Otis Redding — “Mary’s Little Lamb”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — September 12, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,333) Otis Redding — “Mary’s Little Lamb”

With apologies to Paul McCartney, only Otis Redding can take “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and turn it into a demonstration of the proposition that “I can sing about anything and I can make you feel it in the depths of your soul.” (Wade Schuman (from Hazmat Modine), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA9I62ZNVwQ&t=315s) With this ’63 B-side, Redding “decided to try something a little different, adding both brass instruments and some background singers.” (Factinate, https://www.factinate.com/people/facts-otis-redding) “Mary” is “loosely based on the children’s nursery rhyme. It seems banal to start with but the last half minute or so is absolutely fantastic.” (Cal Taylor, https://www.toppermost.co.uk/otis-redding/) In Schuman’s view, Redding is drawing deep from the gospel tradition, citing the Swan Silvertones’s sand the Caravans’s versions of “Mary Don’t You Weep”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA9I62ZNVwQ&t=315s)

Here are the Swan Silvertones:

Here are the Caravans:

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