Pain in My Heart

Pain in My Heart is Otis Redding's debut studio album, released in March 1964 on Atco/Volt following two years of singles at Stax Records in Memphis. It gathered the sessions from 1962 and 1963 that had already produced four singles, including the breakthrough "These Arms of Mine," "That's What My Heart Needs," "Security," and the title track, a soul reworking that drew scrutiny for its resemblance to Irma Thomas's "Ruler of My Heart."

The album is built almost entirely around aching, gospel-rooted ballads, with Redding backed by Booker T. and the M.G.'s and produced in the raw, unpolished house style Stax was still developing. Critics have since praised the young singer's restraint and power in equal measure, and the record is widely regarded as a template for the deep-soul ballad style Redding would refine across the rest of his catalog.