Steve Cropper

I'd been playing with another band called the Club Handy Band, and we had done some sessions for Don Roby.

I think, I don't even remember which songs, but I played on the Five Blind Boys albums.

I played on Al TNT Braggs.

I think there was some Bobby Blue Bland stuff that I played on.

But I played with a lot of those musicians, and we were asking around to find out who was a real good keyboard player.

We had used several, and they said, there's this kid, he's still in school, named Booker T. Jones, and he's incredible.

And they had worked with him on a lot of other stuff, and on stage as well.

And so we got Booker over on a session, and everybody just fell in love with him.

Well, of course, we wrote a lot of songs together.

The inception of Dock of the Bay was really no different than any other one.

Otis was one of those kind of guys who had 100 ideas.

And he always had with him, anytime he came in to record, 10 or 15 different pretty good ideas, either intros or titles or whatever.

And he had been in San Francisco doing the Fillmore.

And the story that I got, he had rented a boathouse or stayed out at a boathouse or something.

And that's when he got the idea of watching the ships come in the bay there.

And that's about all he had.

I watched the ships come in, watch them roll away again, and I'm sitting on the dock of the bay.

And I just took that.

We just sat down, and I just kind of learned the changes that he was kind of running over.

And I finished the lyrics.