MUSIC
- by Joe Nolan
Otis Redding
The best things that happened at Stax happened by accident, and the discovery of their biggest talent was no different. Many legends surround the recording of “These Arms of Mine”, but every one jives on the fact that Otis wasn’t supposed to be recording anything that day.
Johnny Jenkins had a hit with an instrumental called “Love Twist” that eventually became so popular that Atlantic bought the record for national distribution. Having made an investment in Jenkins, they were itching to capitalize and arranged the session at Stax in order to cut a follow-up single.
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- by Joe Nolan
Otis Redding
Started by Hamp Swain, The Teenage Party was the scene at the Douglass Theater. It was Swain and fellow DJ Cliff Brantley who gave James Brown his star in 1958. Hamp was an energetic, smooth talker who was always looking for a way to get ahead. He began selling insurance, but a series of fortunate opportunities lead him to radio, where his innate talent as a raconteur and promoter really began to pay off.
When the program director at WIBB – where Swain broadcast his Night Ride program – brought up the idea of a live broadcast, Swain was all ears. Every week Swain hammed it up on air, introduced acts, played saxophone, and – week after week – he announced Otis Redding as the winner of the variety program. The program got Otis noticed by the young ladies who listened to the program every week to hear the tall, clean-cut, Redding sing in his modified Little Richard style. Otis also caught the attention of another Macon music legend with dreams of his own.
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- by Joe Nolan
Otis Redding
During his early years, struggling as a musician in Macon, Redding witnessed first-hand how the right combination of talent, hard work and good luck was falling into place for other players in the local scene.
For all of its seeming ramshackle anarchy, the R&B music scene in Macon was largely under the control of one driven, ambitious black entrepreneur named Clint Brantley. There was nearly no music on a stage, or song on a radio in Macon that Brantley didn’t have a hand in. He owned the Two Spot club, and was in charge of booking all the shows at the City Auditorium. Brantley was well connected with the local radio stations as well, and he worked regularly with a spectrum of bands like the Clovers, the Drifters, Louis Jordan, Otis Williams and the Charms. It was during this period that two of Redding’s heroes, under Brantley’s direction, began to gain the kind of buzz that would launch them into super-stardom.
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- by Joe Nolan
Otis Redding
Born on September 9, 1941 in Dawson, Ga., Otis Redding and family moved 300 miles north to Macon when he was three years old. Unlike many cities in the Peachtree state, Macon had been spared the ravages of Sherman’s march to the sea during the Civil War. By ‘44, Macon showed the scars of the quieter cruelty of stalled urban renewal and the impact of 30 years of the Great Migration, in which large sectors of the South’s African American population left their homes for economic opportunities in cities like Detroit and Chicago. The decaying downtown facades, and the old men sitting on the steps of the abandoned railway station, spoke the forlorn whispers of a city where “progress” had simply marched passed.
Upon their arrival in Macon, the Redding’s made a new home for themselves in the Tindall Heights Housing Project in West Macon. Officially known as Bellview, the residents at the Project all referred to their neglected neighborhood as “Hellview.” Otis’ father, Otis senior, like many black men in the neighborhood, worked at the nearby Robbins Air Force Base. However, due to a chronic battle with tuberculosis, Otis senior was an inconsistent provider. During one prosperous period, the family – including Otis’ mother, Fanny, his baby brother, Rodgers, and four sisters - was able to purchase a humble home of their own. However, after a devastating fire, the family found themselves moving back to into the Projects at “Hellview.”
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- by Joe Nolan
Aretha Franklin
“Chips scratched and clawed for everything he got. Thirty years later, I asked Estelle Axton how long it took for the hard feelings between them to fade away. ‘I don’t think they ever did,’ she says. ‘I think Chips was going to prove that he could do it – and he did. There’s no doubt that he was talented.’” - Goin’ Back to Memphis, by Jim Dickerson
Although Chips was able to get his American Studios off the ground almost immediately, the grinding schedule that was required to keep it airborne was taking its toll. The crazy-making effects of it all began to reveal themselves in Moman’s increasingly erratic behavior.
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