Hi, everyone. Welcome to the first Music Monday of 2024.

(Image found online.  Original source unknown.)

Happy New Year, everyone! I wish all of you the best during the next 12 months. Thank you for being here with me week after week. I really appreciate it.

I do not believe in resolutions, but I do believe in Otis Redding. And his duets with Carla Thomas from their 1967 album, King & Queen, are some of his best moments. ”Tramp” was always my favorite collaboration of theirs, but today’s song is nearly tied with it. The lyrics offer good advice for every day, not just the first one. I can think of no better way to start off a week-let alone a new year-than with a lot of soul.    

“Let’s turn over a new leave
And baby let’s make promises
That we can keep
And call it a new year’s resolution“.

“So baby before we fall out
Let’s fall on in, yeah yeah
And we’re gonna try harder
Not to hurt each other again“. 

 Top: Otis Redding & Carla Thomas’s 1967 album. Bottom: Carla Thomas (seated, then L-R): Otis Redding, Jim Stewart, co-founder of Stax Records, Rufus Thomas (Carla’s father) and Booker T. Jones in the Stax studio in 1967. (Images found online.  Original sources unknown.)

Otis Redding and Carla Thomas: “A New Year’s Resolution” (1967, written by Randle Catron, Mary Frierson and Willie Dean “Deanie” Parker).

Stay safe and well.