Editor’s note: “Dispatches” are occasional snapshots of people, places, scenes or moments from around Georgia that our reporters come across. They aim to be immersive and aren’t always tied to a news event.
MACON — Passersby in Otis Redding’s hometown can spy him anew, guitar in hand, where he belongs: “Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun.”
A bronze, life-size statue of Georgia’s soul-singing legend is now prominently perched in downtown after spending the better part of the past two decades in a small — and, as some might say, overlooked — waterfront park along the Ocmulgee River.
The statue depicts the singer seated on dock pilings above a round pool of water — pencil and notepad at his side, the latter jotted with some of his most-famous lyrics from his most-famous song: “Two thousand miles I roamed; Just to make this dock my home.”
The song, “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” is about watching passing ships and tides on California’s coast, not sitting in Middle Georgia at a busy intersection for cars. No matter. The lyrics also are about pining for home. Here.
The statue’s backstory dates to the year 2000 when Macon’s then-mayor suggested renaming the City Auditorium after Redding. Civic leaders opted instead for a privately funded, $50,000 statue that is believed to be the city’s first of a Black person. After moving from the river into storage for a bit, it recently resurfaced in the center of town, in front of a new building trumpeting his name.
The Redding statue is based on a photograph of Redding playing guitar. Two artists from Florida used pictures of Redding’s children to accurately capture his features. The sculptors used photos of Otis Redding III’s hands. The statue’s lips were modeled after those of another son, Dexter Redding. Its ears were fashioned from those of the singer’s daughter, Karla Redding-Andrews.
Redding’s widow, Zelma, has said the artists’ efforts were spot-on, that they had also tapped into her late husband’s “vibe.”
And something else emanates from the statue’s new setting.
Something poetic.
Something akin to music — the sound of moving water.
A circular pool was added when the statue was installed on the street corner in May. Propelled by a pump below the surface, the water inside burbles.
No, forget that.
At the feet of a musical giant known for belting his heart out, one who died at age 26 and whose work flows on half a century later, water swashes.
It sashays.
It rolls.
Although the statue inhabits the corner of a four-way intersection at Cherry Street and Cotton Avenue, the traffic’s din fails to drown its peaceful resonance.
Redding strikes an understated, elegant pose.
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
On a recent morning, his likeness, his “Otis-ness,” seemed to exude some of the magic that made him a household name. His gaze faces the patina-green spire of First Presbyterian Church, a block from the auditorium where his funeral was held in 1967, the same venue that years later might have borne his name. Across the way stands a curbside clock on a lamppost, the time and tide of cars rolling away.
To his back, in front of the recently opened Otis Redding Center for the Arts, lies the Zelma Redding Amphitheater, an outdoor stage.
The other day, a woman ambled by on the sidewalk. “I’m lost,” she said. Head down, she didn’t notice the statue. Redding’s name, she said, didn’t ring a bell.
Then a man in his late 60s walked up. He had moved to town from Washington state a couple of years back. It so happened he was a musician, a drummer. He’d been a Redding fan. He was in downtown getting the brakes fixed on his 1975 Dodge van and wandered over to look at the statue. He heard about the Redding center and wondered if they took donations. At home, he had some old drum gear and he aimed to give it away. “For up-and-coming dreamers,” Roger Swanson, 68, said.
He admired the statue and recalled how Seattle, the hometown of Jimi Hendrix, had erected one of its own in honor of the guitar-playing phenom.
Swanson liked the Redding statue more, its gracefulness.
“It’s good to see that people in this city appreciate their musical heroes,” he said.
As he left, Redding’s daughter, Karla, happened by. She was on her phone. Busy, apparently, with a summer camp for youths at the Redding Center.
A couple, a husband and wife, visiting the center wheeled in to park. They were on vacation from Wisconsin, site of the plane crash where Redding died. “We like his music,” the husband said.
Later, a homeless man strode by the statue and saluted.
Then Redding’s grandson, who helps run the center’s summer camp, dropped by. He said the bronze, “supercool” likeness of his grandfather had so far been a hit in its new location, attracting scores of selfie-snapping fans.
“They’ll sit here and kind of meditate when it’s not a bazillion degrees outside,” Justin Andrews said. “It’s become a huge focal point. … He’s finally sitting on the dock of the bay.”
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Just then another person appeared. Kenneth Johnson, a Creek artist and metalsmith from New Mexico, stood admiring the statue.
Johnson was commissioned to craft a 9-foot bronze figure of a Native American stickball player placed across the river near the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park.
Johnson had seen the Redding statue in its former spot and was now, with an artist’s eye, taking in its more visible location.
“Where it is now, it gets the traffic,” he said. “A book that is not in a library can never be checked out.”
He sensed a spiritual and inviting presence in Redding’s pose.
“As a Muscogee person, these are our original homelands,” Johnson said. “He’s welcoming us back.”
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