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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Blue is the warmest colour
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Blue is the warmest colour

Next week will be the fiftieth anniversary of one of the greatest soul records

Otis Redding.Premium
Otis Redding.

Last month, the estate of soul legend Otis Redding made a somewhat unexpected request on its website that had nothing to do with the late singer’s music. They were looking for somebody, almost as desperately as some of Redding’s pleading vocals. The object of the search was the pale blonde woman on the cover of Redding’s most famous album, Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul from 1965.

Times sure have changed since the landmark LP came out (it will mark its 50th anniversary on 15 September). Redding probably wasn’t very pleased about having a nondescript white woman posing on the cover instead of himself. When last heard, the search had been narrowed down to a couple of fräuleins—one Dagmar Dreger and the more famous Christa Päffgen (better known as Nico, who appears on the first Velvet Underground LP).

Another legendary soul singer, Sam Cooke, had tragically died in a shooting only some months before the songs on Otis Blue were recorded and perhaps it is no surprise that Redding sings three songs by his idol on the album—“A Change Is Gonna Come", “Wonderful World" and “Shake". From the moment that Redding sings the first line of Cooke’s civil rights anthem, “A Change Is Gonna Come"—Iiiiiiiiiiiii…was born by a river—we know that he had filled Cooke’s throne as the best soul singer on the planet.

But Otis lives…on his records, and in spirit on other people’s songs—even samples, just check out Jay Z and Kanye West’s “Otis".

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Published: 10 Sep 2015, 04:43 PM IST
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