What you want, honey, you got it

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts.

02/06/68 : Otis Redding Live In Europe - Otis Redding

This one is right on the edge of being ignored - it's an album of which half are covers and it has a strong whiff of cash-in (although that's completely unfair because it was actually released before his death).  However, if I ignore this one, then the next one on the list is a Supreme's live album and I'll just have to go through all that thinking again - so let's just bite the bullet and listen to it (I'm expecting it to be perfectly fine).  It's also worth pointing out that to get down to this album in the charts I had to ignore seven best-ofs and passed over two other Otis albums.

Well, it sounds like it was a fun night out but I'd struggle to say it's an essential live album - there are just too many covers on there for that (although "Day Tripper" is acceptably different).  The version of "I've Been Loving You A Long Time" is good though, he sounds heart-broken.  As is unfortunately the case, the recording isn't top-notch quality - it's not terrible, but just sounds a bit flat and I guess this is just something you have to accept.  It was perfectly listenable but merely offers up hints as to how great he must have been live.  It is however, without doubt, a very cool album cover.

We're all the way down at #21 this week (I suspect that's the lowest we've been, but that won't be the case for long) on his eleventh week of a sixteen week run, having peaked at #14 in its sixth week.  The top five this week were Bob, Scott, an Otis best-of, a Jimi best-of and Andy - a very solo male experience, the highest new entry was Julie Driscoll & The Brian Auger Trinity (#35) and there are no new women in the charts this week.

Wikipedia has very little to say about the album except for a litany (oooh - there's a word you don't get to use often) of critical comments from our old friend Robert Christgau.  And there's quite the range - "this album is his best", "a sensitive soul man at his toughest and most outgoing" and "among [Redding's] worst".  There's nothing like being consistent, eh?  In 2003, it appeared on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Album list - let me assure you that it's really not that great...

"Customers also listened to" Aretha Franklin, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Carla Thomas (surprisingly, a name I don't know given the previous people).  Otis is without doubt a dude, but neither of the albums we've seen this year are him at his best - there are some fine tracks on here, but not enough to warrant a full album for me.

26/05/68 - Fun, but surprisingly terrible
09/06/68 - Much better than I was expecting

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