Johnny Otis succumbs
The world of Black music loses a pioneer
Rhythm & Blues pioneer and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Johnny Otis—born John Veliotes—died Tuesday night in the Los Angeles area after a decade-long struggle with an undisclosed illness. He was 91.
Otis was born Dec. 28, 1921, in Vallejo, Calif. He dropped out of school to play with bands throughout the Midwest and settled in Los Angeles in 1943. He performed with Charlie Parker and Count Basie, but his main impact was in R&B.
As leader of his own band, Otis had 15 Top 40 R&B hits from 1950 to 1952. His biggest success was with “Willie and the Hand Jive” in 1958. Otis was also as extremely skilled bandleader, drummer, vibraphonist, singer, producer, and promoter of R&B and Rock & Roll. Otis was instrumental in furthering the careers of a number of important performers, including Big Mama Thornton, Hank Ballard and Jackie Wilson.
He is credited with flipping the name Jamesetta (Hawkins) to Etta James and packaging her as a single after discovering her in San Francisco.
While growing up as part of a Greek immigrant family in Berkeley, Otis began a lifelong attraction and commitment to African American culture. He celebrated the vibrancy of African American music and its power to unite people across racial boundaries, coming to think of himself as “Black by persuasion.” He performed with Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Count Basie and Art Tatum.
An artist, pastor, civil rights activist and author Otis wrote “Listen to the Lambs” (1968), an insightful account of the 1965 Watts riots, and “Upside Your Head! Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue” (1993). He also wrote the introduction for friend and well-known disc jockey Tom Reed’s book “The Black Music History of Los Angeles—It’s Roots.”
“Even though Otis wasn’t African American, he had an appreciation and love for them and that was evident in his music,” said Reed. “He was a man of many [talents] and that’s not only when it came to Black music. He was an author, a painter and a sculptor. He did what he had to do. I will miss him and he was a good friend. A real friend. He was, White, but he fought for the causes.
Otis is survived by his wife Phyllis and children John, Jr. (Shuggie), Nicky, Daryl Jon, Janice, and Laura.
Funeral arrangements were pending.
The WE CAN Foundation will host the Allensworth “Scat to Rap” Family Music Festival celebrating all the genres of Black music and African rhythms, including Blues, Gospel, Jazz, BeBop, DooWop, R&B and conscious Hip Hop. The festival will be held on Saturday, Sept. 10, and activities will begin at 11 a.m. at the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park in Tulare County.
We’re not called ‘Negroes’ anymore. It’s a racial identification from our past; we’ve moved on …now we’re black or African American. We rarely stop to think of the power behind the word ‘Negro,’ and that at one time in our history it stood for dignity, power, and love. It meant that none of us were free, until we were all free and that we had a special bond that manifested itself in education; honor and trusting in God to give us the strength to do what needed to be done.
BURBANK, Calif.—Actor, singer and comedian extraordinaire Wayne Brady now adds children’s entertainer to his resume with the release of Radio Wayne, his Walt Disney Records’ debut children’s album. Re-creating the world of drive-time radio, Brady plays DJ Wayne on the album, talking to listeners while introducing a hot mix of songs designed help kids with everyday life lessons. Radio Wayne is now available exclusively on Amazon.com, and arrives at retailers nationwide and online music stores May 31.
He taught a who’s who among those on the Los Angeles Jazz scene including Ernie Andrews, Roy Ayers, Dexter Gordon, Chico Hamilton, Horace Tapscott, and Vi Redd, and a number of these greats turned out recently as Jefferson High School renamed its auditorium in the honor of Samuel Rodney Browne. Not only did he graduate from the then-nearly all White school, but would later return to become the first African American teacher at the school.
Richard “Dick” Griffey, an iconic figure in the Black music who went from being a concert promoter to owning his own record label SOLAR (Sounds of Los Angeles Records)—credited for releasing hits such as “Fantastic Voyage” and “Rock Steady”—died Sept. 24, after complications from an earlier quadruple bypass surgery. He was 71.
SOLAR, founded in 1977, became the second largest African American-owned record company in the United States.
