"Aht Uh Mi Hed" (Shuggie Otis)

Who is Shuggie Otis?

For one, he's the son of R&B bandleader Johnny Otis, who's best known for the 1958 hit "Willie & The Hand Jive."  Shuggie also was a guitar prodigy who started playing at the age of 2.  By the age of 13, he was touring extensively with his dad's band, playing alongside musicians 3 times his age.  (He often wore dark glasses and a fake mustache on stage so that he wouldn't get booted from clubs for being under age.) 
He got his own recording contract with Epic Records in 1969 at age 16 (the same year he played bass on Frank Zappa's Hot Rats album).  At age 18, he wrote the R&B classic "Strawberry Letter 23," which The Brothers Johnson took to #1 on the R&B charts in 1977.  Then at age 21, he dropped an experimental R&B album on the world that was heavily inspired by his idols Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone and their increasingly "do-it-yourself"/auteurist approach to making music.  The album, named Inspiration Information (1974), was completely written, arranged, performed, and produced by Otis himself and featured an amalgam of funk, jazz, and proto-electronica.  
Unfortunately, Epic only released the title track as a single and did little to promote the difficult-to-pigeonhole album.  Consequently, it quietly sank into obscurity, along with Shuggie himself.
(He's only recently resurfaced and started playing live shows again.)

I first learned about the album after David Byrne's Luaka Bop label decided to re-release it in 2001.  There was a full-page ad in Downbeat magazine with quotes from everyone from Questlove to Moby, gushing about how revolutionary it was.  I remember that I called an 800-number in the ad and listened to song snippets over the phone (hey, it was 2001, and I couldn't afford Internet access at my place at the time), and my gut reaction was that Byrne was playing some elaborate practical joke on the world.  The music didn't sound like it was from 1974; it sounded like something from Maxwell or Cody Chesnutt with well-executed throwback touches.  

As skeptical as I was about its authenticity, I called the number several more more times and tried to soak in what I was hearing.  By call #6, I was a convert.  I went out the next day to the Olsson's Books & Records (R.I.P.) up the street from my apartment in Arlington's Courthouse neighborhood and bought the store's lone copy.  And for the next month, I couldn't get enough of a track called "Aht Uh Mi Hed."

Lyrically, it's an enigmatic grab-bag of images.  As far as I can tell, it's an ode to "elevating one's mind" (herbally).

Musically, it's an intricate funk layer cake.  It begins simply enough with a samba-style drum machine beat, heavily-phased organ, and keyboard bass.  But then instruments come flying in from every direction: strummed acoustic guitar, muted electric guitar, slapped electric bass, Hammond organ, bells, tambourines, timbales...  All played by Otis himself.

The most awe-inspiring moment, though, is the instrumental break after the second bridge, where these lush strings and woodwinds (also arranged by Otis) suddenly blow in and swirl around like a warm breeze on a tranquil summer afternoon.  It's like Igor Stravinsky dipping his toe in the funk pond.

It's rare to say this about an R&B song, but it's amazingly beautiful.

Shuggie Otis should have been a mega-star in his day.