Otis Clay: A Sign of Promise
The one and only Otis Clay.
Otis Clay was a singer that was filled with goodwill.
No gig was too small, every note he sang created a choir of inspiration.
The world-renowned Chicago-based gospel and soul vocalist died of a heart attack in January 2016. He was 73. He is greatly missed. In a 1988 interview, he asked me, “What is it that makes a man rich?” Without hesitation, he answered, “You’ve contributed something.” Otis was always looking at forward progress.
The City of Chicago will honor this community treasure Otis with an Otis Clay street sign in a dedication ceremony that begins at 1 p.m. Thursday at 4245 W. Cermak Rd. This was the site of Clay’s Redwood Studios. The studio was on the second floor and he ran K-Town Cleaners, a dry cleaning shop on the first floor. It was the cleanest sound in the city. Otis’s full band will perform a couple of songs on Thursday. Guest vocalists include Theo Bell, who mentored under Otis and Joe Barr of Joe Barr and the Soul Purpose Band.
Otis was also a cornerstone of the West Side Sound which is more soul-oriented and horn-driven than South Side blues. Around 1982 and ’83 he also operated the New Club Universe at Kilpatrick Avenue and West Madison Street.
Otis built his studio in the mid-1980s with the help of Hi Records arranger-producer Willie Mitchell. Mitchell gave Otis a deal on the remodified 16-track recording machine that was responsible for many Hi hits in Memphis, Tn.
Otis recorded gospel and soul music at Redwood, named for its redwood facade. Most of his 2007 Grammy-nominated record “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” (Echo Records) was recorded at Redwood. The project included Otis’s stalwart cover of the Joe South country-rock hit and a passionate Soul Stirrers medley “Nearer to Thee, Touch the Hem of His Garment…”) with special guests Arthur and LeRoy Crume of the Soul Stirrers. Otis was a member of the 75-voice gospel choir at Liberty Baptist Church, 49th and King Drive. His occasional Sunday morning gospel sets were as much a part of Chicago’s fabric as a Sunday afternoon Bears game.
Spirits of Soul: Pops Staples (l.) and Otis.
Clay signed with Hi Records in 1971 and Mitchell produced most of Clay’s hits, “Precious, Precious,” “Trying To Live My Life Without You” and “Holding On to a Dying Love.” Mitchell died in 2010 at the age of 81.
In the mid-1980s he told me, “See, Otis sings songs. Gospel songs, country songs, rock n’ roll. You really can’t categorize him. I set up the mike and let him go.”
If soul lives in the heart of every person, then Otis sang for everyone. My friends John Rice and John Soss effortlessly got Otis on board for annual tributes to country singer Buck Owens at Schuba’s in Chicago. Led Zeppelin? No problem, since Zep was rooted in Chicago blues. In 1999 Otis contributed an extended version of “Since I’ve Been Loving You” to “Whole Lotta Blues–Songs of Led Zeppelin) for the House of Blues label. Robert Plant is an Otis fan.
Otis played a couple of my book release parties, including 2000s “Ticket to Everywhere” at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn where he shared the stage with the late Chicago nightclub crooner Jimmy Damon and the Japanese Hank Williams Yoshi Sekiguchi, who died earlier this year at age 90.
Music was an absolute unifier for Otis Clay.
Otis’s long-time keyboardist Dedrick Blanchard reached out to me this week. He was worried that Thursday’s dedication was flying under the radar. “I didn’t realize Otis was a worldwide name until right after I joined the band (in December 1981),” Blanchard said on Tuesday. “My first trip overseas with Otis was to Japan in 1982. That’s when I saw how big a deal it was. They treated us like royalty in Japan.
Otis Clay: Precious, precious.
“I talked to Otis on the Tuesday before he died,” he continued. “I was watching television. I forgot what show it was, but the show ended with one of his songs. I called him and let him know about it. I believe the last gig we did was when we did your book signing.”
Otis assembled a smoking old-school soul revue for the free Oct. 24, 2016 book release party for “The People’s Place: Soul Food Restaurants and Reminiscences from the Civil Rights Era to Today” at FitzGerald’s. “He paid for that out of his own pocket,” Blanchard said. “He did a lot of good things for us. It will be that last band that will play on Thursday.”
I surprised Otis with a birthday cake in Feb. 2015 when he appeared with his band on my WGN radio show. L to R: Chris “Hambone” Cameron, me, Daniel Gerzina of Eater and Otis. (Dan Long photo.)
Blanchard is now playing with Vino Louden, a former guitarist from Otis’s band and former Koko Taylor bandleader.
Otis helped organize a benefit for Louden after he was seriously injured in a 2008 automobile accident while on the road with Taylor.
Otis was also involved as a board member of People For New Direction, a community-based non-profit that created economic initiatives that addressed concerns on the West Side.
It is appropriate that folks will nod toward the skies when they see the Otis Clay street sign. The heavens are full of possibilities, a truth that Otis Clay knew very well.
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