Johnny Otis[1] was an
American singer,
musician,
composer,
arranger,
bandleader,
talent scout,
disc jockey,
record producer,
television show host,
artist,
author,
journalist,
minister, and
impresario died he was 90..
[2] A seminal influence on American R&B and rock and roll, Otis discovered artists such as
Little Esther,
Big Mama Thornton,
Jackie Wilson,
Little Willie John and
Hank Ballard. Known as the original "King of Rock & Roll",
[1] he is commonly referred to as the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues".
[3]
(born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes, December 28, 1921, in Vallejo, California – died January 17, 2012, in Los Angeles, California)
Personal life
Otis was the child of
Greek immigrants Alexander J. Veliotes, a
Mare Island longshoreman and
grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a
painter.
[1][4]
Otis was the eldest of three children; the other two being his younger sister Dorothy and brother
Nicholas A. Veliotes (the latter became former U.S. Ambassador to both
Jordan (1978–1981) and
Egypt (1984–1986)). He grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in
Berkeley, California,
where his father owned and operated a neighborhood grocery store. Otis
became well known for his choice to live his professional and personal
life as a member of the African-American community.
[5][6][7] He has written, "As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black."
[8]
He was the father of musician
Shuggie Otis.
Music career
Otis began playing drums as a teenager, when he purchased a set by
forging his father's signature on a credit slip. Soon after he dropped
out of Berkeley High School during his junior year, Otis joined a local
band with
pianist
friend 'Count' Otis Matthews called the West Oakland Houserockers. By
1939, they were performing at many of the local functions, primarily in
and around the
Oakland and
Berkeley area, and became quite popular among their peers.
Otis played in a variety of
swing orchestras, including
Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders,
[9] and
Harlan Leonard's Rockets,
[10] until he founded his own band in 1945 and had one of the most enduring hits of the big band era, "
Harlem Nocturne", an
Earle Hagen composition. His band included
Wynonie Harris,
Charles Brown, and
Illinois Jacquet, to name a few. In 1947, he and
Bardu Ali opened the Barrelhouse Club in the
Watts district of
Los Angeles, California. He reduced the size of his band and hired singers
Mel Walker,
Little Esther Phillips and the Robins (who later became
the Coasters).
[11]
He discovered the teenaged Phillips when she won one of the Barrelhouse
Club's talent shows. With this band, which toured extensively
throughout the
United States as the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, he had a long string of rhythm and blues hits through 1950.
Otis discovered
tenor saxophonist Big Jay McNeely, who then performed on his uptempo "Barrelhouse Stomp". He began recording Little Esther and Mel Walker for the
Newark, New Jersey-based
Savoy label in 1949,
[10]
and began releasing a stream of hit records, including "Double Crossing
Blues", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid Boogie"; all three reached no. 1
on the
Billboard R&B chart. In 1950, Otis was presented the R&B Artist of the Year trophy by Billboard.
[12] He also began featuring himself on
vibraphone on many of his recordings.
[10]
In 1951, Otis released "Mambo Boogie" featuring congas, maracas, claves, and mambo saxophone
guajeos in a blues progression. This was to be the very first R&B mambo ever recorded.
[13]
Saxophone guajeo in blues progression. "Mambo Boogie" by Johnny Otis (1951).
Around the time Otis moved to the
Mercury label in 1951, he discovered
vocalist Etta James
at one of his talent shows, who was only 13 at the time. He produced
and co-wrote her first hit, "The Wallflower (Roll With Me, Henry)".
In 1952, while in
Houston, Texas, Otis discovered singer
Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton
at a hotel when he heard her singing voice echoing from down the hall
while she was cleaning one of the rooms. He invited her to Los Angeles
to make a record, and she agreed. Otis produced, co-wrote, and played
drums on the original 1953 recording of "
Hound Dog" (he and his band also provided the backup 'howling' vocals). It was also co-written by
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller,
He had a legal dispute with the songwriting duo over the credits after
he learned that Leiber and Stoller revised the contractual agreement
prior to a new version of the song had recorded by singer
Elvis Presley,
which became an instant no. 1 smash hit. Claiming Leiber and Stoller
illegally had the original contract nullified and rewrote a new one
stating that the two boys (who were both 17) were the only composers of
the song, Otis litigated. However, the presiding judge awarded the case
to the defendants based on the fact that their signing of the first
contract with Otis was 'null and void' since they were minors at the
time.
One of Otis' most famous compositions is the ballad "
Every Beat of My Heart", first recorded by The Royals in 1952 on Federal Records
[14][15] but then became a hit for
Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1961. He also produced and played the vibraphone on singer
Johnny Ace's "
Pledging My Love", which was at no. 1 on the
Billboard
R&B charts for 10 weeks. Another successful song for Otis was "So
Fine", which was originally recorded by The Sheiks in 1955 on Federal
and was a hit for
The Fiestas in 1959. As an
artist and repertory man for
King Records he discovered numerous young prospects who would later become successful, including
Jackie Wilson,
Hank Ballard, and
Little Willie John, among others.
[10]
In addition to hosting his own television show titled "The Johnny
Otis Show", he also became an influential disc-jockey in Los Angeles,
hosting his own radio show on radio station
KFOX in
Long Beach, California in 1955.
[16]
That same year, Otis started his own label, Ultra Records (which he changed to the name
Dig after five single releases). Continuing to perform and appearing on TV shows in
Los Angeles from 1957. On the strength of their success, he signed to
Capitol Records.
Featuring singer Marie Adams, and with his band now being credited as
the Johnny Otis Show, he made a comeback, at first in the British charts
with "Ma He's Making Eyes At Me" in 1957.
[17] In April 1958, he recorded his best-known recording, "Willie and the Hand Jive", a
clave-based vamp, which relates to hand and arm motions in time with the music, called the
hand jive.
This went on to be a hit in the summer of 1958, peaking at no. 9 on the
U.S. Pop chart, and becoming Otis' only Top 10 single. The single
reached no. 1 on the
Billboard R&B chart. Otis' success with the song was somewhat short-lived, and he briefly moved to
King Records in 1961, where he worked with
Johnny "Guitar" Watson.
[10]
In 1969, Otis landed a deal with
Columbia Records and recorded "Cold Shot!" and the sexually explicit
Snatch and the Poontangs (which had an "X" rating), both of which featured his son Shuggie and singer Delmar 'Mighty Mouth' Evans.
[18] A year later, he recorded a double-live album of his band's performance at the
Monterey Jazz Festival titled
Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey! with
Little Esther Phillips,
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson,
Pee Wee Crayton,
Ivory Joe Hunter, and
The Mighty Flea, among others. A portion of the performance was featured in the
Clint Eastwood film
Play Misty For Me.
Although Otis' touring lessened throughout the 1970s, he started the
Blues Spectrum label and released a fifteen album series entitled
Rhythm and Blues Oldies, which featured 1950's R&B artists
Louis Jordan,
Roy Milton,
Richard Berry, and even Otis himself.
During the 1980s, he had a weekly radio show which aired Monday evenings from 8-11 pm on
Los Angeles radio station
KPFK, where he played records and had guest appearances by such R&B artists as
Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
[19] Otis also recorded with his sons Shuggie on guitar and Nicky on drums, releasing a slew of albums, including
The New Johnny Otis Show(1982),
Johnny Otis! Johnny Otis!(1984), and
Otisology(1985).
[10] In the summer of 1987, Otis hosted his own
Red Beans & Rice R&B Music Festival
in Los Angeles which featured top-name acts and hosted a Southern-style
red beans and rice cook-off. He moved the festival site to the city of
San Dimas, where it ran annually for 20 years in association with the
Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation for twenty years until 2006.
Otis and his family moved from Southern California to
Sebastopol, California, a small apple farming town in
Sonoma County. He continued performing in the U.S. and Europe through the 1990s, headlining the
San Francisco Blues Festival
in 1990 and 2000. In 1993, he opened The Johnny Otis Market, a
deli-style grocery store/cabaret, where he and his band played sold-out
shows every weekend until its doors closed in 1995. He was inducted to
both the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Blues Hall of Fame in 1994.
[20]
Other work
In the 1960s, he entered journalism and politics, losing a campaign for a seat in the
California State Assembly (one reason for the loss may be that he ran under his much less well known real name). He then became chief of staff for
Democratic Congressman Mervyn M. Dymally.
[21] He was also was the pastor of Landmark Community Church.
Otis also founded and pastored the New Landmark Community Gospel Church, which held weekly Sunday services in
Santa Rosa, California.
Landmark's worship services centered on Otis' preaching and the
traditional-style performances of a vocal group and choir backed by
Otis' rhythm section and an
organist. The church closed its doors in mid-1998.
[citation needed]
"The Johnny Otis Show" was relocated to sister station
KPFA in
Berkeley, California,
where it aired every Saturday morning. When his market opened in 1994,
he would eventually broadcast from his market in Sebastopol where his
band would play live on the air. Due to his retirement in late 2004,
Otis' grandson Lucky hosted the show for two years at KPFA until its
final airing in late 2006, when he and his wife relocated back to Los
Angeles.
[citation needed]
Otis died of natural causes on January 17, 2012, in the
Altadena area of
Los Angeles, California just three days before
Etta James, whom he had discovered in the early 1950s
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