Joe Eszterhas: That Time Otis Redding Called Me a ‘White F–ing N-Word’ | Guest Blog

The “Basic Instinct” screenwriter recounts his meeting with the legendary soul singer — just hours before his tragic death

otis redding
Otis Redding in 1966 . (Photo by Cyrus Andrews/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

In 1967, I was a very young reporter for a newspaper called The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio… and crazy in love with the music of Otis Redding. When I read that he was coming to a Black nightclub called Leo’s Casino on Cleveland’s East Side, I somehow convinced my white editors — Sinatra and Dean Martin and Tony Bennett fans — to let me interview him. I had never seen Otis in person before.

The club, Cleveland’s hottest Black nightclub, was filled. Otis bounded onstage — a big man who, after the first few bars of his first song, had the predominantly Black audience in his big Black palm.

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