Rock and roll has never been that far away from soul music. As much as people may have tried to put boundaries over every single genre that they like, there’s always going to be a few genres that seep into rock and roll that are indebted to the R&B flavour of music. Rod Stewart was never shy about wearing his soul favourites on his sleeve, and he thought that Otis Redding’s ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ left him in tears.
Compared to the smooth singers that had come out of the genre, Redding was a lot more forceful than his contemporaries. There had been virtuosic singers like Sam Cooke that had come before, but Redding approached his singing like a man who had already done some hard living before he even started singing, almost like he was beside you at the bar spilling his heart out.
Considering his vocal chops, it’s almost funny that he would have a song called ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ in his catalogue. This is the same man who made works like ‘Respect’ that Aretha Franklin transformed into a classic, so if there was anything he was good at, it was demanding the attention of the audience instead of getting in touch with his sensitive side.
Every rough guy has a gentle soul, though, and half of the lyrics on this song sound like they’re coming deep within his heart. He may be instructing a man to try some tenderness when he’s with his lady, but that kind of language can only come from a man who has tried the same approach and ended up getting his heart stomped on.
By the time Redding was touring, Stewart felt every bit of that pain, telling American Songwriter, “I saw Otis in 1967 at the Kuban state, and I cried my eyes out when he sang this song.” While he may have been backed by Booker T and the MGs, no amount of Steven Cropper guitar chops could get in the way of Redding’s wail.
Compared to the other soul musicians working in Memphis, Redding was a completely different breed. He may not have known the proper terms of music theory whenever he worked with Cropper, but his way of translating his emotions into song is what tracks like ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’ work so well.
Although Stewart was still entrenched in the blues at this point, you can hear him start to take bits and pieces from Redding’s work in his other tracks. ‘Maggie May’ may have been a sweet folk-tinged rock and roll tune, but when you hear Stewart play the stripped-down version of the song, it’s practically a Redding piece with British window dressing.
No matter how much Stewart loved Redding, The Temptations, or any other soulful band, he could never match the raw performance he heard that night. You can try to adopt different mannerisms to connect with your soulful side, but for anyone who has ever been moved by Redding, that kind of emotional resonance stays with you for life.
