Big Bird

Recorded at Stax in Memphis with Booker T. Jones producing and the Stax house musicians behind Floyd. Floyd wrote it in a London airport while waiting to fly back for Otis Redding’s funeral. Issued in 1968, the single turned Floyd’s shock and grief over Redding’s death into one of Stax’s most forceful late-1960s statements. Its harder, rock-leaning feel marked a broadening of the label’s sound. The song stayed a favored deep-cut Stax recording and was later covered by The Jam. It also resurfaced on Stax compilations and in later media placements, keeping it in circulation beyond its original chart run.