Otis Redding died in a plane crash at the age of 26. (AOK Library & Gallery, UMBC/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Around a bend in the San Francisco Bay is a tranquil community of bobbing houseboats and wailing seagulls.

There, more than a half-century ago, an American classic was born.

The soul singer Otis Redding had come to San Francisco in August of 1967 for a six-night gig at Basin Street West. According to Jonathan Gould, a Redding biographer, the rock promoter Bill Graham offered Redding the use of his houseboat in Sausalito, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A country boy at heart, the Georgia-born singer accepted.

While relaxing on the boat, Redding is said to have strummed a guitar and come up with these words:

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun

I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come

Watching the ships roll in

And then I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

A few months later, with writing help from guitarist Steve Cropper, “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” was recorded during a session in Memphis.

It turned out to be Redding’s final work. He died a couple weeks later in a plane crash in Madison, Wis., on Dec. 10, 1967. He was 26.

It was this week in 1968 that “Dock of the Bay” was posthumously released.

The single was a huge hit and over time became one of the most frequently performed songs of the 20th century. Redding never heard the finished version.

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