- I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (Live) Otis Redding 5:39
So, I’m sure many of you have heard the studio version of this song before…it’s a good song.
BUT, when this particular version began to play, I could tell that things were going to be very different. First of all, it is a live recording made in April of 1966 at the Whiskey a Go Go on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Secondly the band seems different..more strident, more in your face…it’s clear that it isn’t Steve Cropper from Mussel Shoals on guitar. The guitar sounds just a bit “undertuned” but yet it’s just perfect for the song. The three sax players combined with the trumpet and the trombone with the are spot on. Yet what really caught my ear is that the parts of the song sounded just a bit off…slightly out of tune. Like when Otis starts the second line of a verse by sort of sliding up into key as he sings “You were ttiiiirrrred and you want to be free”. Planned our not, it is a brilliant piece of soulful vocal work.
And the vamp at the end…don’t get me started…it is wonderfully suspenseful as it moves up and up and up in both instrumental and in vocal intensity. Then it stops…suddenly and takes off AGAIN.
Enjoy