Wednesday, December 12, 2007

"and this loneliness won't leave me alone..."

I was remiss in not noting that Monday was the 40th anniversary of Otis Redding's death. He was one of the greatest song writers of the century, and just happened to be from Macon.

A lot of people don't know this, but along with his own songs, he also wrote RESPECT, which Aretha Franklin made famous. The man was only 26 when he died in a plane crash. Imagine if he'd lived.

Joe Kovac here at the paper did a piece about the anniversary of his death, and I particularly enjoyed some of the comments from his family.

This one, from his wife, Zelma, particularly made me smile:
"When I met Otis Redding at the Douglass Theatre, ... he was a smart mouth, he said something like, 'Hey, baby,' and something crazy. So, you know, I'm a defensive person, always have been, because I'm a short person. ... And back then I was a little bitty short person, like a size three or four. And we go into this argument and I said, 'You don't know me and I am not your baby.' ... And then I saw him again and I'm, like, 'That's that same fool I saw at the Douglass.'"

If that don't give you hope, I don't know what does.

Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

3 comments:

kjpeters said...

I might be mistaken, but I thought Otis Redding's wife/widow was Zelma Redding.....not Zelda as you indicated in your blog today.

Lucid Idiocy said...

Typo. I am a moron.

The 31st Floor said...

He left us way to early...I would have loved to hear his cover of Dylan's "Just Like A Woman" that he was planning to cut. Unfortunately th e plane crash will alwyas leaving us thinking, what if?