Otis Clay: Respect Yourself

If you thought soul was dead, or that the deep-soul revival was, also, you're in for a treat. This live set proves that Chicago's deep-soul master hasn't lost his touch.

"Deep soul" is a subset of big-s Soul that gets its moniker from the genre's deep ties to gospel music -- where, after all, the genre was born, or at least midwifed. But it also represents the music's obscurity; until recently, most folks weren't aware that there was any such distinction. Chicago soul legend Otis Clay knows better. Although he's not usually thought of in the first rank of Seventies soul artists, true aficionadoes give him the respect he deserves. After all, this is the man who served as Al Green's grittier counterpart on the Hi label, one more raw, more earthy, and working with no apparent idea of the contradiction between the secular and the sacred. Neophytes will recognize his biggest hit, "Tryin' To Live My Life Without You," from Bob Seger's hit version, but Otis had already nailed it.

That said, he doesn't do it again here, during a particularly smoking set recorded, of all places, at the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland, 2003. But what he does cover is telling. Al's "Love And Happiness," the most spiritual of Green's early hits, "For The Good Times," also covered by Green; a medley of "Amen" and "This Little Light Of Mine." When this Chicago soul master (by way of Memphis) takes on The Parliaments' "I Just Wanna Testify," he makes the title literal. This is an essential purchase for deep-soul obsessives and neophytes alike; if nothing else, it proves that Rush, at least, hasn't stopped carrying the torch.