Almost Hits: Otis Redding - Try A Little Tenderness (1966)

"Try A Little Tenderness" is one of the oldest songs ever discussed as part of the Almost Hits series and it's one with a very interesting story.

First, let's get the statistics out of the way. Otis Redding recorded the track on November 4, 1966 and it was released before the year ended. It peaked at #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 - early in the year of his fatal, December 1967, plane crash. More recently, it was ranked at #136 on Rolling Stone's 2021 list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time.

"Try A Little Tenderness" was written by the songwriting team of Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly - who together sometimes went by the name Irving King - and Harry Woods. It was first recorded in 1932 by British big band leader, Ray Noble with Val Rosing providing the vocal. The arrangement was typical of depression era pop, and the opening line "Oh, she may be weary, and young girls they do get weary wearing that same old shabby dress" easily expressed the mood of the day. 

A year later Bing Crosby released the song and Frank Sinatra covered it again in 1946 before he became the cool, Chairman of the Board during the next decade. These two later versions are quite generic and add a lead-in verse before the main arrangement begins that is absent from both Noble's and later Redding's records.

It never ceases to amaze me that a musician can experience a piece of music and hear something entirely different buried inside it that turns it into an entirely different work. Such is the case here. What did Isaac Hayes - who produced the single and worked on the arrangement - hear that enticed the reluctant Redding - who was backed by Stax-Volt's in-house band, Booker T. and the MGs - to record the song?  But, I guess that's why I only write about and listen to music and not play it. I don't hear the same things they do.

Redding starts out quite soulful but nice and easy. Then, gradually, his intensity level ratchets up until he becomes a frantic, soul screamer by the time the record fades. In a nod to the 60s, the singer even included a popular catch phrase of the day - "sock it to me" - that has a definite sexual connotation popularized on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In that most certainly would not meet the outward standards of the often hypocritical Crosby.

There are several significant cover versions influenced by Redding's record including Three Dog Night's take from their first LP and Andrew Strong's on The Commitments soundtrack.       
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Almost Hits is an occasional exploration into songs that failed to reach the top 20 on the American Billboard Hot 100. Many have become classics despite what their chart position would indicate.

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