Try a Little Tenderness — Otis Redding (1966)

Otis Redding's 1966 transformation of a 1932 pop standard into the template for soul performance features a three-part structure—quiet tenderness, smoldering emotion, then cathartic ecstasy—that soul singers have emulated for 60 years. Recorded in a single afternoon at Stax Records, the song builds so relentlessly that by the final 90 seconds, Redding is screaming and barely intelligible, delivering soul's most joyfully abandoned performance. It is more dynamically intense than #5's steady build, with a crescendo that peaks 40% louder in emotional delivery than the average soul hit.