RESPECT
“Respect” is a song written and originally released by Stax recording artist Otis Redding in 1965. The song became a 1967 hit and signature song for R&B singer Aretha Franklin. The music in the two versions is significantly different, and through a few minor changes in the lyrics, the stories told by the songs have a different flavor. Franklin’s version is a declaration from a strong, confident woman, who knows that she has everything her man wants. Franklin’s version adds the “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” chorus and the backup singers’ refrain of “Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me . . .” In 2002, the Library of Congress honored Franklin’s version by adding it to the National Recording Registry. (More from Wikipedia)
“Enough” by Bohemian Vendetta got some local radio play and even had a spot on Dick Clark’s “Rate-a-Record” on American Bandstand. This was, er, enough to get the band some better gigs; they opened for Vanilla Fudge and also another Long Island band the Vagrants. (The Vagrants had a regional hit song with Otis Redding’s “Respect” before Aretha Franklin’s version of “Respect” propelled them from the charts; bandmembers included Leslie West, later a member of the hard rock band Mountain).
(April 2011)
