Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information (1974)

Between the release of his second album Freedom Flight and this, his third, Shuggie Otis transitioned from precociously talented and well-connected teenager to a young adult and true auteur.  Working from a home studio, he wrote and produced this album alone, played all the instruments bar the horn and string arrangements, and virtually abandoned his blues roots for something (even) funkier and altogether weirder.

It was a sound that didn't have much impact at the time, and ended up with Otis being dropped by Epic, but Inspiration Information's time would come a quarter of a century later when David Byrne's Luaka Bop label first revived it.  At that time, Shuggie was posited as a proto-Prince, which does hold up in the loose, funky songs and singular artistry and musicianship.  It's also historically congruent with the advances in the studio that Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone had been making in the early 70s, not least in the use of a primitive Rhythm King drum machine.

The first side of the album is a flawless run of four great songs, bursting into life on the smoking funk groove of the title track, followed by the languid Island Letter.  Next are the taut, spare groove of Sparkle City and the drum-machine based comedown experience Aht Uh Mi Hed.  Other than the first 58 seconds, the album's second half is entirely instumental, in common with its predecessor.  Unlike Freedom Flight, there aren't two lengthy jams here but a clutch of short impressionistic sketches, which reach their experimental apex in XL-20 and Pling.  Shuggie might have been too ahead of his time in 1974 for this record to be huge, but now it just sounds timeless.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Here Comes Shuggie Otis
Freedom Flight

Shuggie Otis - Freedom Flight (1971)

Shuggie Otis' second album was such a huge step up from his debut that it's easy to forget this was still the work of a 17 year old.  With two execptions, he's the sole songwriter, and his already prodigious guitar talent continued to shine as well as showing off his skill at several other instruments.  Shuggie's rising profile also brought guest stars on board for this one: George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar are featured here.

Freedom Flight is perhaps best known for Strawberry Letter 23, the gorgeous piece of baroque psychedelic pop that would later be a funked-up hit for The Brothers Johnson.  That's only one of four superb songs on the first side of the album though, which is filled out by one of the funkiest blues covers ever recorded.  The album's second side was taken up by two lengthy instrumentals: the bluesy Purple, which expands on the template of Gospel Groove from Shuggie's debut, and the beautifully mellow title track.  It's difficult to pick Shuggie Otis' masterpiece between this one and the one coming up next week.

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Shuggie Otis - Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970)

First in a three-Friday exploration of the slim but awesome discography of Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr, best known by the pet name his mother gave him, and the shortened surname that his famous father already went by.  Shuggie Otis started performing live with his father's band in the mid 60s when he was eleven years old, where he'd "wear dark glasses and a paint a moustache on" to disguise his age, as he relates on this album.

Here Comes Shuggie Otis was his solo debut as a prodigious teenager, and consists mostly of material co-written by father and son, its standout feature being Shuggie's rapidly developing guitar versatility.  The ten tracks touch on the psych-soul and baroque AM pop sounds of the day, with a bedrock of blues and R&B.

The highlights include Oxford Gray, the longest and most ambitious piece that opens the album, and the slow-cooking Gospel Groove, pointing the way to what was to come.  As mentioned above, Shuggie's Boogie starts out with a potted autobiography of his formative influences, saved from being a bit precious and corny by exploding into another great twelve-bar tearup.  From here, Shuggie's playing, singing and writing would just get better and better.

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