Three of the eleven songs on Otis Blue are Sam Cooke covers — a tribute to a friend killed months earlier.

Sam Cooke had been killed just months before Otis Redding entered the studio to record Otis Blue. Three of the album’s eleven songs are Cooke compositions, making the album a tribute as much as a statement of Redding’s own arrival. The covers include “Change Gonna Come,” “Shake,” and “Wonderful World.”