‘She is an incredible businesswoman’
Zelma Redding lost her husband in a plane crash 57 years ago.
She lost a grandson to a murder 15 years ago.
She lost her left leg to a blood clot disease 13 years ago.
She lost a son to cancer just over a year ago.
Yet, Zelma Redding is going strong at 82. The long-time Jones County resident uses an artificial leg and walker to get around.
Albeit it slowly, she does get around – a lot. Redding and her family have been busy over the years promoting the legacy of her late husband, singer and songwriter Otis Redding, Jr., who died en route to a show in California when his plane went down Dec. 10, 1967.
Redding was only 26 and had just written and recorded the song that more than any other made him known worldwide, (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay. The song was released in January 1968 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Zelma Atwood Redding has been anything but an idle widow collecting royalties from her husband’s music, but in an interview last week, she shared first some personal history. She grew up in Macon, and Otis moved here from Dawson when he was young.
“We met at the Douglass Theater when I was 16,” she began. “They had a talent show every Saturday morning, and I was there to watch. He was on that show; he just sang. Later on he got to be with a group called Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers.”
The couple married in August of 1961, two months before her 19th birthday. He was 19. They had three children – Otis III, who died in 2023; Dexter, now 64, and Karla, 62. They bought the Jones County house and land between Wayside and Round Oak in 1965, but they had not moved there before his death. He did some work on it, including putting in a swimming pool. “I took it out after the grandkids came,” Redding said. “If one of my grandkids fell in that swimming pool and drowned, I was going to kill myself.”
Redding and the children ultimately moved to Jones County, and she made some changes later.
“I remodeled the house. I did a facelift on the front because it had the old ranch style. You don’t really see them anymore.”
Among other alterations, Redding closed in the garage, and that room is now adorned with a lot of Otis Redding memorabilia, including awards, autographed pictures and items Otis purchased.
“Everything in here he bought,” she declared. “And, whatever he bought, I don’t get rid of, because he had so much class and taste.”
The unexpected death was a shot of reality for Redding, who admits she had very little business experience, and she said she basically started from scratch.
“After he died, I had to go back to school. I went to Crandall Business College. I didn’t know anything about business. I got a GED. Learned how to talk to bankers. Learned the business aspect of it.
“But,” Redding quickly added, “Most of my learning came from the street. I learned from people. I taught myself how to be very vocal in the community, whether it was here in Jones County or Bibb County.”
Redding knew there were naysayers who doubted her abilities.
“I had a lot of jobs,” she said. “Everybody thought ‘With Otis dead, she is going to lose that place.’ But, I was determined I wasn’t going to lose it.”
Redding undertook numerous business ventures in the years that followed. She started in the profession close to that of her husband.
“I learned how to be a booking agent. I learned that from Capricorn (Records), 1969-70,” she began.
Redding would use that experience more than a decade later.
“Then,” Redding detailed, “I opened up a nightclub, in the ‘80s, New Directions, on Third Street; I kept that about six years.”
Some of her business projects, however, were not connected to the entertainment business.
“I had a great maid service, my mom and I, with a cousin. We cleaned people’s houses. That started 1985-86.”
There was also a retail enterprise not directly connected with entertainment that opened in 1991.
“My daughter and I had a shoe store, downtown Macon. We kept that for 17 years.”
Redding also went ‘on the road’ for a period time.
“My sons got a record deal with a company in New York,” she recalled. “I needed to be with them because Little Otis was too young to be on his own. He finished school at St. Johns in D.C. So, I moved there, weekends, to check on him.
“So, I did that,” Redding continued. “And, I had my own booking agency on Jeffersonville Road. We had a record store.”
Unfortunately, there was one business enterprise in which she was a partner that did not fare so well. Redding and a group of Jones Countians opened Piedmont Bank in Gray.
“I went in with them with the bank. It didn’t work out,” she acknowledged. “It was a lot of fun, but it cost me a lot. It was a community bank. Just made a lot of bad loans.”
Redding learned 13 years ago that she had a serious health problem. She had an issue that led to blood clots in her left leg.
“They tried to save it, but they couldn’t,” she recalled. “At first it was below the knee, but they had to go back and remove it above the knee.” Reddinig did not let that stop her. She has an artificial leg and uses a walker to assist her.
“I take it easy, but I get around,” she said simply.
The Reddings closed the Jeffersonville Road office and store in the mid-’70s and focused on the foundation honoring Otis Redding’s legacy and management of his estate. It is a family affair. Dexter Redding, Redding’s daughter Karla Redding-Andrews, and her two sons, Justin and Jarred, all work with the foundation.
“We have to manage his catalogues,” Redding said. “He wrote a lot of songs. So, that keeps us busy. Karla and I have to manage his estate to do that.”
Karla works with her extensively in both the estate and foundation endeavors, and Dexter, who lost a son to a shooting 15 years ago, is involved in all aspects of the foundation, Redding said. The grandmother explained that 36-year old Justin is in charge of merchandising, organizing and promoting music camps, and other day-to-day operations, while 26-year old Jarred focuses his efforts on the Otis Redding Museum.
Part of that work to preserve the singer/songwriter’s legacy is working with children. Redding shared that the Otis Redding Foundation has been helping youngsters in the music field for years.
“We teach kids all the components of music,” she explained. “We have been having a camp every year for 17 years.”
She noted that both underprivileged children and those with the ability to pay attend the two-week camp.
“It’s just something we give back to Macon, Middle Georgia, Warner Robins. Kids come from everywhere for our camp.”
Redding explained that the camp is divided into groups of 5-11 and 12-18 years of age.
“Adults teach them music, dance lessons, we do all of it,” she pointed out, adding that they do more introduce them to music. “It teaches them how to guide themselves and be productive people in life. “
Redding said the next camp session will be in the soon-toopen Otis Redding Center for the Arts, which will occupy most of a city block on Cotton Avenue.
“We started on it about a year and a half ago,” she said. “It’s a $15 million project for the kids. It’s about finished.”
The state-of-the-art facility will feature, among many other amenities, high-tech instructional aids as well as an amphitheater for performances.
“We won’t have to go to places like the Grand Opera House for performances,” she said. “We will be able to do a lot of stuff at this new center.”
Redding-Andrews said her mother is the force behind that new facility and the reason the foundation has been able to accomplish what it has through the years.
“Mom is the reason everything is intact the way it is,” she commented with passion. “It took her by shock, losing her husband, but she realized very quickly with three babies, a whole catalogue of music that her husband left, and a beautiful property, that she had to get it together. And, boy, has she kept it together all these years.”
The daughter pointed to the fact that her mother had to obtain a GED and additional training to learn about the business.
“Now she is one of the most powerful businesswomen in the entire state of Georgia,” Redding-Andrews proclaimed. “She is an incredible businesswoman.”
Redding’s daughter isn’t the only one who has taken notice of her. An excerpt from the tabloid Variety reveals that a movie about Otis and Zelma Redding is going to be produced in 2025. The Otis Redding biopic ‘Otis & Zelma’ will star Danielle Deadwyler as Zelma.
“It’s a love story,” Redding described. “That’s what it is. How much I love my husband. I protect his legacy. And,” she added, “I love doing it every day.”
