The LOST GENIUS : SHUGGIE OTIS...



Shuggie Otis...
Born : december 2nd 1953
Son of the Legendary Blues man Johnny OTiS

Who knows this OUTSTANDING musician ????
A multi instrumentist...
A prodigy artist who was compared to Jimi Hendrix at the age of 15 !!!!

Some people say that he was ahead of his time and probably as talented as Prince and maybe more...

He was credited with playing some bass and guitar at the age of 6 on some albums ...
Do you believe that...

His music was a mix of Rock, soul, funk, pop...
But it was too innovative for his time and never reached the success he deserved so far...

Very sad...

[Edited 4/19/05 15:44pm]

The real bad news:

Shuggie only had 2 career albums!

Here's some more info:

http://www.allmusic.com/c...ae04xk7~T1

TonyVanDam said:

too bad his label dropped him, huh?

Raphael Saadiq pays tribute to him in a song called "I Know Shuggie Otis" off his latest "as Ray Ray" album.

Shuggie had three LP's

Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970)
Freedom Flight (1971)
Inspiration Information (1974)

TonyVanDam said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

good call

Technically,there were Four albums:

Al Kooper presents Shuggie Otis (1969)
Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970)
Freedom Flight(1971) (contained "Strawberry Letter 23")(1971)
Inspiration Information (1974) (the 2001 CD reissue contains several tracks from Freedom Flight , including "Strawberry Letter 23")

But Yeah, He definitely had a reputation as "the up and coming guy" in Music circles at the time....from Luka Bop.com (taken from a Philadelphia Inquire feature, 2001):

[Shuggie was asked to join the Rolling Stones(to replace departing Guitarist Mick Taylor), Spirit, and Blood, Sweat & Tears, and each time declined. He didn't want to be a sideman: "I always felt I had something to offer, and I wanted to get out and do it, be the leader of it. I'd already been a sideman with my dad."

"Shortly after I completed ("Inspiration Information"), turned it in and it was printed up, we [Otis and his father] were dropped from the label. Both of us were working on new stuff." (Two years before, Columbia had built a studio behind the Otis' home.) "We were pretty shocked. It was like I'd had this big thrill, and now came this big letdown. . . .

"I said `Oh, it's no big deal, we'll get another [label] right away.' With the popularity we had at the time, I thought it would be easy. We still don't have a big-label deal. That's why [Inspiration] wasn't followed up."

He sought executives who would let him pursue his blues-funk vision, but didn't find any. "Some of them had their ideas of what I should do. They'd mention producers and all that, which offended me. As usual, they didn't understand what I was trying to do."

After years of frustration with the industry, Otis returned to more traditional blues in the early '80s. In addition to working with his father, he has recorded and toured regularly with a small combo, and says he hopes to one day get the chance to record a proper follow-up to Inspiration Information...

No matter what, he says, he is happy knowing that he may have helped shape the pop consciousness of artists such as D'Angelo, Prince and Lenny Kravitz.

"Every once in a while I'll hear the influence. Something will come on the radio and I'll go, `I wonder if they heard Inspiration Information?' And it makes me happy, because it was a dream that I wanted to get out. I think it was worth the long hours that I put on it.

"I was trying to get it to a point of perfection. And you know what, some of it has a kind of high school sound to it, but I can listen to it today, and it holds up pretty good." ]







...
[Edited 4/20/05 2:07am]

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Oops! I forgot. That last one was also a re-release.

I love Inspiration Information and was turned on to that album by David Byrne. I guess he is in part responsible for re-igniting Shuggie's career. He wrote "Strawberry Letter Number 3" which Brothers Johnson covered a few years later. Get this album.

paligap said:

Thanks for this Paligap!

I need to get more Shuggie into the collection

He's an excellent guitar player

BTW...Shuggie is the son of Jazz and R&B legend Johnny Otis (shuggie plays guitar on a few of Johnny's albums, too). I HIGHLY suggest picking up Shuggie's "Inspiration Information".

another artists y'all turned me on to.y'all look out for the music lovers so well on here!!all props!

More I learn about Shuggie, more i founcd more and more similarities with Prince

Like Prince he's a freak as guitarist
Like Prince he seems to love new experimentations
Like Prince he's a one band man
Like Prince he wants control HIS music, and HIS freedom
Like Prince he's the son of a great musician
Like Prince is very precocious

I think Shuggie could have been a good rival for Prince (Shuggie was born in 1953, Prince was born in 1958), because they have a lot common points together, even if their music at the same age are very different...
It could have been very interesting to see the artistic evoltion of Shuggie in the 80's...

Sad that his label dropped him before...
[Edited 4/24/05 5:11am]

I heard that in the song Cream, when Prince says "Shubooggie" Bop, he was really saying "Boo" to Shuggie Otis because he didn't like the competition.
Shu - BOO - ggie. You see?

krayzie said:

What if Shuggie & Prince were cousins?!?

A deadly alliance maybe???

I recently picked up Inspiration Information. Very groovy . It seems like the music of Sly's "Riot" with a much sunnier, joyous, Stevie-esque melodicism.

TonyVanDam said:

speaking of cousins, that's how the Brothers Johnson ended up doing Strawberry Letter 23--George Johnson was dating Shuggie's cousin, who gave him a copy of the album "Freedom Flight"....

paligap said:

Yep. I ran a thread on here about Shuggie quite awhile back. Shuggie has always been one of my favorite artists and a huge influence on me as a songwriter. His song "Strawberry Letter #23" has some of the best lyrics EVER written in a song, to me. Shuggie has always been vastly underratted. I put him in the same league as Sly Stone. And I have very high regard for Sly.