Good Music Is Good Music, Wherever You’re From, Wherever You Roam

I was once asked what type of music I listen to. My response was "good music." The person then said, "yeah, but country, rock, rap...what kind?"

What I meant, and what I had to explain in the best way possible is that I listen to everything, but what I like is music that comes from the heart, that is played be musicians who just like writing and playing music. One of my favorite songs of all time is "Sitting On The Dock Of the Bay," written and performed originally by Otis Redding.

Guitarist Steve Cropper wrote of Redding: "Otis was the kind of guy who had 100 ideas. When in San Francisco staying on a houseboat and playing The Fillmore, and he was staying at a boathouse, which is where he got the idea of the ship coming in." From there Redding continued writing the song while on tour, jotting down lines on anything he could find...napkins, scrap paper and hotel stationary. The song was in his heart, in his soul. He couldn't keep it in.

Redding tragically died in a plane crash before he could see his song reach the top of the charts in March of 1968. He did not get to see the popularity it would garner in many forms. But, my love of the song goes far beyond the original recording. The song has been covered from everyone from Bob Dylan and Glen Campbell to Sammy Hagar to Justin Timberlake.

Each version has its pluses and minuses, some mean more than others because of the feeling that each has or doesn't have. While my favorite will always be Otis Redding's, the version I recently discovered and that you see in the video above, show's not only the soul that Redding intended, but that music truly is the universal language.