Zelma Redding: ‘I only had one love in my life … Otis.’
MACON — Nearly 60 years have passed since soul-singing legend Otis Redding died at age 26 in a December 1967 plane crash.
It is easy to forget how young he was considering how many hits he produced and how they have stood the test of time. Among them: “ (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” “Respect,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “These Arms of Mine.”
His widow, Zelma Redding, 83, a Macon native, sat down in mid-April with Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Joe Kovac Jr. to reflect on her life and how she and her children have been caretakers of Otis’ legacy. They also have overseen their hometown’s Otis Redding Museum.
Otis Ray Redding Jr. was born in 1941 outside the town of Dawson in southwestern Georgia’s Terrell County. His family moved to Macon when he was a child. He and Zelma Atwood met outside “The Teenage Party” talent show, which Otis frequently won on Saturdays at a downtown Macon theater. The couple married in 1961 and later moved to a ranch in neighboring Jones County. They had four children: Otis Redding III, who died in 2023; Dexter Redding; Karla Redding-Andrews and Demetria Redding.
Last year, the family opened the Otis Redding Center for the Arts in downtown Macon. The 15,000-square-foot facility serves as an educational incubator aimed at teaching young people various aspects of music, from songwriting to performing to business.
Zelma Redding’s recollections and life lessons in her interview with the AJC, lightly edited for clarity, appear below:
I met him at the Douglass Theatre in Macon on the talent show. We were catching a bus right there at Cherry Street and Broadway. He was coming up the street with Johnny Jenkins, who was the star. And Otis said, “Hey, baby.” So I just looked around. I’ve always been real defensive. I said, “You don’t know me. I ain’t your baby. You don’t know nothing about me.” He just started talking and blessing me out. I just rolled my eyes at him and kept on walking.
I met him again on the bus on Telfair Street, because they lived in the projects. So I said, “Lord, there that fool is again, the same old fool.” Then I saw him again and we just started dating.
My daddy could not stand him. Because my daddy was a neat freak. Otis would get his shoes full of dirt. And my daddy didn’t like dirt. And Otis would come in with dirt on his feet, and my daddy would get angry, “Oh, look at his boy come in here with that dirt on his shoes. I’m gonna get him out of here. I’m gonna cuss him out.” My mama said, “Don’t do that.” And we went on a date and that was my first kiss.
He had an old raggedy car, some kind of old Mercury. And that thing just smoked, just a piece of crap.
I found out he was a serious singer when he did the first album. It didn’t faze me one way or the other. “You just better get back home.” He stayed on the road a lot.
When I would go to the studio at Stax and he would record, he could just blow your mind. He just lit the whole place up. And the musicians just loved him so much. He couldn’t read music nor could he write it, but he could tell everybody how to play.
He was godsent, ahead of his time.
He was late for the wedding. The preacher was there, mama and daddy were there, everybody was there. I said, “Oh, God, this fool ain’t coming.” He showed up late, “How y’all doing? Everybody all right?” And I’m just looking at him. I gave him that eye.
I saw him as one of the strongest Black men, other than my father, that I’ve ever met. He was raised well. He wanted everybody to appreciate him. But mainly his wife. He loved me to death. I don’t care where he was, he was gonna call home five or six times a day. “What you doing?” “Same thing I was doing when you called an hour ago. … Messing with these kids of yours that’s driving me crazy.”
It was just all love — and respect. He respected me.
I just want to be remembered as Zelma Atwood Redding. A lot of people call me “Thelma” or “Velma.” I think I’m a strong woman.
I grew up kind of selfish as a child. Because my parents only had me, I never knew how poor we were. I always wore good clothes, I dressed nice, had good shoes. There was a little jealousy among some of the other girls.
My shoes, my clothes, everything had to be to the nines. And if I didn’t have something new on Monday morning, I wouldn’t go to school. If I didn’t have new shoes, new socks or new bows or crinoline skirts. My mom would say, “Come on, you’ve got to get up.” I’d say, “Oh, my stomach hurts me so bad. Mama, I’m so sick.”
I never had a job till I got to be 15. I cleaned houses.
I worked upstairs with the dumbwaiter at the Saratoga Restaurant in Macon for about a year and a half. Lobsters, steaks, baked potatoes, I mean, good food. I would do the rolls and I would also do the lobster tails, put them in the broiler.
I was good at doing anything I wanted to. If I didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t do it. Just like when I worked cleaning houses. That was fine with me, $15. Then the lady I worked for wanted me to clean the big old porch. I said, “That wasn’t in our deal.” I took up for me when I was 15. She said, “I want you to clean that porch.” I said, “I’m not gonna clean it.” So I got my pocketbook and I got my little money and I left, and she didn’t see me no more. Don’t ask me to do something that you’re not gonna pay me for.
When you’re missing your partner, when you’re missing your loved one, that was the reason I came up with “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember.” He had been gone for maybe two months in Europe, and I scribbled down a poem. I said, “Otis, I wrote this poem for you.” He said, “Look, you are not a songwriter.” But my poem disappeared. And my poem went to the studio and that’s how “Dreams” came.
He had horses and he always wanted me to learn how to ride a horse. I don’t get on nothing bigger than me. I don’t mess with no horses. My feet couldn’t hit the ground. I saw him one day, that horse, Comanche, spun him in that field and turned him upside down. That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. He didn’t get hurt, but I had to laugh. He looked like he was scared to death. I said, “See, you ought to mind your own business out there. … That horse showed you.”
He had a lot of cattle. He was scared of the cows.
I never thought about remarrying. When I looked around, I had too much to live for with my kids and that legacy.
I only had one love in my life, and that was Otis Redding — serious love. I still live with those memories.
You get lucky, maybe, one time.
I figured if I ever fell in love with somebody else and got married that man might not be as fond of one of my kids as he is the others. And so I didn’t want to wind up in prison. Because he’s gonna get hurt if he messes with one of my kids.
I used to go to Vegas a lot, but now they’ll take me up to Wetumpka or Cherokee. My game is slots. You might win, you might not. They’ve got to pay the bills.
What surprises me is when young people come up and say, “I love Mr. Redding,” and they weren’t even born at that time.
Don’t say you can’t do it. You can do anything. You’ve just got to know how. I’ll take a chance on anything.
If you’re scared of your thoughts and your mind, you’re not gonna ever make it.
Soul is from the heart. Everybody can’t sing soul music. Anybody who wants to come up and do Otis Redding, they can’t cover Otis Redding. Your heart is not in it like his.
About the Author
Joe Kovac Jr. is Macon bureau chief covering Middle Georgia for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
