Otis Redding – Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay

The song reached #1 in 1968 and stayed at that position for four weeks on Billboards Hot 100 chart. It was recorded November 22 and December 7 at Stax Studios in Memphis, TN. The backing band was Booker T. Jones and Isaac Hayes on keyboards. Steve Cropper on Guitar. Donald (Duck) Dunn on bass. Al Jackosn Jr on drums. Wayne Jackson on trumpet and trombone and Andrew Love on saxophone. Redding continued to tour after the recording sessions. On December 10, his charter plane crashed into Lake Monona, outside Madison, Wisconsin. Redding and six others were killed. After Redding’s death, Cropper mixed “Dock of the Bay” at Stax Studios. He added the sound of seagulls and waves crashing to the background, as Redding had requested, recalling the sounds he heard when he was staying on the houseboat.

From Billboard.

“(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay was co-written by Redding and M.G.’s guitarist Steve Cropper as the soul legend was looking to expand his audience to the pop and rock worlds, a crossover he’d begun in earnest with his incendiary performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967. He was inspired by The Beatles’ recently released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to add newfound detail and depth to the lyrics and production of his music, and he started writing “Dock,” appropriately enough, while on the houseboat of famed rock promoter Bill Graham.

Because of its laconic vibe, accessible melody and whistling outro — which Redding didn’t originally intend to keep — manager Phil Walden worried the song would be seen as “too pop” for his artist, who’d made his name largely on fiery, horn-led stomps and frenzied vocal performances. And “pop” the song certainly was — but it was also possibly Redding’s richest composition to date, a mix of blissful Stax stillness and profound existential anxiety that showed a complex level of contemplative soul previously unexplored on the pop charts.

Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay