Shuggie Otis: "Here Comes Shuggie Otis"

I’ve read reviews by some critics who felt the “Shuggie Revival” about a decade ago was a bit manufactured, many disagreeing with the characterization of Otis as an ahead-of-his-time visionary.  Yet listening to a record like this, I really can’t understand how one could argue with Otis’ brilliance.  Long before Prince, Shuggie was an earlier incarnation of the multiple-instrument-playing child prodigy/funk experimentalist, recording and performing with his father, legendary blues/R&B artist Johnny Otis, from the age of 12(!).  This particular album was the follow-up to “Al Kooper Presents Shuggie Otis,” a bluesier affair that contained more jamming than songwriting.  With “Here Comes...,” Shuggie begins to reveal the full extent of his musical powers, starting with the genre-bending opener “Oxford Gray,” a piece that goes from funk-rock to baroque classical to delta slide blues and back again in less than seven minutes.  Other styles covered on the album include achy psychedelic balladry (“Jennie Lee”), gutbucket funky grooves (“Funky Thithee,” “Hurricane”), and blues (“Bootie Cooler,” “Shuggie’s Boogie”).  Shuggie tears it up on guitar throughout, while the band simmers beneath, comprised of his father and a handful of session pros including Stix Hooper, Leon Haywood and Wilton Felder.  Pound for pound, this Otis record stands alone—as do its subsequent counterparts (“Freedom Flight” and “Inspiration Information”)—in its inventiveness, funkiness and nearly avant-garde flights of fancy.  “Rainbows and waterfalls run though my mind…”