12/12/2025
This week in Music & Wisconsin history - Otis Redding died on December 10, 1967, at the age of 26, in a tragic plane crash into the icy waters of Lake Monona near Madison, Wisconsin. He was en route from Cleveland, Ohio, to a concert in Madison with his backing band, the Bar-Kays.
* The crash occurred on the afternoon of Sunday, December 10, 1967, about four miles short of his destination at Truax Field airport in Madison.
* The exact cause of the crash was never officially determined by the NTSB, partly because the left engine and propeller were never recovered from the lakebed. The weather was poor at the time, with heavy rain and fog.
* Seven of the eight people on board the twin-engine Beechcraft H18 plane perished. The victims included: Otis Redding, Four members of the Bar-Kays: guitarist Jimmy King, tenor saxophonist Phalon Jones, organist Ronnie Caldwell, and drummer Carl Cunningham. Their valet, Matthew Kelly. The pilot, Richard Fraser.
* Sole Survivor: Trumpet player Ben Cauley was the only survivor. He was sleeping shortly before the impact and managed to unbuckle his seatbelt and grab a seat cushion to keep afloat in the frigid water.
* Posthumous Legacy: Just three days before his death, Redding had recorded his most famous song, the introspective "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay". The song was released posthumously in January 1968 and became his only number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it the first posthumous number-one single in U.S. history.
* Otis Redding was buried on the grounds of his family estate in Round Oak, Georgia. He is remembered as the "King of Soul" and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
To honor his enduring musical legacy and community work, the Otis Redding Foundation was established by his widow, Zelma, in 2007, to provide music and arts education to youth. Beyond his most famous hit, he also wrote the song "Respect," which became a number-one anthem for Aretha Franklin in 1967, months before his death.
