Otis Redding (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul and rhythm and blues. His singing style was powerfully influential among soul artists of 1960s and helped exemplify the Stax sound. Redding received many posthumous accolades, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He received the honorific nickname King of Soul. “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”, “Respect” and “Try a Little Tenderness” are among his best-known songs. (More from Wikipedia)
By now, the parade of early deaths of beloved musicians is long indeed. Not a few of these losses have occurred in small airplane crashes: Glenn Miller, John Denver, Jim Reeves, Otis Redding, Jim Croce, Rick Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Aaliyah, and three bandmembers in Lynyrd Skynyrd: Ronnie van Zant, Stevie Gaines, and Cassie Gaines. There is even a parallel to “The Day the Music Died” in country music, when Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins all died in a plane crash on March 5, 1963.
(June 2013/1)
The only song that I know of which (barely) predates “Johnny No” is “Knock on Wood” (written by Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper) that features the dramatic lyric: “It’s like thunder . . . lightning / The way you love me is frightening”. Otis Redding, David Bowie and Eric Clapton all recorded versions of this song; however, “Knock on Wood” doesn’t sound at all like “Johnny No” to me. (I finally thought to track it down through the songwriting credits; “Johnny No” is based on a 1963 Hoyt Axton song that I did not know called “Thunder N’ Lightnin’” that Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs also released as a “B” side).
(May 2015)
