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I ran that Sam and Dave clip from this same show featuring the "Stax/Volt Revue" on tour in Europe -- which meant that the house band was Booker T. and the MG's and the Mar-Keys -- a little earlier, but as good as Sam and Dave might have been, they paled in comparison to Otis Redding, who immediately followed them. He was The Man. This was his closing song. Whew. Seven months after this, Redding died in a plane crash. It was one of the great losses to music.

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Jimi is our chief hometown hero here in Seattle (Kurt Cobain being a very close second). This is from probably his most famous performance after Woodstock, live at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. (At the end of his gig, he climaxed "Wild Thing" by lighting his guitar on fire.) Anyway, I used to have an LP from Monterey with Jimi on Side One and Otis Redding on Side Two. (What a great album. Somewhere I lent it to someone and it vanished.) However, it didn't have the whole performance, and this was one of the songs left off -- which was dumb, since this is one of the finest versions of it. "Hey Joe" has been a rock standard for years, but Jimi's version is the standard by which all others are judged. Anyway, it's in the film version, and the newly remastered copy of the film is well worth owning.

PS Our sister site Newstalgia proudly features The Jags -- Live at the Paris Theatre, London, 1979 for your Saturday night listening pleasure.

I remember when Otis Redding died, in December, 1967, when the plane he was on crashed into Lake Monona in WI. And I remember how I waited for that very last song of his to be released in January, ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.’ It took forever.
This clip is a live performance from Ready, Steady, Go! (RSG!), a British music show with dancers and groups like the U.S.’s Shindig, American Bandstand, and Hullabaloo.

Here is Otis, whose roots were in the south and gospel, really performing hard, at the end of the show, and having a great time on stage.

He is joined by Eric Burdon of the Animals and English R&B singer Chris Farlowe.

And catch the action around 1:40. Is that dancer [in the Jean Shrimpton make-up] freak dancing Otis?

Otis is magnificent, but it's the drum that makes this song. Snapping away in the background, too fast for a ballad, too soft to overwhelm, setting us all up for Otis to bust it wide open just after the two minute mark.