The record in context

“Hard to Handle” was not supposed to be important. Cut in 1967 during the sessions for what would become The Immortal Otis Redding, it was a loose, swaggering soul-blues number — the kind of track that fills out an album rather than defining it. Redding reportedly thought little of it; it was a groove, a workout, a bit of fun. Then he died, and the song’s fate changed completely.

Released as a single in 1968, after his death, Redding’s “Hard to Handle” became a hit — and then something stranger happened. Rock bands started playing it. The Grateful Dead took it into their live repertoire in the early 1970s, stretching it into long, jammed-out versions. And in 1990, the Black Crowes — young, swaggering revivalists who wore their Otis worship openly — released their cover as a single, and it became one of the biggest rock hits of the year, introducing Redding’s song to a generation that had never heard of Stax.

The song’s second life raises a fascinating question: what did rock musicians hear in this particular record that they did not hear in Redding’s bigger hits? Part of the answer is the groove — loose, bluesy, built for a band to stretch out on. But the deeper answer is the attitude. “Hard to Handle” is Redding at his most uninhibited, and rock, which has always prized abandon over polish, recognized a kindred spirit.

Listen closely

Start with the swagger. From the first bar, this record has a strut that sets it apart from Redding’s more earnest material — a rolling, blues-drenched groove that feels less like a plea and more like a boast. Listen for the looseness: where the Stax hits are models of precision, “Hard to Handle” sounds like a band enjoying itself, the rhythm section laying back just enough to give the whole thing a dangerous, off-balance swing. You can hear why jam bands loved it. There is room in this groove — room to stretch, to improvise, to show off.

Listen for Redding’s vocal, which is pure mischief. He growls, he teases, he stretches words into shapes they were never meant to hold. The lyric is a lover’s complaint — she’s hard to handle — but he sings it like a man delighted by the difficulty, and that delight is infectious. Notice the call-and-response with the horns, looser and more playful than on the big singles: this is a singer and a band egging each other on, and the joy of it practically radiates from the speakers. No wonder he reportedly did not take the song seriously. It sounds like the most fun he ever had in a studio.

Now listen for what the rock covers kept and what they changed. The Grateful Dead’s versions stretch the groove into long improvisational passages — they heard the room in the record and moved into it. The Black Crowes’ version tightens it back up but keeps the swagger, with Chris Robinson doing an uncanny channeling of Redding’s phrasing. Both covers prove the same point: the song’s DNA is sturdy enough to survive transplantation. A great groove is a great groove, whether the band behind it is from Memphis or San Francisco or Atlanta.

But here is the thing the covers cannot quite capture, and the reason to return to the original: the particular grain of Redding’s voice on this record. The rock singers can match the attitude, but they cannot match the instrument — that impossible combination of gravel and honey, of church and street, that makes even a throwaway feel like a testament. “Hard to Handle” was a leftover. In Redding’s hands, even the leftovers were better than most artists’ main courses. Listen to the fade and notice that the band sounds like it could have played all night. In a way, through all the covers and all the years, it has.