Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Sitting on the Dock of the Bay: Otis Redding returns to Macon

SLUG: OTIS REDDING EXHIBIT
Philip L. Graitcer 404-872-7337
FOR WBHM

VO:4:11
TRT:5:35

Soul singer Otis Redding?s stardom was short; he died less than five years after his first hit. Today , September 9, Redding would have been 67, and at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon, there?s a special exhibit that celebrates his life.

Philip Graitcer was there.
_________

For anyone growing up in the 1960s, Otis Redding?s soul music said it all ? love, happiness, and heartbreak.

MUSIC BED: DREAMS TO REMEMBER?

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Redding?s death in 1967, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame had planned a modest exhibit of photographs.

But when Redding?s widow, Zelma, gave a couple of boxes of memorabilia to curator Ellen Fleurov, Fleurov quickly realized that she had the makings of something more than a photo show.

(ef1) there were documents and artificats and material that had not been seen, ever. I was a Eureka moment fo me as a curator.

So Fleurov expanded the exhibit to become a definitive look at the life and career of Redding.

There are more than 175 artifacts - pictures, oral histories, recordings, performance footage, and scrapbooks. Some, according to Fleurov, shed new light on Redding?s career.

(ef-wbhm) The artifacts that are important in the show are those that speak to the people who really worked with him, who really helped make him a star, and who are often quite overlooked when the story of Otis Redding and Stax are told.

For example, the photos and interviews tell about two Macon men who were actively promoting Redding?s career in the 1950s. They dispel the myth that Redding was a complete unknown when he recorded his first hit, These Arms of Mine, at the Stax studios in 1962.

MUSIC ARMS OF MINE

In fact, Redding already was a local star in his hometown of Macon.

Hamp Swain, the Kingbee, was a Macon DJ in the 1950s. He MC?d a talent show at the blacks-only Douglass Theater, and he started playing Redding?s music on the radio.

(T28 0634 ? 0707) Every Saturday morning we would have the talent show and broadcast it live on our station. And Otis was the star, of course, he came in and every Saturday morning he would walk away with the big first prize.

Aspiring music promoter, Phil Walden, who was just a college kid, was Redding?s manager. But because of segregation, Swain says that Walden, who was white, stayed outside the Douglass theater.

(0814) He couldn?t come in but he rode around in his convertible with his radio up, loud as it would go, and Otis caught his ear, so to speak.

After that first Stax recording session, Redding?s popularity rose. He began touring nationally and writing one hit song after another.

Redding?s meteoric career is traced in the multimedia kiosks at the exhibit.

MUSIC BED: DOCK OF THE BAY

There?s one kiosk that tells of the writing and production of Dock of the Bay, Redding?s final song.

Redding was at the peak of his stardom, yet Dock of the Bay had a different and sad sound, unlike from his other songs; curator Ellen Fleurov says that?s because:

(ef5 0011)There was a sense of weariness, of being tired, of having people come at him from all directions. And I think, some of that finds its way into the song.

Redding worked on Dock of the Bay throughout the summer and fall of 1967, but when he died in a plane crash on December 10, he had only recorded the vocal tracks. The record producers had to guess at the mix as they produced it posthumously.

Dock of the Bay became Redding?s only number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

MUSIC UP

SOC: For WBHM, I?m Philip Graitcer

TAG: The exhibit, Otis Redding, I?ve Got Dreams to Remember, will continue at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon through April 19, 2009.

MUSIC OUT?..

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