Otis Clay - The Best Of Otis Clay The Hi Records Years

The links on this one were gone and Chubby needs a re-up so I'll bring it forward for those who missed it the first go-round. RIP Otis

Otis Clay was born 11th February 1942 in Waxhaw, Mississippi in rural Bolivar County, Mississippi to a musical family, who moved in 1953 to Muncie, Indiana. After singing with local gospel group, the Voices of Hope, he returned to Mississippi to sing with the Christian Travelers, before settling in Chicago in 1957. There, he joined a series of gospel vocal groups including the Golden Jubilaires, the Famous Blue Jay Singers, the Holy Wonders, and the Pilgrim Harmonizers, before making his first solo secular recordings in 1962. They were unissued, and Clay joined the Gospel Songbirds, who recorded in Nashville in 1964 and who also included Maurice Dollison who sang R&B under the name Cash McCall, and then the Sensational Nightingales.

In 1965 Clay signed with One-derful! Records in Chicago, to make secular recordings.  After releasing a series of gospel-tinged soul records, his first hit came in 1967 with "That's How It Is (When You're In Love)", which reached # 34 on the R&B chart, followed by "A Lasting Love" (# 48 R&B).  In 1968 the record company folded and his contract was bought by Atlantic Records, who launched their subsidiary Cotillion label with Clay's version of the Sir Douglas Quintet hit, "She's About A Mover", produced at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. The record became Clay's biggest pop hit, reaching # 97 on the Hot 100 (# 47 R&B). However, follow-ups on Cotillion, including "Hard Working Woman" produced by Syl Johnson, and "Is It Over?" produced by Willie Mitchell in Memphis, were less successful.


Clay moved to Mitchell's Hi Records in 1971, and made many of his best known soul blues records for the label. His biggest hit came with "Trying To Live My Life Without You," a # 24 R&B hit in late 1972, which he followed up with "If I Could Reach Out". "Trying To Live My Life Without You" was later covered by Bob Seger, whose version made # 5 on the pop chart in 1981. After several more

Otis Clay w/ the Hi Records Rhythm section

Hi singles and the album I Can't Take It, Clay moved to Kayvette Records, where he had his last national hit single in 1977, "All Because Of Your Love" (# 44 R&B). He later recorded for the Elka and Rounder labels, as well as his own Echo Records for whom he recorded the original version of "The Only Way is Up" in 1980.

He has remained a popular live act in Europe and Japan, as well as the US, and has recorded two live albums, Soul Man: Live in Japan and Respect Yourself, recorded live at the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland. In the 1990s he also recorded two soul albums for Bullseye Blues: I'll Treat You Right and the Willie Mitchell-produced This Time Around. In 2007, he recorded the gospel album Walk a Mile in My Shoes.

In a way, Clay has become a standard bearer for the grittier blues soul hybrid and the Chicago soul tradition when the city is more readily recognised as the nerve centre of so many great blues records and home to a number of the great and legendary straight ahead blues performers. He has been a nominee for a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance. As a resident of Chicago's West Side, he is actively involved in community-based economic and cultural initiatives, including the development of The Harold Washington Cultural Center.