Shake! Otis at Monterey

A legend at play showing why he was a legend. Epic but all too brief. Like his life.

Otis Redding was one of the titanic figures in rock/soul music history...this video should be required viewing for ALL fans of music, if for no other reason but to see what we lost so long ago. Redding took what soul artists were calling "Whitey's Festival" and made it HIS showcase, despite getting the worst spot on the bill. Again, a "must see" for any music history fan.

I saw this on TCM and it certainly is an unforgettable experience. It really stays with you-thinking about the influence this great musician had. It only lasts 20 minutes, but I gotta say that what I did see I cannot and will not forget.

This is a beautiful document of a beautiful moment in music history.

During the Monterey Festival, D.A. Pennebaker shot the whole festival, and then released 2 special films focusing on 2 artists, one is Jimi Hendrix (which I've also reviewed) and the other is Otis Rettig. Let me just pause here and say I knew NOTHING about Otis when I watched this (he wrote Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay, right?) and while I STILL don't know much about him, I sure got to see him perform! It's interesting to see that this film by Pennebaker gets higher ratings by the people who have seen it, and I agree, because this guy puts on a SHOW that even I was amazed by. Full of great soul numbers and surprise inclusions (Satisfaction and Respect get great covers) the man doesn't care if it's pouring rain out (which it was) or if it was 1:00a (ditto) all his energy went into this performance, and it truly is a sight to behold.

"This is the love crowd, right? We all love each other, don't we?"

There's an angle Pennebaker uses from behind Redding during his song Respect that produces such feeling - the spotlight haloed around his head like an aura, his breath visible in the surrounding darkness, and the flares of light rain looking as incandescent as his energy level. Backed by Booker T. & the M. G.'s, Redding made the most of the moment during a star-studded festival in June, 1967 that also saw breakout performances from Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The film is as short and sweet as Redding's set, just five songs (and unfortunately before he had penned (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay), and of course as short as his life, tragically ended in a plane crash just six months later on a winter night in Madison, Wisconsin. I loved the footage of the crowd taken from other points of the festival during the final song, Try a Little Tenderness; despite putting this together two decades later, Pennebaker captures both the artist and spirit of the festival here.