Johnny Otis, "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues," Has Died

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145510703/remembering-bandleader-and-producer-john...

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Remembering Bandleader And Producer Johnny Otis

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PHOTO:
Johnny Otis (center), shown playing with his band The Johnny Otis Revue.
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January 20, 2012

Bandleader and producer Johnny Otis, who launched and then nurtured the careers of many of R&B's greatest singers, died Tuesday at his home near Los Angeles. He was 90.

Otis started out in the 1940s, leading a big band that scored a hit with its 1945 jazz recording "Harlem Nocturne." That group, like many big bands, soon broke up for financial reasons. After that, Otis organized a smaller unit, which played a hybrid of swing and blues that became known as Rhythm & Blues. Otis' Rhythm & Blues Caravan became the first R&B touring road show. Through his nightclub, his talent shows and his road show, Otis discovered singers such as Etta James, Little Esther, Jackie Wilson, Big Mama Thornton and Hank Ballard.

Otis was also an accomplished musician who sang several hits, including "Willie and the Hand Jive," which made it to the Top 10 rock 'n' roll chart in 1958. But he spent more time helping singers establish their own voices and develop their own hits.

In a 1989 Fresh Air interview, Otis talked with Terry Gross about touring as a musician with some of the biggest black acts of the 1940s and '50s, including Louis Jordan and Bill Kenny and The Ink Spots.

"Both of these people were so popular at the time that there was the same feeling that you feel when the curtain opens — that great anticipation," he said. "We were lucky enough to be the band."

Many audiences assumed Otis, who was a white Greek-American, was actually a light-skinned black man. While touring in the South, he said he never disabused anyone of that notion.

"In those days, many of the places we played — had they suspected I was white, we would have been arrested," he says. "Your life was on the line. When our bus would cross the Mason-Dixon line, a pall would fall over the entire show. Because we knew we were down there where we had problems."

Otis recalled one incident, when he was traveling with the singer Little Esther, now known as Esther Phillips. Phillips, who was only 13, stopped to use a restroom at a gas station.

"I looked up, and there's a guy with a gun in my belly, and he's shaking and he's all excited because the little black girl went to the white woman's bathroom," he said. "And I thought to myself, 'Any death but this.' But she came out and we went on down the road. But those things happened to us all the time."

Interview Highlights

On Scouting For Talent

"My first singer was Ernestine Anderson when she was just a little girl. And then came Esther Phillips. But after Esther Phillips' amazing success — after she became a big child star of the African-American community nationally — then, everywhere we played, people would bring me their sons and their daughters backstage. I guess they figured I was an expert who knew how to make stars out of kids. That's how it started."

On Seeing Untalented Kids

"I learned quick. They would come in and say the same thing — I don't care if I was in Mississippi or Massachusetts — they would say, 'Mr. Otis, now we know that you know if junior has any real talent then you'll tell us the truth. And if he doesn't, then—' But they didn't mean that. What they meant was, 'This is the world's answer to the great child star. This is it.' If I would dare to suggest they weren't, then I'd have an enemy on my hands. So I learned how to sidestep that and tell little fibs."

On The Changing Blues Audience

"What a strange thing has happened as the years went by. The roles reversed. Today, our audience for blues-oriented music is white. And the black youngsters are not interested in it, and is something that pains us for many reasons — not just personally, but when you start to think from a cultural standpoint, how much we seem to have lost over the past 20 years or so in the African-American community, where blues and jazz artistry is concerned."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/19/johnny-otis

The Guardian...

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Johnny Otis obituary

One of the first US musicians to cross the racial divide in his search for 'soul'

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The bandleader Johnny Otis, who has died aged 90, was one of the first white American musicians to cross the racial divide, aligning himself with the black community as a teenager and from then on regarding himself – and being treated as – a black man. He attracted many nicknames – among them the Duke Ellington of Watts, the Reverend Hand Jive and the Godfather of Rhythm and Blues – and distinguished himself as a television host, political activist, preacher, cartoonist, painter, chef, record producer, talent scout, DJ, sculptor, writer and organic farmer.

The economic constraints that followed the second world war helped Otis develop a distinctive style: "I found that when I was playing big band, now and then we'd play a boogie or blues and that's when the people really came to life. When I had to trim my band down, I kept two saxophones, trumpet, trombone. I added a blues guitar, a boogie-woogie piano player and drummer cracking that afterbeat. That's what the people liked."

He signed the 13-year-old Esther Phillips as vocalist for his California Rhythm and Blues Caravan touring show in 1949. With Little Esther singing, he scored 10 top 10 R&B hits in 1950. His one US pop crossover hit came in 1958 with Willie and the Hand Jive, and in the UK he scored a No 2 hit in November 1957 with Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me.

Otis was responsible for either discovering or producing some of America's most potent R&B singers. While scouting for King Records in the early 1950s, he encountered Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John and Hank Ballard at a talent show in Detroit, and they went on to appear in the Caravan.

He produced – and played drums on – Big Mama Thornton's first recordings, including the R&B hit Hound Dog (1953). He was also initially credited as one of the song's composers, though when Elvis Presley covered the song in 1956, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller succeeded in having his name removed.

Otis also produced all the hits of the R&B star Johnny Ace, who died in a self-inflicted gunshot accident in 1954, the year in which Otis signed Etta James. They co-wrote her first hit, Dance with Me, Henry (1955), which became a bigger hit for Georgia Gibbs. Otis's Every Beat of My Heart had to wait seven years to become a hit for Gladys Knight in 1961. By the early 1960s, Otis found himself sidelined: "A lot of things, including the Beatles, came along, and we were out of it. We couldn't even get a gig."

Otis was born John Veliotes to Greek immigrants in Vallejo, northern California. He was raised in an ambitious family – his younger brother, Nicholas, eventually became ambassador to Egypt. His parents ran a grocery store in a black neighbourhood in Berkeley, and the teenage Otis chose to walk away from white culture. Black America, he wrote, possessed "soul", a quality he found lacking elsewhere. Having taken up the side drum in junior high school, he made his professional debut in 1939 with the West Oakland Houserockers before going on the road, playing in touring big bands.

Nat King Cole recommended he move to Los Angeles in 1943 to join Harlan Leonard's jazz orchestra. He backed the saxophonist Lester Young and the singer-pianist Charles Brown. As a drummer, Otis led his own jazz orchestra from 1945 to 1948. His 1945 recording Harlem Nocturne proved a strong enough seller to get the band bookings across the US, including a stint at the Apollo theatre in Harlem.

Once the band's work had run its course, Otis became more involved in community work in South Central Los Angeles. A publisher's editor saw a letter that he had sent to a friend about the Watts riots of 1965, and he was invited to write Listen to the Lambs (1968), a meditative book that jumped back and forth between his life in music and his political views.

Though Otis failed to be elected to the California state assembly, he did join the Los Angeles County Democratic committee and served for a decade as deputy chief of staff to Mervyn Dymally, the first black state senator in the west, and an eventual lieutenant governor of California and congressman.

However, Otis missed music. Frank Zappa, a fan of Otis's 1950s recordings, suggested to Kent Records that he had a comeback in mind, and that they should sign him. The resulting album, Cold Shot! (1969), featured Country Girl, an R&B hit, and was a critical success. Otis then recorded an X-rated album, featuring proto-gangsta rap braggadocio. Zappa landed Otis and his musicians a TV appearance that led to a performance at the 1970 Monterey jazz festival.

His revived California Rhythm and Blues Caravan – featuring Little Esther and Otis's teenage, guitar-playing son Shuggie – was a huge success at Monterey, leading to nationwide and European bookings. Otis continued to tour and record, and in 1978 opened and served as pastor for the Landmark Community Church in South Central Los Angeles, his main focus.

In 1990 Otis and his wife, Phyllis, moved to Sebastopol, northern California, where they ran an organic orchard. He hosted a weekly radio programme, wrote his autobiography, Upside Your Head! (1993) and appeared at festivals with a 13-member lineup. Ace Records have recently released two CDs devoted to The Johnny Otis Story. He is survived by Phyllis, two sons and two daughters.

• Johnny Otis (John Alexander Veliotes), musician, born 28 December 1921; died 17 January 2012

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/9...

Telegraph...

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Johnny Otis, who has died aged 90, was an important influence on early rock and roll, having decided that, although born white, he would rather be black.

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Johnny Otis Photo: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVE/GETTY

6:39PM GMT 20 Jan 2012

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The son of Greek immigrants, he was brought up in the 1920s in a predominantly black area of California. His decision as a young man to identify with black people and their music led him to develop an instinct for finding black talent, and he discovered Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard — and Etta James.

“Yes, I chose,” Otis reflected in 1979, “because despite all the hardships, there’s a wonderful richness in black culture that I prefer.”

But he was much more than a talent-spotter. Often called the “godfather of rhythm and blues”, Otis sang, played drums and vibraphone, and broadcast as a disc jockey. He also wrote songs, notably the 1958 hit Willie and the Hand Jive. With a beat recalling the 1955 hit Bo Diddley, the number was inspired by the British craze for hand jiving, which had originated a year earlier in a coffee bar in Soho.

A trio of black American women singers called Three Tons Of Joy had appeared on the British television pop show 6.5 Special with their version of Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me. On their return to Los Angeles, they told Otis about the strange phenomenon they had witnessed in the studio, where the audience had hand jived in time to the beat.

Noting that the craze was at its peak, Otis promptly wrote and recorded Willie and the Hand Jive, which became the most successful of his many recordings. Another of his compositions, Every Beat of My Heart, became a debut chart hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1961.

Johnny Otis was born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes on December 28 1921 at Vallejo, north-east of San Francisco, and brought up in Berkeley, where his father ran a grocery store in a mainly black community. “When I got near teen age, I was so happy with my friends and the African-American culture that I couldn’t imagine not being part of it,” Otis said in 1991.

He started playing drums with a blues band called The Houserockers in the late 1930s. He fronted a swing-era big band in the 1940s, and had his first hit with an instrumental, Harlem Nocturne, which became one of the most distinctive numbers of the big band era. In 1955 he wrote the song that became Etta James’s first chart hit, The Wallflower, popularly known as Roll With Me Henry.

Otis also produced early recordings for Little Richard and Big Mama Thornton.

The young songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were Otis fans, and released their first record, That’s What The Good Book Says, featuring an act that Otis had discovered, Bobby Nunn and the Robbins.

In 1951 Otis invited Leiber and Stoller to meet Big Mama Thornton. “She just knocked us out,” said Stoller. “She was a very formidable person. Very large. She had some razor scars on her face and had a very salty, nasty disposition. Of course, underneath that, she was like a marshmallow. But it was her whole demeanour that sparked this kind of angry thing in the lyrics of Hound Dog, which, of course, was written as a woman’s song.”

When Thornton recorded Leiber and Stoller’s original Hound Dog in 1952 (the pair had written it in just 15 minutes), Otis was the session producer. He also sat in for the drummer, whose efforts on the song had failed to impress . In turn, Lieber and Stoller took Otis’s place in the recording cubicle, marking their debut as producers.

When the British pop invasion of the United States began in earnest with the first Beatles tour in 1964, “the white boys from England came over with a recycled version of what we created. We were out of business, man,” Otis recalled.

But he continued to make music with his own band, a lively fusion of blues, gospel, swing and jazz, before retiring in the 1970s, turning his house into the non-denominational Landmark Community Church and appointing himself pastor.

In the 1960s he stood unsuccessfully for a seat in the California State Assembly before becoming chief of staff for a Democratic Congressman, Mervyn Dymally.

Otis’s younger brother, Nicholas Veliotes, was the American Ambassador to Jordan (1978–81) and to Egypt (1984–86).

Johnny Otis is survived by Phyllis, his wife of 60 years, and their children, two of whom, Nick and Shuggie, played in his band.

Johnny Otis, born December 28 1921, died January 17 2012

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http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/10113731-418/johnny-otis-90-white-godfat...

Chicago Sun-Times...

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Johnny Otis, 90, white ‘godfather of rhythm and blues’ who identified far more with black culture

By Robert Jablon January 19, 2012 11:34PM

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Updated: January 20, 2012 2:20AM

LOS ANGELES — Johnny Otis, the “godfather of rhythm and blues” who wrote and recorded the R&B classic “Willie and the Hand Jive” and for decades evangelized black music to white audiences as a bandleader and radio host, has died. He was 90.

Mr. Otis, who had been in poor health for several years, died at his home in the Los Angeles foothill suburb of Altadena on Tuesday, said his manager, Terry Gould.

Mr. Otis, who was white, was born John Veliotes to Greek immigrants and grew up in a black section of Berkeley, where he said he identified far more with black culture than his own. As a teenager, he changed his name because he thought Johnny Otis sounded more black.

“As a kid, I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black,” he once explained.

His musical tastes clearly reflected that adopted culture and even after he became famous, his dark skin and hair often led audiences and club promoters to assume he was black like his bandmates.

Mr. Otis was leading his own band in 1945 when he scored his first big hit, “Harlem Nocturne.” In 1950, 10 of his songs made Billboard Magazine’s R&B chart. His “Willie and the Hand Jive” sold more than 1.5 million copies and was covered years later by Eric Clapton.

He later wrote “Every Beat of My Heart,” which was a hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips.

But the influence of Mr. Otis was felt most through his ability to recognize and promote talent. He wove into his bands such diverse and legendary R&B vocalists as Etta James, Hank Ballard, Big Mama Thornton and The Robins, the latter a group that would evolve into the Coasters.

He produced Thornton’s original recording of “Hound Dog,” a song that would later become an even bigger hit for Elvis Presley.

“His band shows a different style on pretty much every new recording,” said Piero Scaruffi, author of A History of Rock Music, 1951-2000. “The reason is that Otis did not force his personality on others but worked with the personality of the others. He may not have been a great composer or performer himself, but he was an impressive conductor.”

Mr. Otis launched his professional music career as an 18-year-old drummer for bawdy barrelhouse pianist Count Otis Matthews, although he had never played the drums until then.

Matthews instructed him to simply pound out the syncopated “shave and a haircut, six bits” beat that would become the backbone of early rock ‘n’ roll. His mastery of it soon proved his ticket to other bands and eventually to headlining his own group.

Mr. Otis saw himself as curator of black popular music, which for him represented much more than a diversion or livelihood. His cross-country R&B reviews and his radio and television appearances were dedicated to delivering black music to white audiences.

“The music isn’t just the notes, it’s the culture — the way grandma cooked, the way grandpa told stories, the way the kids walked and talked,” he once said.

While he always returned to playing music, in later years touring with his sons Shuggie and Nicky, Mr. Otis’ eclectic interests also included politics, art and organic food.

He worked for years as deputy chief of staff to state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally when Dymally served in the Assembly, state Senate, as lieutenant governor and as a congressman.

In later years, Mr. Otis spent much of his time painting and sculpting. He also opened an organic grocery store in Sebastopol in the early 1990s to sell his son Nicky’s vegetables, decorating the store with his own colorful murals.

Although he had little success selling groceries, he did draw large crowds to the market every Friday and Saturday night when he performed there with his band.

“It was a smashing success,” Gould said. “You had to make reservations three weeks ahead. It was amazing.”

Mr. Otis also had a regular show playing records on the nonprofit Pacifica Radio Network’s stations until failing health prompted him to retire in 2005.

AP

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Sad irony today...

http://current.com/entertainment/music/93626040_etta-james-has-died.htm

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Johnny Otis is the person who discovered, then produced, Etta James (who died earlier today).

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/johnny-otis-influential-bandle...

The Washington Post...

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Johnny Otis, influential bandleader and talent scout

By Terence McArdle, Published: January 19

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PHOTO:
(Los Angeles Times/LOS ANGELES TIMES) -
Johnny Otis in his studio in his Altadena home in 1990.

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Johnny Otis, an influential bandleader and a ubiquitous presence in rhythm-and-blues music who was credited with discovering singer Etta James and writing such hits as “Willie and the Hand Jive” and “Every Beat of My Heart,” the song that launched Gladys Knight, died Jan. 17 at his home in Altadena, Calif.

His manager, Terry Gould, confirmed the death but did not disclose the cause. Mr. Otis was 90 and widely promoted as the “godfather of rhythm and blues.”

At the dawn of the musical genre in the 1940s, Mr. Otis was an iconoclastic figure: a son of Greek immigrants who grew up in a black neighborhood in northern California and embraced African American culture during a period of strict racial segregation.

“As a kid, I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black,” he wrote in “Listen to the Lambs,” a 1968 book penned in reaction to the earlier Watts race riots in Los Angeles. The title was taken from a black spiritual and was a meditation on politics.

In a career spanning more than six decades, he was a drummer, vibraphonist, club owner, disc jockey, record label owner and talent scout. He first made an impression in show business as a bandleader, notably with his 1945 hit recording of Earle Hagen’s jazz standard “Harlem Nocturne.”

After further entries on the Billboard R&B charts, his 1958 recording of his own composition, “Willie and the Hand Jive,” sold more than 1 million copies; it was later covered by guitarist Eric Clapton. Another Otis composition, “Every Beat of My Heart” became a best-selling record in 1961 for Gladys Knight and the Pips.

The Otis band, with Mr. Otis on drums, backed Big Mama Thornton on her original version of “Hound Dog” (1952), later a signature song for Elvis Presley.

In 1994, Mr. Otis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Over the years he has exhibited an uncanny ear for talent, and by bringing that talent to the fore has served to advance the growth and development of rhythm & blues,” his citation read.

Johnny Alexander Veliotes was born Dec. 28, 1921, in Vallejo, Calif. Survivors include his wife of 70 years, the former Phyllis Walker; and seven children. His son, Shuggie, played guitar in the Otis band and recorded several albums under his own name.

Mr. Otis began his career at 18 drumming with a juke joint pianist near his home. In his 20s, he went to Los Angeles to drum with Harlan Leonard’s Kansas City Rockets, a popular draw on Central Avenue, the city’s black entertainment strip, and recorded with jazz saxophonist Lester Young. When a chain saw accident impaired his right hand and limited his drumming, Mr. Otis took up vibraphone.

In part because it was too expensive to support a large band, Mr. Otis started a “jump combo” in the late 1940s. This group, usually with fewer than 10 musicians, focused on the blues and boogie-woogie.

“To compensate for all the instruments we were eliminating, we had to put in some new ones, each with a fuller sound: an electric guitar, a blues guitar, a boogie piano,” Mr. Otis told the Los Angeles Times. “We ended up creating a new hybrid music that became known as rhythm and blues.”

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/19/MNQC1MRP12.DTL

San Francisco Chronicle...

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Johnny Otis, rhythm and blues pioneer, dies

Aidin Vaziri, Chronicle Pop Music Critic

PHOTO:
Radio host and producer Johnny Otis in the studio with son Shuggie, who became a rock and soul musician.
University of Minnesota Press
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Johnny Otis, the bandleader, pioneering producer, singer, songwriter and radio host who was at the forefront of the rhythm and blues movement, died at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena on Tuesday. He was 90.

Mr. Otis had been in poor health for several years, said his manager, Terry Gould.

Best known for his 1958 rock and roll spoof "Willie and the Hand Jive," Mr. Otis, born John Veliotes in 1921 in Vallejo, was the son of Greek immigrants who ran a grocery store in Berkeley. Growing up in an integrated neighborhood made a big impression on him.

"Black culture captured me," Mr. Otis said. "I loved it, and it was richer and more fulfilling and more natural. I thought it was mine."
Recording, writing hits

As a teen, he played drums with Count Otis Matthews' West Oakland House Stompers. With his own band he scored his first hit, "Harlem Nocturne," in 1945.

Mr. Otis went on to cut "Double Crossing Blues" with Esther Phillips; write "Every Beat of My Heart" for Gladys Knight & the Pips; and produce Big Mama Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog," which later became a hit for Elvis Presley.

Through his published reviews and radio and television appearances, Mr. Otis made it his mission to take black music to white audiences.

He discovered and promoted major R&B figures such as Etta James and Little Richard, and supervised recordings by the likes of Little Willie John, Charles Brown, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard and Johnny Ace.

Mr. Otis spent years as a disc jockey on KFOX in Los Angeles and later anchored a show on KPFA. He was a TV host, civil rights activist, record label owner and minister of his own church, and he taught at Vista Community College in Berkeley.

Mr. Otis also found time to work as deputy chief of staff for Mervyn Dymally when the Democrat served in the Assembly and state Senate, and as lieutenant governor and congressman.

Before retiring in 2005, Mr. Otis lived on a 5-acre Sebastopol fruit ranch that featured three life-size body casts of the women who used to sing with his band as the Three Tons of Joy.

Occasional live shows

He only made occasional live appearances, spending most of his time raising acrobatic pigeons and painting. He also opened an organic grocery store, where he would regularly play with his band to standing-room-only audiences.

Mr. Otis was admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a songwriter and producer in 1994.

In 1999, his extensive recording history was covered in the three-CD boxed set "The Johnny Otis Rhythm & Blues Caravan: the Complete Savoy Recordings."

"When I'm gone and others of my era are gone, there will be no more of this music produced," Mr. Otis said in a Chronicle interview in 2000. "I don't care how much these people think they've got it down with their little tapes. Blues, rhythm and blues and jazz is doomed as we know it."

Mr. Otis is survived by his wife, Phyllis; sons, Shuggie and Nicky; daughters Janet and Laura; and several grandchildren.

No memorial plans have been announced.

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