Who recorded it first
Try a Little Tenderness
Not an Otis Redding original — the song is a 1932 British dance-band number, and the earliest documented recording is Jack Payne and His Band, London, November 1932
Otis Redding’s 1966 Volt single is so total a performance that it reads as an origin, but the song was published in London on 4 November 1932, written by Harry M. Woods with Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly. Three British dance bands were on it within weeks. The earliest documented session is Jack Payne and His Band, cut in London in November 1932 with Payne himself singing and issued on Imperial 2792 — a dating that rests on Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes’s British Dance Bands on Record 1911-1945, the standard reference discography for this repertoire, as cited with the archive transfer of the disc. Then come Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans on 1 December 1932 (Columbia CB-546), and only then the Ray Noble Orchestra with Val Rosing on 8 December 1932. We flag this page as disputed because Wikipedia still names the Noble session as the first recording and does not mention Payne at all; the specialist discographies say otherwise, and we have not been able to put a day-of-month on the Payne date. What is not in doubt is the direction of travel: whoever reached the microphone first, it was a British dance band in 1932, not Otis Redding.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Recorded in London in November 1932 by Jack Payne and His Band, with Payne taking the vocal himself, and issued as a 78rpm single on Imperial 2792 in January 1933, backed with “When the Morning Rolls Around”. Payne had left the BBC Dance Orchestra earlier in 1932 and moved his recording to Imperial.
Charted No chart placing is documented for any of the 1932 British recordings — Britain had no record chart until 1952. The song’s first documented American hits came in 1933, with Ted Lewis and Ruth Etting.
The paper trail
Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes, British Dance Bands on Record 1911-1945 — the standard reference discography for this repertoire — is cited with the archive transfer of the Payne disc as dating his session ahead of both the Carroll Gibbons and Ray Noble recordings. The transfer comes from the Charles Hippisley-Cox British Dance Band Collection held at Heritage Quay, the University of Huddersfield archive. This is the strongest evidence on the page, and it is the reason the Wikipedia line no longer leads.
45cat’s entry for Imperial 2792 ↗ confirms the issue: Jack Payne, “Try a Little Tenderness” backed with “When the Morning Rolls Around”, January 1933 — consistent with a session in the previous November.
A discography devoted to the British dance-band singer Maurice Elwin dates a Carroll Gibbons and Savoy Hotel Orpheans session ↗ to 1 December 1932 in London, Columbia CB-546. It lists Jack Payne among the bands that recorded the song in 1932-33 but makes no claim about who was first.
Wikipedia’s article on the song ↗ gives the publication date of 4 November 1932 by Campbell, Connelly & Co., Ltd., and states that the first recording was the Ray Noble Orchestra’s of 8 December 1932 with Val Rosing. Val Rosing’s article ↗ repeats it — but both are Wikipedia, so that is one tertiary source stated twice, not two sources, and the specialist discographies outrank it.
MusicBrainz ↗ carries the Ray Noble recording attached to the February 1933 US Victor release pairing it with Don Bestor’s “Close to Your Heart”.
Wikipedia: Try a Little Tenderness — recordings and cover historyKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What people get wrong
The famous version is a cover of a pre-war British standard. The only genuinely open question is which 1932 dance band recorded it first.
Otis Redding wrote or originated it
Redding’s recording is a 1966 Stax reading of a song published in London in November 1932. He did not write it and was not the first to record it.
Jack Payne and His Band, London, November 1932
Rust and Forbes’s British Dance Bands on Record 1911-1945, cited with the archive transfer of the disc, places Payne ahead of both December sessions. Issued on Imperial 2792 in January 1933. We have a month, not a day, which is why the page stays marked disputed.
Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, 1 December 1932
A specialist discography dates a London session with Maurice Elwin and the Carlyle Cousins to 1 December 1932, Columbia CB-546. It does not itself claim to be the first.
Ray Noble Orchestra, vocal by Val Rosing, 8 December 1932
Wikipedia calls this the first recording, issued on HMV B-6284 and on Victor 24263 in America in February 1933, and does not mention Payne or Gibbons. It is the most widely repeated answer and the most easily checked, but on the discographical evidence it is the third documented recording.
Harry M. Woods, Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly
Music by Woods, lyrics by Campbell and Connelly, published 4 November 1932 by Campbell, Connelly & Co., Ltd.
It is a 1932 British dance-band song. The earliest documented recording is Jack Payne’s, in November 1932, with Carroll Gibbons and Ray Noble following in December — and Otis Redding, who was born in 1941, was never in the running.
Context
How a 1932 dance-band number became a soul monument
The interesting question is not why people forget the 1932 record — it is why Otis Redding’s version erased not one predecessor but dozens. Between its publication in London in November 1932 and Redding’s Memphis session, the song had been through Ted Lewis, Ruth Etting, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra twice, and a whole shelf of British dance bands. It was a well-worn standard, the kind of thing an artist picks up because everybody already knows it.
What Redding and Isaac Hayes did was change the song’s grammar. The 1932 arrangements treat the title as gentle advice, delivered at a tempo you could dance to in a hotel ballroom. The Stax version treats it as something the singer has to survive, starting almost motionless and ending at full sprint, with Booker T. & the M.G.’s pushing the floor out from under it. When a performance reorganises a song that completely, the earlier readings stop sounding like versions of the same thing — which is exactly how an origin gets overwritten.
The documented chronology
- 4 November 1932 — the song is published in London by Campbell, Connelly & Co., Ltd., music by Harry M. Woods, lyrics by Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly.
- November 1932 — Jack Payne and His Band record it in London, Payne singing, issued on Imperial 2792 in January 1933. Rust and Forbes’s standard British dance-band discography, cited with the archive transfer of the disc, places this ahead of both December sessions. It is the earliest documented recording we can find, though no day of the month is given.
- 1 December 1932 — a specialist discography dates a London session by Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, vocals by Maurice Elwin and the Carlyle Cousins, issued on Columbia CB-546.
- 8 December 1932 — the Ray Noble Orchestra records it with Val Rosing on vocal. Issued on HMV B-6284 in Britain and, in February 1933, on Victor 24263 in America. This is the session Wikipedia still calls the first recording.
- 9 January 1933 — Bing Crosby records it for Brunswick.
- 1933 — Ted Lewis (Columbia 2748 D) and Ruth Etting (Melotone 12625) have hits with it in the United States.
- 1946 and 1960 — Frank Sinatra records it twice, keeping it in circulation as a ballad standard.
- 1966 — Otis Redding records it at Stax with Booker T. & the M.G.’s and Isaac Hayes; released on Volt/Atco V-141 and on Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul. It reaches No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- 1969 — Three Dog Night’s version reaches No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100.
It was a thirty-four-year-old standard when Stax got hold of it.