Shuggie Otis’ show at the El Rey Theater did not start off well: He plugged in, told his six-piece band he was ready to play in B flat, then, fewer than four bars into the song, abruptly stopped. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right,” was his explanation. If only he followed his own advice.
The son of bandleader Johnnie Otis (best known for the 1958 hit “Willie and the Hand Jive”), Shuggie was something of a guitar wunderkind in the late ’60s and early ’70s, but “retired” after the release of his 1974 album “Inspiration Information.”
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Reissued to great acclaim on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, the album is a wonderful collection of elegantly psychedelic funk that has rekindled interest in Otis’ music. But he arrived at the El Rey with an unrehearsed band and performed a jumbled show that managed to disappoint all but the most undiscerning fan.
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It was the kind of show that might have been acceptable if heard in a bar where listening only costs a beer, but in concert, with a $25 ticket price, it was hardly worth it.
Mixing hoary covers (Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing,” Buddy Miles’ “Them Changes,” Freddie King’s “Hideaway”) with a smattering of his own songs (a truncated “Aht Uh Mi Hed,” a ragged “Inspiration Information” and a perfunctory “Strawberry Letter 23”), what kept the show from being a total waste were Otis’ occasional flashes of instrumental brilliance.
As he moved fluidly from a stringy, B.B. King style whine to dense knots of notes reminiscent of Hendrix, Otis demonstrated that the nearly 20-year layoff has not dulled his abilities. But it was a solipsistic display; his mercurial, cavalier stage manner managed to befuddle the other musicians and alienate the audience, most of whom left long before the 75-minute show staggered to a close.
With even a modicum of preparation, Otis could have shown he was worthy of his new legendary status, but his slipshod appearance only managed to tarnish it.
