Billboard #1 Hits: #199: “{Sittin’ On} The Dock Of The Bay”- Otis Redding

• Single: “{Sittin’ On} The Dock Of The Bay”- Otis Redding
• Record Company- Volt
• Genre: Soul
• Written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper
• Time: 2:38
• B-side:”Sweet Lorene”
• Album- The Dock Of The Bay
• Grade: A+
• Peaked at #1 for 4 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100. #3 in UK Singles Chart.

Otis Redding started writing the lyrics to “{Sittin’ On} The Dock Of The Bay”- in August 1967 while sitting on a rented houseboat in Sausalito, California. He would complete the song with the help of Stax producer and Booker & The MG’s guitarist Steve Cropper. The song was recorded just days before his death in a plane crash on December 10, 1967. Otis Redding was only 26 years old.

Steve Cropper said in an interview with NPR-

“Otis was one of those the kind of guy who had 100 ideas. […] He had been in San Francisco doing The Fillmore. And the story that I got he was renting boathouse or stayed at a boathouse or something and that’s where he got the idea of the ships coming in the bay there. And that’s about all he had: “I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again.” I just took that… and I finished the lyrics. If you listen to the songs I collaborated with Otis, most of the lyrics are about him. […] Otis didn’t really write about himself but I did. Songs like “Mr. Pitiful,” “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)”; they were about Otis and Otis’ life. “Dock of the Bay” was exactly that: “I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay” was all about him going out to San Francisco to perform.”

Below is a list of posthumous #1 Hits- Otis Redding was the first of eight.

• Otis Redding (d. December 10, 1967) – “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” (March 16, 1968)
• Janis Joplin (d. October 4, 1970) – “Me and Bobby McGee” (March 20, 1971)
• Jim Croce (d. September 20, 1973) – “Time in a Bottle” (December 29, 1973)
• John Lennon (d. December 8, 1980) – “(Just Like) Starting Over” (December 27, 1980)
• The Notorious B.I.G. (d. March 9, 1997) – “Hypnotize” (May 3, 1997) and “Mo Money Mo Problems” (August 30, 1997)
• Soulja Slim (d. November 26, 2003) – “Slow Motion” (Juvenile featuring Soulja Slim) (August 7, 2004)
• Static Major (d. February 25, 2008) – “Lollipop” (Lil Wayne featuring Static Major) (May 3, 2008)
• XXXTentacion (d. June 18, 2018) – “Sad!” (June 30, 2018)