April 10, 2013

Shuggie Otis Is Back In Business – SPIN

Shuggie Otis was recently interviewed by SPIN about his upcoming album, Inspiration Information/Wings Of Love, to be released April 16th. Here is an excerpt:

Were you always aware that, even though it didn’t sell when the album was released, there was a small group of people that cared passionately about Inspiration Information?

Since the late ’70s, I had a feeling that one day that album would be re-released, and I thought it would be Sony. It turned out to be Luaka Bop [David Byrne’s label also reissued the album in 2001], and now it is gonna be Sony. When it first came out again the response did surprise me. I think it sold 7,000 copies the first week, which is not bad for somebody who — a lot of people didn’t know who I was. Kids all of a sudden liked the music as well, which surprised me. I didn’t think kids would like that type of music. But little did I know: Music is music. All kids aren’t the same, and all record buyers aren’t the same. The major label record buyers who make people famous are not the same as the people who were buying my record years later.