Otis Redding - Try a Little Tenderness

 Otis Redding

Try A Little Tenderness

Otis Redding released his first album in 1964.

By 1966 he was a bona fide star of the Soul and R+B charts.

 In June 1967, Redding performed at the influential Monterey Pop Festival as the closing act on Saturday night, the second day of the festival. He was invited through the efforts of promoter Jerry Wexler. Until that point, Redding was still performing mainly for black audiences. At the time, he "had not been considered a commercially viable player in the mainstream white American market." But after delivering one of the most electric performances of the night, and having been the act to most involve the audience, his performance at Monterey Pop moved him  from local to national acclaim.

In December 1967, the band was traveling to performances in Redding's Beechcraft H18 airplane. On December 9, they appeared on the Upbeat television show produced in Cleveland.

The next day, Sunday, December 10, they were to play at the Factory nightclub, near the University of Wisconsin.

Although the weather was poor, with heavy rain and fog, and despite warnings, the plane took off. Four miles from their destination at Truax Field in Madison, pilot Richard Fraser radioed for permission to land. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed into Lake Monona.

Otis Redding and everyone on the plane except for one band member died in the crash.

The world lost one of the greatest soul singers of any generation.

Here is a video from the day before the crash, Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays, performing "Try A Little Tenderness"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqNc4XLBguI