Clay, Otis

***BACK IN STOCK!!! “OTIS CLAY is the kind of blesses, pulsating soul singer that Memphis is known for. An effortlessly funky performer, Clay has found a solid home with producer Willie Mitchell at Hi Records. Trying To Live My Life Without You, his first Hi album, illustrates a no-bones funkiness that immediately establishes Clay as a singer of the first rank. Otis Clay has blazed a trail in the gospel and R&B fields with a successful string of accomplishments for the past twenty-six years. In 1946, at the age of four, Otis began a singing career as part of a family gospel group that travelled through Mississippi. After ten years of touring the South, Clay moved to Chicago joining the Golden Jubilaires with whom he came under the direction of Odell Carter. A few years later he became part of a black folk singing outfit, the Blue Jays. Between 1964 and 1965 he was lead singer with the noted gospel act, the Sensational Nightingales. As a solo performer, his first straight R&B effort came in 1965. Signed to One-der-ful Records he had many hits, most notably "Satisfied Just Loving You" and "That's How It Is." His new association with Hi Records and Willie Mitchell is a genuinely exciting merger of two distinctively forceful artists operating for many years in the same territory. Willie Mitchell is the Memphis soul stirrer who has concocted so many fine things recently with Al Green, Denise LaSalle, and Ann Peebles. Over the years, he has played a fundamental role in the development of modern soul music. Mitchell is the best compliment to Clay's talents imaginable and vice versa.) Trying To Live My Life Without You is the sort of album that sets trends by presenting simple, earthy, and straightforward expressions of the most vital form of popular music around.”—Peter Hay