Shuggie Otis - The Echoplex - 12/5/12

By Sean J. O'Connell Thu., Dec. 6 2012 at 8:42 AM

Christina Limson O'Connell

Shuggie Otis
The Echoplex
12-5-12

I have a couple of words for those who staggered out of the Shuggie Otis show less than an hour into the proceedings, politely holding the door for the like-minded strangers streaming behind them: Screw you. What did you show up expecting to see? Did you want to hear a barrage of 40 year-old hits played by a preserved soul legend? Or something approaching reality? Did you want a set that pulled together influences both new and old with an emphasis on a long-term legacy with a nod towards the ticket-buying public? Or a soulful time capsule that bowed to songs that 90% of the audience wasn't alive to appreciate when they first hit the airwaves?

Shuggie Otis is Los Angeles music royalty. His father, Johnny Otis, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 90, was an R&B legend who helped bring the world Etta James and the Hand Jive while his father-in-law, Gerald Wilson, is an encyclopedia of the most important developments in jazz since 1939. Shuggie's performance last night hovered somewhere amid the past the future, acknowledging his soulful heritage while dipping into a blues-drenched familiarity that united father, son and holy ghost.

Otis is now 59 and has only released 4 LPS, unofficially announcing his retirement before the age of 25. The Brothers Johnson covered "Strawberry Letter No. 23" in 1977, solidifying Otis' closest claim to a radio hit. Since then he has lived a life of obscurity and a couple of failed comeback attempts.

Har Mar Superstar had this tweet less than an hour into the show:

@harmarsuperstar: RT if the Shuggie Otis show ruined your life tonight.

Ruined your life? Why? Cause he didn't play Strawberry Letter No. 23 for twenty minutes? Or because he wrestled with a faulty amplifier?

For much of the first half hour, Otis stood with his back to the stage, fiddling with a giant stack of amplifiers. He addressed the crowd a couple of times, blaming his underwhelming performance on a poor guitar sound. It seemed like a cop out. He even interrupted a tune midway to announce "You should get your money back." This is the last thing a paying audience wants to hear and, indeed, at this point it felt like all was lost. Had Otis left the stage at that point, the crowd would have quietly walked off. But he didn't.

Christina Limson O'Connell

Instead, he returned with a slow simmering blues number that highlighted his chops, summoning B.B. Kings' Lucille and Albert King's Flying V in equal measure. Otis easily settled into the role of solemn bluesman, working his axe over a shrill Hammond organ and unrelenting feedback. Following that tune, he requested a house amp from the sound crew to no avail, provoking hoots and hollers from the audience.

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The Echoplex

1154 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

Category: Music

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LAWeeklyMusic

@HarMarSuperstar @CultofSOC Get a room you two.

amags130

Totally agree with @dtpk

Sean acts like the walkouts were a dispute over musical taste. Far from it.

I walked out after the feedback and constant delays/fussing with the amp became too much to overcome. Shuggie showed up late and completely wasted, never bothering to test any of his equipment before the show. Soundcheck is supposed to be mandatory, not optional. What I experienced last night was a very talented musician (with a very determined/talented backing band, who deserve a ton of credit) show a huge lack of respect for the paying customer by showing up unprepared. It was unprofessional at best and a train wreck at worst.

dtpk

2 Like

I'm not even sure where to begin because this article is so wrong-headed, so contradictory and so inconsistent. You say you like a meltdown as much as the next person?!? Are you for real? What an insensitive, perverse thing to say! Were you as high and/or disoriented as Shuggie appeared to be last night? The man seems to either have a drug problem, severe performance anxiety, or both - any of which truly saddens me because I have nothing but respect for him. I spent time with him in 1984 when he was touring in his father's band and he was one of the kindest, gentlest people I've met. I was there last night and it was as much a travesty for the audience as it was a tragedy for Shuggie. For whatever reason, he was lost. And many of us in the audience were dumbfounded.

His incessant preoccupation with his "broken" guitar amp didn't make any sense, especially in light of the fact that it sounded perfectly fine; that is, when he chose to play anything you could hear beyond some barely audible, lightly strummed chords, which was the norm. Even you wrote that blaming his poor performance "on a poor guitar sound...seemed like a cop out". So which was it, an unrealistic and unjustly critical audience or a performer not up to the task? You can't have it both ways. Did you even notice that a significant amount of the time Shuggie spent fiddling with his amp he wasn't even touching anything, but merely passing his hand over the control panel? Or that he spent a long time - after he was introduced but before the first song even began - repeatedly coiling and uncoiling his guitar cord, indulging in some OCD-like fixations while the audience waited, dumbfounded? Even when the stagehands replaced his guitar cord he continued that bewildering behavior.

And, yes, I went to the show to hear old and new songs but, unfortunately, Shuggie was not delivering the goods on either. His guitar playing was meager - to put it mildly - and his vocals were largely off-key and downright weak. It pains me to say all that but it's true. And, yes, I was one of those "who staggered out of the Shuggie Otis show less than an hour into the proceedings", because it was literally just too painful to experience the meltdown that was on display. As a matter of fact, I left shortly after the decent-but-totally-average blues jam you cited, if only to preserve my hearing. For some reason, Shuggie saw fit to engage an effects peddle that he already had tried and knew to be defective, and to keep playing through this broken distorted peddle even if it meant spraying the crowd with wailing feedback and screeching.

To their credit, Shuggie's backing band soldiered on admirably in the face of an incredibly difficult situation. But even they couldn't save Shuggie from himself. Did I ask for a refund as Shuggie suggested I should? No. But neither did I stick around for the deeply depressing sight of Shuggie Otis out of control.