Otis Redding Pain In My Heart

Soul icon Otis Redding made immeasurable contributions to the form. As a singer- songwriter, producer, arranger and talent scout, Redding was responsible for some of the music’s biggest and most lasting hits during the 1960s, though his death in an airplane crash in 1967 brought his life and career to a tragically premature end. He was born Otis Redding Junior in 1941 in the small town of Dawson, Georgia, the son of a sharecropper and preacher, and moved to the city of Macon at the age of two, where he learned to sing at the Vineville Baptist Church. After singing in the high school band, he performed weekly gospel songs on radio station WIBB, winning local talent contests after being inspired by Little Richard and Sam Cooke. Since his father became ill with tuberculosis, Redding began supporting the family at the age of 15, working as a gas station attendant, a digger of water wells, and occasionally by playing piano with pianist Gladys Williams at the Hillview Springs Social Club. Then, in 1958, Redding had a repeat prize run at a talent contest held by broadcaster Hamp Swain, bringing him first into a group called Pat T Cake and the Mighty Panthers, and later into Little Richard’s band (during a time when Richard switched rock and roll for gospel). Moving to Los Angeles in late 1960, debut single “She’s All Right” was issued on the Trans World label (a subsidiary of Al Kavelin’s Lute Records), credited to The Shooters featuring Otis; following the birth of their first child and his subsequent marriage to Zelma Atwood, Redding recorded the popular “Shout Bamalam” for Macon’s Confederate Records (who swiftly reissued it on the Orbit label since some radio stations objected to the original label’s confederate flag logo, during a time of terrible racial segregation in the South). Redding cut the movingly emotive “These Arms Of Mine” at Stax studios in Memphis in 1962, backed by Booker T and the MGs, which surfaced on the subsidiary Volt label in October, reaching the charts some six months later (and eventually selling a reported 800,000 copies). Subsequent singles “What My Heart Needs” and “Pain In My Heart”/“Something Is Worrying Me,” recorded in September 1963, formed the bulk of debut album, Pain In My Heart, which was padded out by standard cover tunes of songs such as “I Need Your Lovin’,” Ben E King’s “Stand By Me” and Little Richard’s “Lucille.” The album, which surfaced at the start of 1964, reached the top 20 of the US R&B chart and also hit the Billboard Hot 100; this edition has an alternate track listing that includes the Trans World debut single tracks “She’s All Right” and “Getting’ Hip,” as well as “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” the B-side to “That’s What My Heart Needs.” Carefully remastered, spinning at 45 rpm for enhanced audio quality.