He was on the verge of a breakthrough no soul artist had achieved and was about to become a rock star without compromising one iota of his integrity.
Didn’t he blow away the crowd at Monterey Pop, the most important festival in the world, pre-Woodstock? Like the mod kids in the UK a couple of years earlier, the hippie crowd found Otis’ authenticity and life force irresistible. Throughout 1967, Otis was making inroads among the hippie audience, who appreciated that this suit-wearing, ball-busting performer was bringing no-holds-barred soul power to them. He had scored a string of Top 30 pop hits in the US, and the second of his two 1965 albums, Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, went Top 10 in the UK and was regarded as a classic among critics who did not normally consider soul music a serious art form. Kopec's Korner, 3523 Penn Ave., Lawrenceville.Otis Redding was the heartbeat of Stax Records, the Memphis label famed for bringing Southern soul to the wider world. "Actually," says Swat, "we had him at the bar the other night." The Facebook group "RIP Bobby Porter" has some 210 members a wake is planned for Sun., Nov. With the unwanted burial imminent, Swat emptied her rainy-day savings to cover the cremation, and Porter's rock 'n' roll friends fundraised to reimburse her. But the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't fund cremations. Porter, a Buddhist, had requested cremation. The singer's death occasioned posthumous drama. We didn't have the heart to tell him he already had one." "He said he had so much radiation, he wanted superpowers. Swat recalls Porter joking about his cancer treatment. Toward the end, she says, Porter left their Polish Hill house only for band practice or bar gigs. Porter was diagnosed with cancer last year, says close friend and longtime housemate Nigel Swat. "This grandma totally came up and Frenched him at this one place," says bassist Dana Barker. The gigs were in multi-generational communities called squats, drawing crowds of up to a couple hundred. The band performed locally and twice toured Europe - but not at clubs. When it ended, Porter dropped to his knees and whipped the stage with his sweaty T-shirt, exulting, "That's how you do that! That's how you do that!"Īfter Thin White Line broke up in 2003, Porter, past 50, started a new group, mischievously named Short Dark Strangers. McQuaid recalls the group's first (and only) public performance of Porter's song "Superfluous America," in 2003. Porter worked odd jobs, including janitorial work and a stint as a bouncer at South Side club the White Eagle. "We'd go into the bar and all the bartenders would be wearing our T-shirts." "We'd go to Youngstown and hundreds of people would show up," says Dale McQuaid, Thin White Line's drummer. "He felt that cosmically superstarish."īut the critically praised band seemed more popular away from home. "I just thought he was gonna be a giant star like the Dead Kennedys," says Leach. OUR urban legend, a brother from another planet." In a tribute posted online, music-scene veteran Kevin Amos calls Porter "the baddest mothercruncher EVER to front a band in this area. Rogers' neighborhood," goes "Towers Open Fire." "Good men die hard on the avenue / drop dead in Khe Sanh and Mr. His songs often explored racism and other social ills. "We're not animals / I won't put down this book just to pull your plow," goes one. "You could hear him coming."Īn avid reader, Porter loved science fiction, Star Trek, underground comics and William S. During the song "Under the Blades of Love," he'd run offstage, up into the balcony, still singing.
Musician Evan Knauer recalls Porter performing at the old Graffiti nightclub. He was really one of a kind," says Belfiore.
"He was a black man singing punk rock during the rap explosion.