Otis Redding III, Son Of Soul Great And Member Of The Reddings, Dies At 59
Redding III was a member of the family group the Reddings, who had 11 R&B chart entries including the 1980 Top 10 hit ‘Remote Control.’
Otis Redding III, the son of the great soul singer, has died from cancer at the age of 59. His sister, Karla Redding-Andrews, wrote on the Facebook page of the family’s Otis Redding Foundation charity yesterday: “It is with heavy hearts that the family of Otis Redding III confirms that he lost his battle with cancer last evening.”
Redding III was a member of the Reddings, the family group who were signed at the turn of the 1980s to Believe In A Dream Records, via CBS. They reached No.6 on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart, as the R&B listing was known at the time, with the dance-soul floorfiller “Remote Control.” Redding was joined in the group by brother Dexter and cousin Mark Locket.
The group went on to amass 11 entries on that chart throughout the decade, the last of them in 1988 and the final three on the Polydor label. Four of those 11 titles were Top 40 entries, with “I Know You Got Another” and a cover of Otis’ beloved “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” (both in 1982), “Where Did Our Love Go” in 1985 and “Call The Law,” which became their next biggest success, after their debut hit, at No.16 in 1988.
Redding, who was only three when his father was killed in a plane crash in 1967, continued as a musician after the family group’s last of six albums. He also worked with the Otis Redding Foundation, organizing summer camps with music tuition, and played events in honor of his father, including a tribute concert at Carnegie Hall in 2018.
Ever aware of the long shadow cast by his father’s career and legacy, he said in publicity material for the Reddings’ debut album of 1980, The Awakening: “We can be walking down the street and meet someone. An ordinary meeting, you know. Then we tell them our last name and they say ‘No, that can’t be. You’ve got to be kidding.’
“Then after half an hour of explaining that we are who we say we are, it takes another 30 minutes for the person to tell us about seeing or hearing our father and how much it meant to them. It doesn’t bother us. We’re proud of it. It just means we have a standard to live up to.”
