(Sittin' On) The Dock of The Bay - Legacy

Legacy

Redding's body of work at the time of his death was immense, including a backlog of archived recordings as well as those done in November and December 1967 just before his death. In mid-1968, Stax Records severed its distribution contract with Atlantic Records, who retained the label's back catalog and the rights to the unreleased Otis Redding masters. Through its Atco subsidiary (Atco had distributed Otis Redding's releases from Stax's Volt label), Atlantic issued three more albums of new Redding material, one live album, and eight 45 RPM singles between 1968 and 1970. Co-owned Reprise Records issued a live album with Redding and Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival. Both studio albums and anthologies sold well in America and abroad. Redding was especially successful in the United Kingdom, where The Dock of the Bay went to number one, becoming the first posthumous album to reach the top spot there. and the following album, a greatest hits LP entitled History of Otis Redding, reached number one on the R&B charts and number nine on Billboard 200.

In 1999, BMI named the song as the sixth-most performed song of the 20th century, with about six million performances. Rolling Stone ranked Redding's album, The Dock of the Bay number 161 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the third of five Redding albums that made the list. "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was ranked twenty-eighth on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the second highest of four Redding songs on the list, after "Respect".

Jim Morrison references "Dock of the Bay" in The Doors' song "Runnin Blue" written by Robby Krieger from their 1969 album "The Soft Parade". Morrison sings an a capella intro for the song, singing directly about Otis Redding. "Poor Otis dead and gone, left me here to sing his song, pretty little girl with a red dress on, poor Otis dead and gone." And during the verse, the lyrics "Got to find a dock and a bay" appear more than once; as well as several other references to Redding's song.