First posthumous #1 on the Billboard Top 100
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Otis Redding is known as the King of Soul and is now considered one of the greatest singers ever; Rolling Stones ranked him 8th best in 2011. Otis did find success while he was still alive, but not as much as he should have. Unfortunately, he died in a plane accident before his music became mainstream.
Otis was not always popular with the mainstream American audience. Even in 1967, nine years after his music career started, he performed primarily for black audiences. It was until his scene-stealing performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival that Redding became more popular. That December, he recorded his most known song, "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", before the accident.
The song would be his most successful, reaching the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 100; this would be the first posthumous song to get that spot. He had nineteen past aired songs; the highest they reached on the charts before was twenty-first, for "I've Been Loving You Too Long". He would also win two Grammys for The Dock of the Bay.
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References
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100 Greatest Singers of all Time - 8 Otis Redding
It didn't seem like an audition at all. It was a performance. It wasn't the size of his voice — we knew lots of people with vocal powers like that. It was the intent with which he sang. He was all emotion.
Rolling Stone
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billboard
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Posthumous Top Rankings on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart
Upon reaching the summit, the track stayed atop for four weeks, gaining a vast influence amongst various cover artists such as Michael Bolton.
musicoholics
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Soul of the ’60s: Otis Redding’s Short Life and Long Reach
For Otis Redding, though, Monterey represented a transformation of his audience. Redding had already scored five Top 5 albums and more than a dozen Top 20 singles on the R & B charts, but he had never made a significant dent on the pop (that is, white) side.
The New York Times
