3S ittin8 ( ’ On) The Dock of the Bay

A few days after his star-making set at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, Redding stayed on a houseboat in Sausalito, California, while he played the Fillmore in San Francisco. He wrote the first verse to “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” on that boat. “He always carried his guitar with him, but not in the case,” guitarist Steve Cropper recalled. “He always had 14 or 15 ideas in his head, totally unfinished.” Redding let the song sit for a while, eventually finishing it with Cropper in Memphis. In the fall of 1967, he was on tour with the Bar-Kays when his private plane crashed into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. While divers searched for Redding’s body, Cropper kept his mind busy by mixing “Dock of the Bay.” On December 11th, 1967, the plane was pulled out of the lake, with Redding’s body still strapped into the co-pilot’s seat.