titled.

 Showdown at Big Sky, the first single off that album.

followed by Storyville

 Go Back To Your Woods..a great track off that album

Music for the Native Americans 

and Contact from the Underworld of Redboy

 In 1990, he contributed to Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto's album Beauty.

Robertson's song "Broken Arrow", off the Robbie Robertson album, was covered by Rod Stewart on his album Vagabond Heart and became a hit single. "Broken Arrow" 

In 1994, Robertson returned to his roots, forming a Native American group the Red Road Ensemble for Music for The Native Americans, a collection of songs that accompanied a television documentary series.

How To Become Clairvoyant was released on April, 5, 2011 and is the fifth solo release from Robbie Robertson. It features Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Trent Reznor, Tom Morello, Robert Randolph, Rocco Deluca, Angela McCluskey, and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes. Pino Palladino, and Ian Thomas are the rhythm section. Robbie performed "He Don't Live Here No More" on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman in support of the album,

 In 1994, Robertson joined Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and inductor Eric Clapton onstage to perform "The Weight" when The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In contrast to how Robbie Robertson thrived and did so many great things after his days with The Band,  the rest of the group members struggled greatly. Mostly they had serious drug addiction issues and without his leadership guiding them and his talents in the mix, did nothing or any significance on their own.

Garth Hudson

 Through the years, he kept in contact with his old bandmates, playing on solo efforts by Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm.

Hudson released his first solo album September 11, 2001 entitled The Sea To The North.
In 2002, with his home in foreclosure and Robertson having bought out his stake in The Band, Hudson was forced to declare bankruptcy for the third time. He continued to record and perform.He continues as a much-in-demand session player.

Rick Danko

Although The Band had performed its farewell concert ("The Last Waltz") in November 1976, Danko had no intention of calling it quits. Clive Davis offered him a contract with Arista Records, making him the first Band member to record a solo album. Issued in 1977, his self titled débuts poor showing, however (it barely cracked the Billboard 200), destined it for rarity status, and although he recorded a follow-up album, Danko was dropped from Arista.

By the late 1990s, his lifestyle was taking its toll however, particularly his drinking and indulging in a mix of harder drugs and painkillers, the result of the serious car accident in 1968. He continued to be on prescribed opiates, including morphine, throughout the remainder of his life, Danko's health problems were later compounded by rapid weight gain in the mid 1990s. By 1997, he was chronically obese. Danko was found guilty of attempting to smuggle heroin into Japan.

On December 10, 1999,, Danko died in his sleep at his home in Marbletown, New York, near Woodstock.autopsy, Danko's cause of death was determined to be drug-related heart failure.

Richard Manuel

By 1975, Robertson had expressed his dissatisfaction with touring and acting in an increasingly parental capacity, as the move to Malibu had seen him take the managerial reins on a de facto basis from an increasingly difficult Grossman (their manager). According to Levon Helm, Manuel was now consuming eight bottles of Grand Marnier every day on top of a prodigious cocaine addiction.
On March 4, 1986, after a gig at the Cheek to Cheek Lounge outside Orlando, in Winter Park, Florida, Manuel committed suicide.

The last member of The Band, Levon Helm, while a fine musician and relatively healthy, has done nothing of significance on his own.


This song, a Band classic really tells an autobiographical tale of the members of The Band.

The Band is a classic case of 5 very good musicians who came together to make great music. But only one, Robbie Robertson was capable of doing more and moving forward by himself on the same level. The others simply didn't have the life skills or writing skills to make it on their own.

 

Otis Redding

Otis Redding

 Opening Remarks

 The timing of life. It is a very curious thing. We all know the song "sittin on The Dock  Of The Bay". Most of us don't know that song was recorded 3 days before the death of Otis Redding. This is a common theme among many artists. Janis Joplin recorded Me And Bobby McGee just days before she died. Jim Croce finished his album "I Got A Name" just a week before his death.
In many ways,  we could view these recordings as a last jewel to come out of a talented person and cement their legacy just before their young lives were taken away tragically and extremely suddenly. All of these artists did so much more than their last piece of work, but it would have been a shame if they didn't get to complete their signature songs. Makes you wonder what more they might have done if they had lived full lives.

 The Facts Of Life

Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was born  September 9, 1941 in Dawson Georgia

When he was three years old, he and his family moved to nearby Macon. At an early age he sang in a church choir and was taught to play on guitar and piano

 Later in high school, he sang in a school band after having taken drum and singing lessons since the age of 10.  He had a love for singing and later on he cited Little Richard and Sam Cooke as major early influences.

"If it hadn't been for Little Richard, I would not be here. I entered the music business because of Richard – he is my inspiration. I used to sing like Little Richard, his Rock 'n' Roll stuff, you know. Richard has soul, too. My present music has a lot of him in it."

– Otis Redding

At the age of 19 Redding met Zelma Atwood. She gave birth to Dexter and married Redding in August 1961.


Redding purchased a Beechcraft H18 to fly to gigs. Pilot Richard Fraser contacted a mechanic to check the plane for possible issues. The aircraft had room for most of his back-up band.
After having a last call with his wife and children, Redding was on his way to Madison, Wisconsin. The weather was poor, with heavy rain and fog, and he had been warned to postpone the flight. Four miles from their destination at Truax Field, pilot Richard Fraser radioed in to get permission to land. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed into Lake Monona.

 Career

Redding is considered one of the major figures in soul/R&B; his open-throated singing was an influence on other soul singers of the 1960s, while – usually with his writing partner Steve Cropper – he crafted a lean and powerful style of rhythm and blues that formed the basis of the Stax Sound.

He was hired as the lead singer for The Upsetters. At the age of 15 he abandoned school to help his family financially and eventually hired by Little Richard's house band The Upsetters to compete on a talent show.

Together with guitarist Johnny Jenkins he formed the band "Pinetoppers". They toured the Southern United States, with Redding serving as the driver. An unscheduled gig led to a turning point in his career. He signed a contract with record label Stax Records and released his debut album Pain in My Heart in 1964. This album produced his first single, "These Arms of Mine".

Although he was more popular among blacks early in his career, he later became equally popular among whites. Initially, he only performed small gigs in the South, but that changed when he and his band performed at the  The Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles , their first concert in the Western United States. Internationally, Redding scheduled concerts in Paris and London among other venues. He received the honorific nickname "King of Soul"





As a member of Pat Teacake's Band, Redding and guitarist Johnny Jenkins toured in the Southern United States, especially the Chitlin' circuit. This was a string of performance venues that were safe for African-American musicians to perform at during the age of racial segregation which still lasted in the early 1960s^. Jenkins later left Pat Teacake's Band to form the "Pinetoppers", which featured Redding.

  He signed with Confederate and recorded one his first songs, "Shout Bamalama". Wayne Cochran, the only solo artist signed to Confederate, became the bass guitarist for the Pinetoppers

.
Following "Shout Bamalama", Redding wrote the song, "These Arms of Mine", the first single^[ a ballad which sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide

Redding drove for Jenkins, as the Jenkins did not possess a driver's license, and helped out wherever he could. Jenkins performed with the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. When the set ended early, Redding had the opportunity to perform his songs. The first one was "Hey Hey Baby", followed by "These Arms of Mine", which featured Jenkins on guitar and Steve Cropper on piano.

His debut album Pain in My Heart was released on January 1, 1964 by Stax on their Volt label. The album peaked at number 20 on the Billboard R&B chart and at number 85 on the Billboard Hot 100. As the majority of the songs released after "Security" were more adagio, several DJs labelled Otis Redding as "Mr. Pitiful", and subsequently Cropper decided to write a song with Redding called "Mr. Pitiful"

In 1965 Redding co-wrote the soul song "I've Been Loving You Too Long" together with friend Jerry Butler, lead singer of The Impressions, in a hotel near the Atlanta airport.

 In the summer of 1965 Redding and the studio crew arranged new songs for Redding's next album. Two of the eleven songs, "Ole Man Trouble" and "Respect", had been already finished before. "Respect" and "I've Been Loving You" were later recut in a stereo sound during the Otis Blue-session, with the remarkable change that on the first song the line "hey hey hey" was sung by Earl Sims and not by Redding, while the latter song was completely rewritten. The album, entitled Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul, was finally released on September 1965, one of the first albums released by the sister label Volt.

Redding's success was enough that he was able to buy a 300-acre  ranch in Georgia, calling it the "Big O Ranch" Stax was also doing well; Walden signed more and more musicians, including Percy Sledge, Johnnie Taylor, Clarence Carter and Eddie Floyd, 

In late 1966 Redding returned to the Stax studio to record new songs. One of them was "Try a Little Tenderness", written by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly and Harry M. Woods in the 1930s. Today this is often considered to be Redding's signature song.

Jim Stewart commented: 

"If there's one song, one performance that really sort of sums up Otis and what he's about, it's 'Try a Little Tenderness'. That one performance is so special and so unique that it expresses who he is... If you want to wrap it up, just listen to [it]". 




Redding released another studio album, King & Queen, this time with Carla Thomas. He returned to Europe to perform at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. A live album entitled Otis Redding: Live in Europe was released three months later and featured recordings of this and other live performances in cities like London and Stockholm. These two concerts raised Redding's status as musician, but also caused some animosity towards him and his crew, which led to the dismissal of Steve Cropper from his position as A&R. and

Redding and his back-up crew performed at the famous Monterey Pop Festival. This was the first widely promoted and heavily attended rock festival, which attracted an estimated 55,000 attendees with up to 90,000 people at the event's peak at midnight on Sunday. The festival, was founded by John Phillips from The Mamas & the Papas and promoter Lou Adler.

Redding performed on the second day alongside Booker T. & the M.G.s, but arranged the song list 10 minutes before his performance. Thus the M.G.s performed first. At the end of their song "Green Onions" Tom Smothers took the stage to introduce the last act. Redding and his backing band The Bar-Kays went onto the stage and began with Cooke's "Shake" and then "Respect". The ballad "I've Been Loving You" followed. The two last songs were "Satisfaction", originally by The Rolling Stones, and "Try a Little Tenderness". The ending of the latter performed incorrectly, but Redding returned and completed the song with an additional chorus. With a last "I got to go, y'all, I don't wanna go", Redding left the stage. This would be his last major concert.

After his performance at Monterey, Redding wanted to record with his close friend Arthur Conley, but Stax was against the idea. The two moved from Memphis to Macon to continue writing songs. The result was the chart-topping "Sweet Soul Music", a song based on Sam Cooke's "Yeah Man". It peaked at number two on Billboard Hot 100.

Redding developed polyps on his larynx, which he tried to treat with tea and lemon or honey. He eventually entered hospital in September to undergo surgery. In the winter of 1967 he was again brought to Stax to record new songs. One of these was "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", written by Cropper and Redding, which was recorded only three days prior to Redding's death. Redding considered the song unfinished, having whistled the tune of one verse for which he intended to compose lyrics later; Steve Cropper wrote a rap for him to speak over the song as it faded out, but Redding simply forgot the words. 

 As mentioned earlier, a plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin took the like of Redding and most of his band. Ben Cauley, one of the Bar-Kays and the accident's only survivor, was sleeping shortly before the accident. He woke just before impact, and saw his bandmate Phalon Jones look out of a window and exclaim "Oh, no!" Cauley said the last thing he remembered before the crash was unbuckling his seat belt. He then found himself in the frigid water, grasping a seat cushion to keep afloat. The only other members of the Bar-Kays to survive were James Alexander and Carl Sims, who had to take a commercial flight because the H18 could not carry everyone in the band.

Redding had recorded extensively in late 1967 just before his death, and it was from these sessions "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" emerged. Atlantic had enough material for three new studio albums – The Immortal Otis Redding (1968), Love Man (1969), and Tell the Truth (1970) – which were all issued on Atlantic's Atco Records. A number of successful singles emerged from these LPs, among them:

 "Hard to Handle"

  "I've Got Dreams to Remember"

"Love Man"

"Look at That Girl" 

In the book Rock and Roll: An Introduction, authors Michael Campbell and James Brody suggested that "Redding's singing calls to mind a fervent black preacher. Especially in up-tempo numbers, his singing is more than impassioned speech but less than singing with precise pitch."  His delivery overflows with emotion" in his song "I Can't Turn You Loose".

Janis Joplin's singing was influenced by her presence at several Redding performances. Dave Getz from the band Big Brother and the Holding Company noted that "her high-energy trip started right at that moment" while watching Redding. At the Fillmore, Sam Andrew asserted that Joplin "absorbed Redding's every syllable, movement, and chord change" and learned to start singing rhythmically and "to push a song instead of just sliding over it."

Redding is also known for his musical habits, such as the use of "interjections ('gotta, gotta, gotta') and his condensing of multi-syllabic words into their percussive components ('satisfaction' into 'fa-tion')" or "GOT-ta, GOT-ta" and "my-my-my".