Otis Ray Redding Jr., an American soul singer, was born in Dawson, Georgia, in September 1941, and moved to Macon, Georgia at the age of 5. He sang in the choir of the Vineville Baptist Church, and became somewhat of a local celebrity as a teenager after winning a local Saturday morning talent show at the Douglass Theatre 15 weeks in a row.
In 1960, Redding began touring the southern states with Johnny Jenkins and The Pinetoppers, primarily as the group's driver. The same year he made his first recordings, "She's All Right" and "Shout Bamalama" with this group under the name "Otis and The Shooters". 1962 saw Redding making his first real mark in the music business during a Johnny Jenkins session when, during studio time left over, he recorded the ballad "These Arms of Mine", which became a minor hit on Volt Records (a subsidiary of the renowned Southern soul label Stax, based in Memphis, Tennessee). Redding continued to release for Stax/Volt, and built his fan base by extensively touring, performing a live show with fellow Stax artists Sam & Dave as support. Unusually for the era, Redding wrote many of his own songs, often with Steve Cropper (of the Stax house band Booker T. & the M.G.'s, who usually served as Redding's backing band in the studio), and also co wrote the hit "I've Been Loving You Too Long" with soul singer Jerry Butler.

Further hits between 1964 and 1966 included "Mr. Pitiful", "I Can't Turn You Loose" (which was to become The Blues Brothers entrance theme music), "Try a Little Tenderness" (a remake of the 1930s standard by Harry Woods, Jimmy Campbell, and Reg Connelly, later featured in John Hughes' film "Pretty in Pink"), "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (written by the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), "Respect" (later a smash hit for Aretha Franklin) and "Tramp" (1967), a duet with Carla Thomas.

Tragically for the world of music, Redding, his manager, the pilot, and 4 members of his backup band, The Bar-Kays, were killed when his chartered plane crashed into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, in December 1967. The two remaining Bar-Kays were Ben Cauley and James Alexander. Cauley was the only person aboard Redding's plane to survive the crash. Alexander was on another plane, since there were 8 members in Redding's party and the chartered plane could only hold 7, and it was Alexander's turn in the rotation to take a commercial flight. Redding's body was recovered the next day when the lake bed was searched. The cause of the crash was never precisely determined. Redding was entombed on his private ranch in Round Oak, Georgia, 23 miles (37 km) north of Macon.

"(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was recorded only 3 days before Redding's death. According to Nashid Munyan, curator of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Redding considered the song unfinished, having whistled the tune of 1 verse for which he intended to compose lyrics later. The song was released (with the place-holding whistling intact) in January 1968 and became Redding's only number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, and the first posthumous single in U.S. chart history. In addition to this classic, Redding had recorded a massive amount of material in late 1967 just before his death, thus there was enough material for 3 new studio albums - "The Immortal Otis Redding" (1968), "Love Man" (1969), and "Tell the Truth" (1970), with a number of successful singles emerging from these LPs, among them "Amen" (1968), "Hard to Handle" (1968), "I've Got Dreams to Remember" (1968), "Love Man" (1969), and "Look at That Girl" (1969).

Inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, Otis Redding's name is "synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm and blues into a form of funky, secular testifying." Redding was also inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994, and in 1999 he posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed 3 recordings ("Shake," "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," and "Try a Little Tenderness") among its list of "The 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.", and Rolling Stone ranked Redding number 21 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2002, the city of Macon honored its native son, unveiling a memorial statue of Redding in the city's Gateway Park, and in 2006, the Rhythm and Blues Foundation named Redding as the recipient of its Legacy Award.