After Monterey, Redding was hospitalized after developing polyps on his larynx. He’d tried to treat the problem with tea and lemon or honey, but surgery was required. That might account for the uncharacteristic (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay, written with Steve Cropper on their friend, Earl "Speedo" Sims’ houseboat in Sausalito, but Redding was out to expand his musical style regardless of doubts expressed by his wife Zelma and the Stax Records fraternity. Bassist "Duck" Dunn was concerned it would damage the label's reputation, but Redding was adamant it would top the charts.
It did, but whether it would have managed to move four million copies worldwide without the publicity associated with the fatal plane crash shortly after Redding went back on the road is a major question mark.
There’s no doubt that Redding's premature death devastated Stax, but the writing was probably on the wall anyway. Financially, the label was sailing perilously close to the wind, and when the Stax/Volt distributor (Atlantic Records) was bought out by Warner Bros and the label needed to negotiate a new distribution agreement they learned Atlantic actually owned their entire catalogue! Atlantic also held the rights to the unreleased Otis Redding masters, which produced three further albums of studio material: The Immortal Otis Redding, Love Man, and Tell the Truth.