Along with other family members, Karla Redding-Andrews plans to attend the opening Monday of an exhibit about her father, renowned soul singer-songwriter Otis Redding, curated by the Georgia Southern Museum in the Statesboro Convention and Visitors Bureau welcome center at 222 South Main St.

The 5:30-7 p.m. reception is free and open to the public.

The opening of “Beyond the Spotlight: Otis Redding – His Family, Music and Legacy,” underlines the Redding family’s established ties with Statesboro and Georgia Southern University. Redding-Andrews, now executive director and vice president of the Otis Redding Foundation, is a 1985 Georgia Southern graduate.

"Having my father recognized in an exhibit by Georgia Southern and Statesboro means so much to me, as this was where I went to school and had some amazing years of my life,” she said. “It's also so wonderful to see the legacy of Otis Redding living on in Georgia, and having younger generations discover him and provide more ways for others to discover him."

Her sons Jarred Andrews, who is a current Georgia Southern student, and Justin Andrews, the Otis Redding Foundation’s director of special projects and outreach, are also slated to attend the opening event.

Family members still reside at the Big O Ranch, property that Otis Redding purchased at Gray, in Jones County, near Macon. Redding, who was born in Dawson but grew up in Macon, began his musical career performing with rhythm-and-blues and soul bands as a teenager. He then recorded a series of popular singles beginning with 1962’s “These Arms of Mine,” which he both wrote and sang, followed by albums such as 1965’s “Otis Blue.”

Redding also wrote “Respect,” which he originally recorded but which became a signature hit for Aretha Franklin.

Redding was just 26 when he died, along with several members of his backing band, in the crash of a private plane in December 1967.

‘Dock of the Bay’

But his best-known song, “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” which he co-wrote with Steve Cropper, had been recorded days before the crash, and went on to become the first-ever posthumously released record to hit Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, according to a list at www.billboard.com. The single also won two Grammy Awards in 1968 for Best Rhythm and Blues Song and Best Male Vocal R&B Performance.

The “Dock of the Bay” album, which included other previously unreleased songs, then became the first of several successful posthumous albums that added to Otis Redding’s towering musical legacy.

Some exceptional artifacts to look for in the exhibit include a red-silk suit he wore during his European concert tour. This was seen on the cover of the tour-based live album, but the suit has never been exhibited before, said SCVB Executive Director Becky Davis. Also to be seen now in Statesboro are the gold record awarded for sales of Redding’s version of “Try a Little Tenderness” and the three-time platinum record for “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”

“We are looking at the music and have some wonderful music-related artifacts and things in there, but also we’re really looking at his personal life and family life, and then, after his death, the fact that the family used his philanthropic vision to continue today with the Otis Redding Foundation,” said Georgia Southern Museum Director Brent Tharp, Ph.D.

Zelma Redding, the widow of Otis Redding, established the foundation in Macon in 2007. She remains its president while their daughter, Redding-Andrews, runs the day-to-day business.

The foundation focuses on bringing music-based education and performing arts experiences to children and youth. Its initiatives include the Otis Music Camp, held each June in Macon but drawing campers from across the United States; the DREAM Choir; and Camp DREAM, which offers children coaching in theater and visual arts, as well as music and dance.

“We’ll be promoting the foundation as well and some of its work that it does, its summer camps and other things in this area,” Tharp said.

Museum on Main

Also a Georgia Southern University history professor, Tharp teaches a museum studies class each spring semester for public-history students, who get involved in designing a new Museum on Main exhibit.

“So this is a collaboration between the SCVB, the museum and the (GS) Department of History,” he said.

These exhibits have been a feature at the SCVB’s regional visitors’ center since soon after it opened in its current location in 2014. The most recent prior exhibit shined a light on slavery.

“It’s a wonderful partnership with Georgia Southern,” said Davis, the SCVB director. “It’s unique for our regional visitor information center to also have a museum space, and it’s a big tourism draw for us.”

The layout of this exhibit includes a small seating area where people can watch concert footage and interviews on a TV screen.

Sculptural parallel

The SCVB center also has its own permanent salute to a musician from an earlier era, the seated bronze sculpture of “Statesboro Blues” singer-songwriter “Blind Willie” McTell. In the work created by Georgia Southern art professor Marc Moulton for the Blue Mile Foundation and unveiled last year, McTell sits on a bench out front, with room beside him for visitors.

Macon, coincidentally, has a bronze sculpture of Otis Redding sitting on dock pilings and playing a guitar. It was unveiled at the Gateway Park on a bank of the Ocmulgee River in 2002. His namesake foundation features it and other tributes to Redding, such as a memorial marker in Gray, on its website, www.otisreddingfoundation.org.

Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.