"Otis Redding was such a down-to-earth guy," recalls William Bell. "I met him at his first session for Stax in 1962 when he turned up as Johnny Jenkins' driver and we hit it off immediately. He was from Macon, Georgia, and was really down-home, a country guy. Once I got out of the military, we hung out and toured together and just became really good friends. He loved to hang out and have a beer. He'd go in a bar - what you call a pub - and buy everyone a beer. That was Otis."
Bell is a repository of stories about legendary Memphis musicians. As a teenager he sang on Beale Street when it was the blues Mecca, while at the same time he was part of a radio quartet alongside Isaac Hayes and Carla Thomas, both of whom would join him in achieving fame at Stax Records. B.B. King hosted his show on the same station and became a close friend. A young Al Green - long before he enjoyed a hit single worked alongside Bell on the chitlin' circuit in the early 60s. Elvis? Yes, William knew him. "Nice guy," he says of Presley. "If he had a racist bone in his body, he never showed it to me.'
This story is from the October 2022 edition of Record Collector.
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This story is from the October 2022 edition of Record Collector.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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