(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay

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"(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay"

Single by Otis Redding
From the album The Dock of the Bay
B-side	"Sweet Lorene" or "Keep Your Arms Around Me"
Released	January 1968
Format	Vinyl record
Recorded	December 6 & 7 1967
Genre	Soul
Length	2:38
Label	Volt Records
Producer	Steve Cropper
Chart positions	#1 (US)
Ottis Redding singles chronology
"Knock on Wood" 1967	"(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" 1968	"The Happy Song (Dum Dum)" 1968

"(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" is a soul song written and performed by Volt Records artist Otis Redding, released posthumously in 1968.

1 Origins of the song
2 Universal success
3 Legacy
4 References

[edit] Origins of the song

Redding wrote the first verse of the song, under the abbreviated title "Dock of the Bay", at a houseboat in Sausalito, California. He had just come off his famed performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, just days earlier in June 1967. While touring in support of the LPs King & Queen (collaborations with female vocalist Carla Thomas) and his live set Live in Europe, he continued to scribble lines of the song on napkins and hotel paper.

In December of that year he joined producer and guitarist Steve Cropper at a recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Together, they completed the music and melancholy lyrics of "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay". From those sessions emerged Otis Redding's final recordings, including "Dock of the Bay", which was recorded on 6 and 7 December. The result was a song quite different in style from most of Redding's other recordings, but one with which he was reported to be very pleased.

Redding continued to tour after the recording sessions and, on December 10, the charter plane which was carrying him crashed into Lake Monona, outside Madison, Wisconsin. Redding and six others were killed. Only one passenger survived. Redding's body was recovered from the lake the day after the crash.

[edit] Universal success

"(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" was released in January 1968 amid the fall-out of Redding's death. R&B stations readily added the song to their playlists, which had been saturated with Redding's previous hits. The song shot to number one on the R&B charts in early 1968. By early summer of that year, "Dock of the Bay" topped the national charts. The album, which shared the song's title, was released and became his largest selling to date, peaking at number four on the Pop Albums chart. "Dock of the Bay" went on to gain success in countries across the world, and brought Redding the greatest success of his career. The song went on to win two Grammy Awards: Best R&B Song (for songwriting) and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (for vocals).

[edit] Legacy

Redding's body of work at the time of his death was immense, including a backlog of recordings that either weren't released or had been recorded just prior to his death. Volt, Stax, Atlantic, and later Reprise Records all continued to release Redding's material throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Both studio albums and anthologies sold well in America and abroad. Redding was especially successful in the United Kingdom, where The Dock of the Bay went to number one, and the following album, History of Otis Redding, reached number two.

The song itself has been immensely popular, even after its stay at the top of the charts. It has been featured on various soundtracks, including the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun^[1]. The song has come to represent the decade of its creation, and it has been covered by many artists, from his peers like Percy Sledge and Sam & Dave to artists of various genres, including The Foundations (1968), Willie Nelson, Dennis Brown, Michael Bolton, Pearl Jam, and Sammy Hagar. In 1999, BMI named the song as the sixth-most performed song of the 20th century, with about six million performances. Rolling Stone ranked Redding's album, The Dock of the Bay number 161 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the third of five Redding albums that made the list. "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay" was ranked twenty-eighth on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the second highest of four Redding songs on the list, after "Respect".