Odds and end, odds and ends…I found Johnny Otis’ sole top 40 hit on a multi-artist compilation on Capital, and that’s my entire experience of Johnny Otis.
He was huge though, the fewness of his chart placing notwithstanding (he had 4 top 100 records between 1958 and 1960). He wrote songs (Every Beat Of My Heart), he produced classic recordings (Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton), he discovered talent (Etta James, Hank Ballard etc etc).
And to me, he was reduced to a single random track on a random LP…
Life is weird sometimes.
Johnny Otis Show:
• Willie And The Hand Jive – A kind of mutated Bo Diddley thing going on here, as Otis sings of a “dance” that involves nothing but hand movements. One can only imagine. Go Willie… From the summer of 1958.Eric Clapton covered this on 461 Ocean Blvd.
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