It compiles 11 songs recorded by Redding in a three-week stretch of sessions that concluded days prior to his death in December 1967.

The Immortal Otis Redding featured four charting singles including "The Happy Song", "I've Got Dreams to Remember", "Amen", and "Hard to Handle".

Writing for Creem magazine in 1977, Robert Christgau called The Immortal Otis Redding his favorite album by Redding and "probably among my five most-played LPs", because it "showcases the unduplicated warmth, tenderness, and humor of his ballad singing".

[4] Music critic Dave Marsh gave the album five stars in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (1983).

[5] Lindsay Planer of AllMusic gave it three-and-a-half stars and said although it "wasn't quite on par with" Redding's several other studio albums, the songs on The Immortal Otis Redding were "welcome (if not mandatory) additions to all manner of listeners".