Knock On Wood/Let Me Be Good To You/Tramp/Tell It Like It Is/When Something Is Wrong With My Baby/Lovey Dovey/New Year’s Resolution/It Takes Two/Are You Lonely For Me Baby/Bring It On Home To Me/Ooh Carla Ooh Otis
This collaboration with Carla Thomas, King & Queen, was the final album release during Otis Redding's lifetime. It includes the UK No. 18 hit single Tramp. (US:36 UK:18)
"A fairly swell collection of duets between Otis and Carla. They fit together like, well, King and Queen. If you like the Stax/Memphis sound and Otis Redding and/or Carla Thomas, you can't go wrong on this one. Their version of Eddie Floyd's Knock On Wood is an absolute classic. Great album."
"What Otis didn't have, on his own, was humour - that's where Carla Thomas, daughter of Rufus, came in. Tramp is an exuberant duet, once heard it lingers in the mind. It's funny. The rest of this record, first released in 1967, lingers well, too. The covers of several rock and roll masterpieces like Tell It Like It Is, It Takes Two and Bring It On Home To Me, are crisp, light-handed and sure-footed."
"Otis Redding and Carla Thomas recorded one album together, made up of mostly covers, but Mr. Redding and Ms. Thomas attack the songs with a ferocity and verve that makes them sound all their own. Mr. Redding's smooth voice easily mingles with the sass of Ms. Thomas and this is no better illustrated than on Tramp which is pure Southern soul. King & Queen was a boastful title and the two more than live up to the claim."
"His career was firing on all cylinders at this point with this album. In keeping with some of the uptown duet albums Marvin Gaye had released with many different female performers during this time, Otis and label mate Carla Thomas did the same thing on this album. The major difference here is approach of course. Whereas the Motown duet albums were slick uptown R & B, this is the same funky Southern soul both artists had been doing from the outset."
"Carla Thomas holds her own as much as anybody could be expected to, and Tramp is an all-time classic. The album is a fine collection of tracks that do feature the king, if not quite the queen. But then the king gets his choice, and if Otis' choice was Carla, then who am I to argue?"
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