“We Knew We Had A Hit”

Date: November 12, 2013

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Pop culture tells us that the Steve Cropper-produced smash “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” stands as Otis Redding’s final recording. Not so, says Cropper. In fact, he and Redding had been sure for sometime before the scalding soul singer’s death that this song would be Redding’s long-awaited breakout moment.

It was, of course, But only after a plane carrying Redding crashed.

“A lot of people think it was the last thing Otis cut,” Cropper tells Ronnie Wood in this clip. “It really wasn’t. Technically, we cut the song about two weeks prior to that. It’s something that Otis and I had been living with, we kept getting it out and playing it and going: ‘That’s our hit; that’s our hit.’ We knew we had a hit. Sometimes you know.”