I left my home in Georgia - headed for the Frisco Bay

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts.

28/07/68 : The Dock Of The Bay  - Otis Redding

Well, this involved a lot more deliberation than I was expecting, I can tell you!  Firstly, I thought I'd already listened to it, but I was getting confused by the single which took the year as the most streamed track in the UK.  Then I looked at the album on Wikipedia and it says it's a posthumous release consisting of singles, B sides and album tracks - which would generally get it rejected.  But then I saw that three of the tracks were previously unreleased, so I wavered - but was still minded to reject it.  And FINALLY, I saw that if I didn't listen to this then I was getting another Andy Williams album - so that was my mind made up in an instant!

Well that's a bit of a surprise - the whole album has much more of a James Brown feel to it than I was expecting.  It's fine, but I don't think anyone's gonna say you've got to listen to it and calling it after the single that everyone liked is a bit of a cheat - we really can't blame Otis for this though what him being dead and all that.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on his tenth week of a fifteen week run, with it having peaked at #1.  The rest of the top five were The Small Faces (coming to the end of a six week run at the top), TSOM, TCWOAB and John Mayall, the highest new entry was Simon & Garfunkel (#22) and there are no new women involved in the chart.

Wikipedia tells us very little about the album, but it does tell us it was the first of five posthumous "studio" albums (with two in this year alone) - he died in December '67 and "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" was released in January of this year.  Wikipedia doesn't go as far as to call the album a massive cash-in on its success, but I don't think it really needs to - either way it did the job getting to #4 in the US.  The personnel involved though are an impressive roll-call from the time - Booker T. Jones, Isaac Hayes, Steve Cropper, Donald Dunn, Al Jackson Jr and Wayne Jackson.

"Customers also listened to" Ben E. King, Marvin Gaye, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin - there's some talent in that line-up and no mistake.  And there's no doubting Otis's talent, but I didn't feel like this album really showcases it - I enjoyed Otis Blue a lot more

21/07/68 - A very odd album
04/08/68 - An album nobody needs

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