Shake!: Otis at Monterey

"This is the love crowd, right? We all love each other, don't we?"

There's an angle Pennebaker uses from behind Redding during his song Respect that produces such feeling - the spotlight haloed around his head like an aura, his breath visible in the surrounding darkness, and the flares of light rain looking as incandescent as his energy level. Backed by Booker T. & the M. G.'s, Redding made the most of the moment during a star-studded festival in June, 1967 that also saw breakout performances from Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The film is as short and sweet as Redding's set, just five songs (and unfortunately before he had penned (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay), and of course as short as his life, tragically ended in a plane crash just six months later on a winter night in Madison, Wisconsin. I loved the footage of the crowd taken from other points of the festival during the final song, Try a Little Tenderness; despite putting this together two decades later, Pennebaker captures both the artist and spirit of the festival here.

Otis Redding was one of the titanic figures in rock/soul music history...this video should be required viewing for ALL fans of music, if for no other reason but to see what we lost so long ago. Redding took what soul artists were calling "Whitey's Festival" and made it HIS showcase, despite getting the worst spot on the bill. Again, a "must see" for any music history fan.

A legend at play showing why he was a legend. Epic but all too brief. Like his life.

For a while I didn't know a lot of Otis Redding's music. What a fool I was! A song like "Try a Little Tenderness" is one of those songs that I just knew growing up, it was around here and there (and of all places it was featured in that forgotten 2000 movie Duets). But Redding's set at the Monterey Pop festival may get somewhat overlooked when compared to some of the other major highlights of that festival, which are among the most iconic of any time - Hendrix smashing the guitar on fire at the end of 'Wild Thing', The Who's performance, Ravi Shankar - but Redding is no slouch when it comes to putting on a show; on the contrary his enthusiasm and energy is infectious.

Do I think he's quite as talented as those others I mentioned? Maybe not quite, but does it matter? The man and his band (including people who would go on to be in the Blues Brothers, Donald "Duck: Dunn is unmistakable) perform in this little 18 minute extra - included along with Hendrix's full performance as documented by DA Pennebaker and his collaborators - and it includes two covers ("Respect", which he originally wrote and sings the s*** out of like his life depends on it and "Satisfaction", a decent cover that builds and ebbs and crescendos) as well as some original tunes. You know you're in for something at least compelling when the man starts off by having the audience respond and yell with him "SHAKE!" and then goes into the rest of his numbers. Even on the slower song he really reaches down deep to bring out the soul that's right there, all the way so that it's 200% at maximum capacity soulfulness.

In other words, Shake! Otis at Monterey is not to be overlooked when in the scope of the rest of the artists at that festival. Also, Pennebaker brings a montage with the 'Tenderness' number of a whole slew of faces of women (and some babies and small children) and it creates a wonderful compliment, as if he's singing to ALL the women at the festival - which, of course, at that time, might as well have been their whole world.

During the Monterey Festival, D.A. Pennebaker shot the whole festival, and then released 2 special films focusing on 2 artists, one is Jimi Hendrix (which I've also reviewed) and the other is Otis Rettig. Let me just pause here and say I knew NOTHING about Otis when I watched this (he wrote Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay, right?) and while I STILL don't know much about him, I sure got to see him perform! It's interesting to see that this film by Pennebaker gets higher ratings by the people who have seen it, and I agree, because this guy puts on a SHOW that even I was amazed by. Full of great soul numbers and surprise inclusions (Satisfaction and Respect get great covers) the man doesn't care if it's pouring rain out (which it was) or if it was 1:00a (ditto) all his energy went into this performance, and it truly is a sight to behold.