Nothin's Gonna Come My Way: Otis Redding's Posthumous Hit

Who remembers the day that Otis Redding died?

It happened on December 10, 1967, at 3:28 pm, a rainy, foggy afternoon. Ben Cauley, the lead vocalist of the soul-and-R&B group known as the Bar-Kays, suddenly woke up. He felt a strange sensation, almost as if he was spinning through the air. He was on a plane, a Beechcraft H18 owned by Redding. He and his bandmates were traveling with Redding to Madison, Wisconsin to perform as his backup. Cauley looked over at Phalon Jones, the band's tenor saxophonist, and heard him exclaiming at something outside the plane window. Cauley quickly took off his seatbelt -- and suddenly, impact. The plane hit the icy waters of Lake Monona, breaking apart on contact. Cauley held onto his seat cushion for dear life. He heard Ronnie Caldwell, another bandmate, calling for help. By the time he got to Caldwell, the organist had already sunk below the surface. He heard Carl Cunningham, the band's drummer, yelling in the distance, but he was too far away. Already unable to swim well, Cauley had no choice but to swim to shore, using his seat as a flotation device. He was the sole survivor of the crash.

There were signs that this would be a dangerous flight. Warnings about poor visibility and dreary conditions had grounded all commercial airlines. Cauley later stated that the plane's battery was not running at full power. James Brown claimed in his autobiography that he tried to convince Redding not to fly that day. Redding didn't listen. He was on a tour and he had a show to perform. He had performed on the Cleveland-produced variety show Upbeat the previous day and had also performed three gigs at Leo's Casino over two nights. He took his career as a professional musician seriously. He wasn't going to miss any of his scheduled performance dates, let alone his next gig at the small club The Factory. Despite all the warnings, Redding and the Bar-Kays flew anyway. Shortly after the pilot, Richard Fraser, radioed for permission to land the aircraft, fate abruptly canceled the entire tour. Every passenger on board was younger than 30. All of the band members on the flight -- Cauley, Jones, Caldwell, Cunningham, and guitarist Jimmy King -- were between 18 and 20 years old. Matthew Kelly, Redding's valet, was only 17. Fraser, the oldest on the flight, was 28. Finally, the performer himself, Redding, was 26 years old. Refusing to let bad weather get in the way of his dreams of stardom, his insistence to fly that night cut them short.

His motivation to make a career in music was instilled in him at an early age. Born on September 9th, 1941 in Dawson, Georgia, Otis Ray Redding, Jr., moved with his family to Tindall Heights, a predominantly Black housing project in Macon, when he was three. From there, it was clear he had a passion for music. He sang in the choir of the Vineville Baptist Church. He learned guitar and piano, and by the age of 10, he started practicing the drums and taking singing lessons. He joined a band at Ballard-Hudson High School, and he earned money performing gospel songs every Sunday for the local radio station WIBB. His constant involvement in musical endeavors demonstrated a passion that would not be easily impeded. Even when he had to leave school at the age of 15 to support his family after his father was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he would still play in sets with local pianist Gladys Williams. Music was an important part of his life, and he had dreams of making a musical impact.

His big break came in 1958 when locally prominent guitarist Johnny Jenkins offered to accompany his vocals for a local weekly talent competition, The Teenage Party. The duo won the talent show for fifteen consecutive weeks, and ultimately, Jenkins brought Redding on as the replacement frontman for his own band. Redding would go on to play a handful of gigs with Jenkin's band, Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers, for the next couple of years. He would also play with The Upsetters, a band that previously performed as the backup for one of Redding's musical inspirations, Little Richard. In 1960, Redding moved to Los Angeles with his sister, where he recorded his first songs. In 1962, he was officially signed by Jim Stewart, chief of the Memphis, Tennessee recording studio Stax. His first single, "These Arms of Mine," was released in October of that year. It charted in March 1963, becoming one of his most successful songs and kickstarting his career. During his life, he would release six studio albums. This prolific music portfolio included hit songs such as "Try a Little Tenderness" and "Respect," the latter of which was later made legendary by gospel singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin.

On November 22, 1967, an excited Redding walked into the Stax studio with an idea. He had an idea for a new song that deviated from his usual musical style. Inspired by the sound of the iconic Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he had been writing miscellaneous lyrics since August. He collected them on napkins and small pieces of hotel paper as he continued to book gigs, boosted his confidence, and increased his popularity. Everyone around Redding tried to convince him that the new song was a bad idea. Jim Stewart felt that it sounded too much like a pop record for Redding, and releasing something that went so heavily against his soul roots would backfire horribly. Bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn felt the new style would destroy Stax's reputation as a studio. Even Redding's wife, Zelma Atwood, hated the song's off-kilter melody. Redding, however, insisted on recording it. He wanted to expand upon his sound, and his instincts told him this was the song that would finally put him on top of the charts.

Despite the label's hesitance, Redding recorded the new song, having not quite finished it. He riffed in the studio, experimenting with lyrics and instrumental parts to capture the right feeling. Either forgetting the lines of a fadeout rap section or purposefully paraphrasing it, Redding whistled the ending of the song, possibly intending to come back and re-record with lyrics. On December 7th, he came back to record additional overdubs. Three days later, his plane would crash, killing him and six other people. The day after the crash, a search for bodies was conducted at the lake, and a week after that, a funeral service was conducted for Redding. Over 4,500 people attended, overfilling a space only meant for 3,000. Soul musicians such as James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and Solomon Burke came to pay their respects. Zelma Atwood broke down crying as Joe Simon sang a hymn in remembrance of her husband. Jim Stewart, guitarist Steve Cropper, Donald Dunn, and other production members all showed up. Johnny Jenkins, however, did not attend, claiming that he would have broken down worse than Atwood. He openly discussed how close he was with Redding, claiming he knew him and his flaws better than even Atwood. He stated that in general, no one wanted to hear about Redding's dark side -- the women he saw in secret, his good and bad moments, every aspect that made him more of a human than a perfect idol. Of course, much like many other artists, his artistic integrity outshines the fact that he was a flawed man even today.

After Redding's death, Steve Cropper, who also co-wrote the song with Redding, finished mixing it. He fulfilled Redding's request for the inclusion of waves and seagulls, sounds reminiscent of the houseboat in Sausalito, California where the first lyrics were written. The finished product was released on January 8, 1968. In the end, Redding and his instincts would turn out to be right. "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" became his first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and the first-ever posthumous single to hit number one. After Redding's death, Stax severed their distribution contract with the record label Atlantic Records, leaving Atlantic with the rights to all of Redding's unreleased solo material. Five posthumous studio albums resulted, and the first of these, appropriately titled The Dock of the Bay, reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. It also became the first posthumous album to reach number one in the United Kingdom. The album's hit single won Redding two posthumous Grammy Awards for Best R&B Song and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. BMI declared the song the sixth most played on American radio and television during the 20th century, counting over six million plays by 1999. Dozens of artists have covered the song since its release, including Michael Bolton, Glen Campbell, Sammy Hagar, Bob Dylan, Pearl Jam, Garth Brooks, Justin Timberlake, and even A$AP Rocky. The song was declared the 26th greatest of all time by Rolling Stone, who also declared its namesake record the 161st greatest album of all time. The song transcended even Redding's premature death, and tragically, he would never know the enduring success of the song he put so much faith in.

The message and story of the song are simple: Redding croons about unwinding at a peaceful dock as he reflects on how far he has come and how far he still has to go. He reminisces on his upbringing in Georgia, how much he's worked and traveled to make something of his life, and how it feels like nothing has changed despite his constant effort. The song's universal message allows anyone to take something away from it, relating their own life experiences to the message of taking time to sit back and let things go. While the song contains lyrics that make it personal to Redding, the majority of the lyrics are general enough for everyone to empathize with his feeling of being lost and specific enough to allow listeners to paint a visual of the dock in their head. The subdued vocals, instruments, and sound design encapsulate a meditative feeling that encourages listeners to reflect with Redding, almost as if they were at the dock and looking out at the ocean beside him.

The song takes on an entirely different context with the story behind its conception. Knowing the history of Redding's life allows listeners to interpret the song as him taking the time to self-reflect, reminiscing on his passions, attitudes on life, and perhaps even transgressions. With the knowledge that this was the last song he recorded, it transcends beyond a simple self-reflection piece and transforms into his swan song. It becomes an acceptance of his life's journey, a final goodbye to the world as he decides to embrace his current path, and an acknowledgment of his flawed humanity. The whistling at the end of the song, initially not meant to be included, transforms from a euphoric absorption of the atmosphere of the ocean into a representation of Redding's transition into the afterlife. This last goodbye creates an even more powerful unintentional message, one of accepting humanity, mistakes, successes, failures, and finality.

Redding's legacy as one of the greatest musicians of all time still lasts today, over 50 years after his death. While he and other prominent figures of the soul-and-R&B movement perished that day, their legacy still lives on through the music they made and the individuals that kept their movement going. Ben Cauley continued playing music, rebuilding the Bar-Kays with the help of James Alexander, the group's original bassist. The Beechcraft had a small maximum occupancy, so Alexander had to take a different flight, making him the only other surviving original member of the band. Cauley kept singing for the Bar-Kays before he permanently left the group in 1971 to support his family. Despite suffering a stroke in 1989, Cauley continued playing the trumpet and even directed a church choir. He kept music a part of his life, much like Redding, until his death in 2015. Through the continued relevance and influence of Redding's music combined with his passion for making a musical impact, the legacy of the art he created from a small studio in Memphis has continued to thrive and inspire countless generations. He may not have lived long enough to see the impact he so desperately wanted his music to make, but his posthumous hit single gave him a chance to release a final reflection on his life. It's one of the most simple yet powerful musical farewells of all time, encapsulating Redding's acceptance of life's capriciousness in one simple action: sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tides roll away.

To learn more about Redding and his death, along with additional information about other classic songs and albums, click the links below to read the sources used for this article.

Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom by Peter Guralnick

"Inside Otis Redding’s Final Masterpiece ‘(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay’" by Stuart Miller

"'Dock Of The Bay' At 50: Why Otis Redding's Biggest Hit Almost Went Unheard" from NPR's Morning Edition

"Otis Redding death: How did singer Otis Redding die?" by Jenny Desborough

"Singer Otis Redding, Seven Others Killed" from the Eugene Register-Guard

"Trumpeter Ben Cauley, Survivor of Plane Crash That Killed Otis Redding, Dies at 67," originally published in The Associated Press

"Guitarist, songwriter and producer Steve Cropper" (Interview included in the NPR podcast Fresh Air)

"BMI Announces Top 100 Songs of the Century"

"1968 Grammy Winners"

"Official Albums Chart Top 40, June 16-22, 1968"

"Rolling Stone's 50o Greatest Songs of All Time"

"Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums (2003)" (the first page of this link also includes the updated 2020 list of albums)

The Wikipedia articles for Otis Redding, "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," and Ben Cauley were used as a framework for essential information, but no uncited information was used in this article. Here are additional available resources that Wikipedia cites as the sources for some of the information in this article.

Otis Redding: Try a Little Tenderness by Geoff Brown

The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorized Biography by Charles White

Soulsville U.S.A: The Story of Stax Records by Rob Bowman

Falling Stars: Air Crashes that Filled Rock and Roll Heaven by Rich Everitt

Icons of R & B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists who Revolutionized Rhythm, Volume 1 by Bob Gulla

Dreams To Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding (DVD, liner notes)

Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume 2 by Steve Sullivan

Black History: More than Just a Month by Mike Henry