(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay

Lore & Background

Redding started writing the lyrics in August 1967 while staying on a rented houseboat in Sausalito, California. He completed the song in Memphis with Cropper, a Stax producer and the guitarist for Booker T. & the M.G.'s. It features whistling and sounds of waves crashing on a shore. While on tour with the Bar-Kays in August 1967, Redding had grown in popularity and was inundated with fans at his hotel in San Francisco.

Rock concert impresario Bill Graham offered Redding a respite, staying at his houseboat at Waldo Point Harbor in Sausalito, California. On the houseboat, Redding listened obsessively to the Beatles' recently released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album and found inspiration to develop a new sound for himself. Redding started writing the lines, 'Sittin' in the morning sun, I'll be sittin' when the evening comes' and the song's first verse, under the abbreviated title 'Dock of the Bay.' Redding had completed his famed performance at the Monterey Pop Festival just weeks earlier. While touring in support of the albums King & Queen (a collaboration with vocalist Carla Thomas) and Live in Europe, he continued writing lines for the song on napkins and hotel paper.

That November, Redding joined Cropper at the Stax recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where they completed and recorded it. From those sessions emerged Redding's final recorded work, including 'Dock of the Bay,' which was recorded on November 22, with additional overdubs on December 7. Redding's restrained yet emotive delivery is backed by Cropper's succinct guitar playing.

The song is somewhat different in style from most of Redding's recordings. While discussing it with his wife, Redding said that he wanted it to 'be a little different', to 'change his style'. There were concerns that the song had too much of a pop feel. There were discussions of contracting the Stax gospel act the Staple Singers to record backing vocals, but this was never carried out.

Redding considered the song unfinished, and planned to record what he considered a final version, but never got the chance. The song features a whistled melody heard before it fades out; it is unclear who performed it. Some sources claim Sam Taylor, a guitarist/bandleader for Redding during the 1960s, overdubbed Redding's original, weaker whistle. However, Cropper insists that Redding's original whistle was used.

Reader's Guide

The song was released in January 1968, shortly after Redding's death. R&B stations quickly added the song to their playlists, which had been saturated with Redding's previous hits. The song shot to number 1 on the R&B charts in early 1968 and, starting in March, topped the pop charts for four weeks.

The album, which shared the song's title, became his largest-selling to date, peaking at number 4 on the pop album chart. 'Dock of the Bay' was popular in countries across the world and became Redding's most successful song, selling more than four million copies worldwide. In 1969, it won two Grammy Awards: Best R&B Song and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. In 1998 the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Billboard ranked the record as the number 4 song for 1968. In 1999, BMI named the song as the sixth-most performed song of the twentieth century, with about six million performances. Rolling Stone ranked The Dock of the Bay number 161 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the third of five Redding albums on the list. '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' was ranked twenty-sixth on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the second-highest of four Redding songs on the list, after 'Respect' (in this case the version recorded by Aretha Franklin).