Shuggie's Boogie: Shuggie Otis Plays the Blues

Performer: Shuggie Otis
Artist: Johnny Otis; Don "Sugarcane" Harris
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel includes: Shuggie Otis (vocals, guitar); Johnny Otis, Don "Sugarcane" Harris (vocals). Producers: Al Kooper, Johnny Otis. Compilation producer: Lawrence Cohn. Recorded between June 11, 1969 and April 21, 1971. Includes liner notes by Pete Welding and Lawrence Cohn. This is part of Legacy's ROOTS N' BLUES series. Culled from four albums, except for one previously unreleased track, Shuggie's Boogie: Shuggie Otis Plays the Blues is a tour de force made all the more remarkable because the prodigy who produced it was so young. In fact, Shuggie Otis recalls during a boyish spoken intro in "Shuggie's Boogie" how he used to wear dark glasses and paint on a mustache to look older than his 14 or 15 years when he played in bars in the band of his legendary father Johnny Otis. During the same intro he effortlessly throws off guitar impersonations of T-Bone Walker, B.B. King and Elmore James. This compilation has a few rousing, up-tempo numbers, but the highlights are the slow, soulful tunes. One unfortunate omission is the seven-minute "Oxford Gray" from his 1970 album Here Comes Shuggie Otis. ~ Mark Allan

The son of R&B figurehead Johnny Otis, Shuggie Otis was a child prodigy who began appearing on albums as a session player in his early teens. Under the mentorship of his legendary father, Otis developed into a masterly guitar player, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He recorded a pair of eclectic solo albums (one of which contained the song "Strawberry Letter #23," a hit for the Brothers Johnson in 1977) before releasing the enormously groundbreaking INSPIRATION INFORMATION in 1974. The album is considered a psychedelic soul/funk classic, and inspired artists as varied as Prince, D'Angelo, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. David Byrne's Luaka Bop label reissued the coveted album in the mid '90s.

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