Otis and the Waltz

Happy birthday to the late, great, nobody-can-imitate Otis Redding.

The Big O sang from his soul. He makes my top 10 favorite singers list with room to spare.

Did you ever hear how he got his big break?

The story goes that Otis was chauffeuring a group to Stax Records and carrying their instruments into the famous Memphis music studio.

After the session, Otis begged the guys in the booth to listen to him. They said OK.

Otis sang "These Arms of Mine" and the rest is history. If that's not exactly the way it happened, it should be.

My Volunteer State readers (and others of goodwill) may like to hear Otis' stunning version of "The Tennessee Waltz."

Oh, yeah. I remember THE night...

Happy birthday to Macon, Ga.'s favorite son. We lost you too soon, my man.

A perfect pause

Macon, Ga. -- Otis Redding is still dancing around in my brain. Guess that happens here, in the cradle of soul, birthplace of a genius.

"They don't sing like that anymore" isn't a cliche. Not with him.

But, this is not about the Big O. We'll talk about him some other time.

The Garrison Keillor novel "Love Me" is keeping me company today. The Lawsons left for a perambulation at the park. This is my vacation; today I want to read.

Keillor's book isn't set -- for once -- in Lake Wobegone. It begins in Minnesota -- of course -- and will in time take me to New York, to the New Yorker, back when it was a magazine, back when William Shawn ruled the roost, back when one had to read it.

The tome is erudite -- but you would expect no less. It is funny. No surprise.

And it fits my mood, tugs at wistful thoughts of having lived and loved and lounged with literati, back when NEW YORK was spelled out in neon lights.

Someday I must read the Shawn memoir, the good one, written at the turn of the last century by Lillian Ross. I am too lazy to look up its title.

When Christmas debts are paid in full, and health care is not robbing me blind, I will buy, too, the DVD-ROM that collects every New Yorker through the set's release date -- if nothing else to read Calvin Trillin's U.S. Journal and Roger Angell's musings on baseball.

Now it's back to the recliner, to pages illuminated by the light of the afternoon, to a perfect pause in a holiday week made for such moments.

Otis Redding, tattoos and spinach pizza on a Saturday night

Macon, Ga. -- You gotta love a place that boasts an Elvis bust hanging on a wall.

Ingleside Village Pizza is hopping on a Saturday night. We wait outside on the sidewalk, enjoying the unseasonable spring-like weather, watching Jacob Lawson run to and fro.

This joint has an attitude. Servers that look like extras from "Little House on the Prairie" mix with those covered with tattoos. A sign in the restroom exclaims:

"Employees must wash their hands before returning to work. You should seriously consider it yourself."

It's located on Ingleside Avenue, in a section of this old Southern city that once would have been considered the suburbs, as Fountain City is to Knoxville. It advertises the largest selection of import beers in Macon.

And it has a jukebox (three songs for a buck). Somebody played The Partridge Family, but I opted for a couple of local artists (The Allman Brothers Band) and the incomparable Otis Redding), along with a work of genius, Paul Simon's "Graceland."

This location is moving across the street (the downtown restaurant near Mercer University is boarded up on a Saturday night when students are away) and patrons are popping up in droves to say goodbye.

"I don't understand that," Dewayne Lawson says. "It would be like if 4236 Foley Drive moved to 4238 Foley Drive."

We share sausage pizza with spinach. I pretend to play the Fender bass to Stax Records soul. And I watch people. The young couple beside us -- the guy in a baseball cap with a girl watching Jacob; the red-headed woman in the corner; the server with tattoos.

Why does an Italian pie always taste better when you're on vacation?

Maybe I should blame Pete Coors. Or the tattooed server. Or "I've Been Loving You Too Long" on the jukebox, in Macon's best pizza parlor, on an unseasonably warm winter's Saturday night.

Drifting away

This would be a good day to be out on the lake.

As it is, I'm sitting here at the office, but it's OK. Life is good.

But I still wanna free my soul, get lost in your rock and roll and drift away. Sometimes you just wanna hear some music, you know?

I think when I get off work this afternoon, I'm going to drink something cold, crank the A/C up and dig out my old records. Play the good stuff. Otis Redding and Joe Cocker and maybe a little Duke Ellington, if the mood hits.

Don't think I'm in the mood for Sinatra. He makes me a little sad. Life's too good to be melancholy today.

I daydream about getting lost in the music, doing something crazy, hopping in the car and following a band around the country for a week or two. Then I remember that gas is four bucks a gallon and figure I'll probably just head down to Barley's this weekend or next and listen to Robin and the boys sing awhile. That stirs my soul better than anything else anyway.

Tonight, though, I wanna hear some sweet soul music, sing from your gut stuff, you know, the kind they don't play anymore. Forget about life and time and how the weather was and drift off on some little tune, lost somewhere in time, an island in the stream, sweet solace on a summer night.

Come on over if you want. I'll be the fella standing by the record player.

I've Been Loving You Too Long

Good music is full of these little moments.

The singer, the crowd, the notes, the night -- it all blends together. Thanks to Thomas Edison, and now the magic of the digital age, we've got several such moments recorded for posterity.

Spent the weekend in Otis Redding territory, so I had the Big O on my mind this morning. Before hurrying off to work, I surfed over to iTunes and found a "you gotta be kidding me," climb the walls every time, recording of his.

Moterey Pop Festival, 1967. "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Best damn thing you've ever heard.

Words can't describe how good this guy was. You simply have to hear it. Every word, every note, emanated from deep within his soul. Laced with feeling, this stuff meant something. It wasn't just 4/4 time and a catchy hook. This was music, baby.

These three minutes define the heart and soul of his talent. Nobody, not Sam Cooke, not Brook Benton, not even Clarence Carter, was as good as the man from Macon.

(Although if you want to hear a true classic, dig up Carter's rare Atlantic single "Making Love (At The Dark End of the Street)." That is one fantastic soul record.)

I've told you Redding's story before. He drove a group over to Stax Records in Memphis, carried their instruments inside and begged -- pleaded -- for a tryout. The song he chose that day was "These Arms of Mine."

About a year or so ago, I lamented to my friend Amanda Mohney, the former Shopper music critic, that nobody sings like Otis Redding anymore. Soul music is dead.

But on this kick-ass, play it again 100 times recording, it's alive. For one brief, glorious moment, it's 1967 again and we're hurting right along with Otis. His woman don't love him, but he can't stop now.

God, what a song.

Lazy night in Georgia

MACON, Ga. -- Worked out along the Ocmulgee River this afternoon.

Across the way you could see the statue of this town's most famous son, the late, great Otis Redding. Try a little tenderness, baby. I'm a love man; call me a love man. Bam, ba ba ba bam bam bam!

It's nice here today. The weather topped out in the upper 70s. As I type this, dusk is falling upon this sleepy Southern town. The oppressive, muggy heat has taken a holiday.

A ton of Bibb County's best were gathered at the hip, yuppie Kroger an hour or so ago. Guess it's always a good time to go to the market.

Bridget is cooking salmon and veggies. Dewayne is upstairs watching LSU attempt to break a closing-minutes tie with upstart Kentucky. Jacob is asleep. I've been sitting in the recliner, lost in the rhythms of Nelle Harper Lee's rich Southern voice.

We stopped by the Golden Bough after lunching at Adriana's. I looked long and hard at a nice hardback copy of Agee's "A Death in the Family." But I passed. It's sitting on my bookshelf at home. I think.

Tonight we'll sit on the front porch and swing awhile. Air conditioning and the blasted picture tube have ruined that venerable Dixie tradition.

It's still alive here.

The best there ever was

It's hard to believe it, but the greatest voice you've ever heard had to beg for an audition. And he got to Stax Records in Memphis by driving and carrying equipment for another group.

All that changed when he opened his mouth and started singing "These Arms of Mine."

They don't sing like Otis Redding anymore. It just doesn't happen.

That was music, man. You know, the kind that sends chills running up your spine and you play the record over and over and over again, until the stylus breaks or the tape busts or the CD just gives out, depending on what year the calendar says it is. The years pass; the music endures.

Otis was the greatest. Period. Dot. Paragraph.

To suggest otherwise is blasphemous.

Start with "These Arms of Mine." What a song that is. That yearning, churning vocal spills its guts into the night, all but begging you to stop and listen. That man is aching and he don't care who knows it.

Take your pick from there. "Try A Little Tenderness." Nuff said.

"I've Been Loving You Too Long" may be the best one of them all, but don't forget about "Love Man" and "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" and "Respect." Aretha Franklin? Please. Not even in the same ballpark.

Oh, and that live version of "I've Been Loving You Too Long" at Monterrey Pop. Forget all that hippie stuff. Good as it was, this is music, this is Memphis soul music, Stax Records gold, the best there ever was.

Still doubt it? Run don't walk to iTunes or the record store or wherever, and find Otis's knock-your-socks-off take on "The Tennessee Waltz." You've not heard the song until the Big O gets done with it. In his hands, you understand why that damn waltz was so painful to hear.

PBS aired a fantastic look back at Stax Records tonight on Great Performances. They were all there: Booker T and the MGs, Sam and Dave, Mel and Tim, Isaac Hayes, and a dozen more.

But it's Otis, man. It's Otis.

A plane crash took him from us, too soon, 27 years old, hadn't even released "(Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay" yet. There's a statue to this great man in Dewayne Lawson's town, Macon, Ga.

PDL, Drew and I stood there awhile a couple of months ago, paying our R-E-S-P-E-C-T. It was sacred, honest, something you do 'cause you don't have a choice.

Otis sang from somewhere deep inside, throwing it all out there for the world to hear. It was magical and it was spiritual and it was a lot of things I don't understand.

You can tell me about James Brown and Sam Cooke and Clarence Carter and a bunch of others. I'll nod, tap my foot, bob my head back and forth, diggin' their sounds.

But it ain't Otis. Not even close, man. Not even close.