The mock-glossary on the back cover of the original Dictionary of Soul defines one of Otis Redding’s exclamations as equating to “getting gooder by the minute.” That downhome wit suffuses much of the 1966 album, from the thunderous take on the Beatles’ “Day Tripper” to the assertions of love-happy illness on “I’m Sick Y’all” and “She Put the Hurt on Me.” Redding’s very human art also extended to ballad performances that few singers have equaled; here, he performs a transformation of the Patti Page staple “Tennessee Waltz” that stands on a par with his work on “Try a Little Tenderness.” The Stax players — essentially Booker T. and the MGs with second keyboardist Isaac Hayes, along with the Memphis Horns — keep this set rocking at every tempo. And Otis, of course, keeps right up, “getting gooder by the minute.”