On This Day 03/04/1967 Otis Redding

On this day, April 3rd, 1967, Otis Redding and the star-studded Stax Records revue played Top Rank Suite in the Welsh capital, and those who attended the event said that Redding was immense as part of the outstanding line-up.

Redding was joined by special guests Arthur Conley, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, The Mar-Keys and Booker T. & the M.G.’s; a bill that’ll live on as one of Cardiff’s greatest Soul/R&B showings.

Unlike the Motown Records tour of 1965, which (surprisingly) was a rather anticlimactic show, the Stax Records gig was a huge success. That night at Top Rank Suite helped popularise the genre in South Wales, and Redding will be regarded by listeners all across the world as one of the most charismatic and beloved soul singers of his generation. 

Before his death in a tragic airplane accident on 10th December 1967, Otis Redding had written and recorded an ambitious selection of new music. ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ was one of these, and when eventually released in January 1968, it became the first posthumous record in history to reach No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The song almost became Redding’s self-written obituary.

It was a stunning overture that preceded the USA’s catastrophic failure in Vietnam, as well as the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy in 1968. However, Redding’s death was not overshadowed by the events that followed, with ‘(Sittin on) The Dock of the Bay’ selling more than two million copies.

On This Date 03/04/1967 Booker T and the M.G’s

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On this day, 3 April 1967, soul greats Booker T and the MG’s played Cardiff’s Top Rank. They were part of a soul revue, headlined by Otis Redding and also featured Sam and Dave, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd and The Markeys.

Booker T. & the M.G.'s were an American instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul. The original members of the group were Booker T. Jones (organ, piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums).

In the 1960s, as members of the Mar-Keys, the rotating slate of musicians that served as the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King.

They also released instrumental records under their own name, including the 1962 hit single "Green Onions". As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of its era.

In 1965, Steinberg was replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn, who played with the group until his death in 2012.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee in 2008, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2012, and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2019.

Having two white members (initially Cropper and Steinberg, later Cropper and Dunn) and two black members (Jones and Jackson Jr.), Booker T. & the M.G.'s was one of the first racially integrated rock groups,[4] at a time when soul music and the Memphis music scene, in particular, were generally considered the preserve of black culture.