Johnny Otis dies at 90

[bluesboy]

Bandleader, record producer, talent scout, label owner, nightclub impresario, disc jockey, TV variety show host, author, R&B pioneer, rock & roll star Johnny Otis passed away January 17th.

Source

I got to see him at San Diego State back in 1971. I got hooked on his radio shows for various Los Angeles stations back in the eighties because he had such knowledge of 1940's, '50s & '60s blues and R&B with every week being a dynamite playlist. I started taping his shows and fast forward to today, He is the Godfather of my youtube channel.

I learned so much from you, Johnny Otis.

Thank You

[bluesboy]

Here's more from the Source...

"But tough times in the late 1940s forced bandleaders to pare their large ensembles back to a small handful of players — the perfect size, as it turned out, for the new styles of R&B and rock 'n' roll that were emerging.

"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," Otis told The Times in 1984, and "the sound changed too, into more of a cross between swing and country blues.... We ended up creating a whole new art form: a hybrid music that became known as rhythm and blues."

Otis scored a signature hit of that nascent style in 1946 with the moody, saxophone-driven instrumental " Harlem Nocturne ," which was revived in 1960 by the white New Jersey rock group the Viscounts."

[Steel2Velvet]

Sad to hear. Wow ... I thought the midnight creeper would never die. RIP, my man!