Inspiration Information

Loose laid back funk with a jazzy feel and a tropical psych vibe. Busy rhythms with drums, bongos and more percussion doing polyrhythmic stuff and a tight bass sound high in the mix linking that to the array of textural instruments: acoustic guitars, flutes, strings and horns and cheesy keyboards. There's odd fill/noodle but no leads/solos really - like pure background jazz bordering elevator music. The singing is a bit tuneless and flat. Pleasant but dull overall, great for the pre-show music at your next coffeeshop poetry open mic.

Favorites: sweet thang, Island letter, strawberry 23

The Apple Music notes claim that he played every instrument and sang every part, and between the ages of 20-23. That, in and of itself, is very impressive. This is a great background music album, I actually listened twice while at work. Solid album.

Kelpo levy! Tykkään äänestä. 3/5

A warm hug of an album, with hints & echoes of a bunch of artists from Clapton to Prince, Funkadelic to Donovan. An artist I had never heard of, but really enjoyed and look forward to listening to again

Feels like it's about to break into Stevie Wonder territory, but never quite gets there.

Empieza muy bien con "Inspiration Information" y también incluye su canción más escuchada "Strawberry Letter 23". No está nada mal lo volveré a escuchar.

I am in for this ride. It goes from being a boogie soul album to a waiting room musak record?

I'd found out about this album earlier this year and enjoyed it... and enjoyed it again today! Couple of stand out tracks, but overall it was just a good vibe. 3.5

Never heard of Shuggie Otis until today. From what I've read, his father had a band which Shuggie would start playing guitar for at age eleven. He had to disguise himself with a fake moustache and dark glasses so he would appear older and could play bar gigs with the band!

So, obviously, a hell of a talented guy. I then learned that he played all of the instruments (except horns and some strings) and sang/wrote all of the songs himself. At 21! Crazy!

Delving into this record, it is amazing! I don't quite know how to classify it though. Shuggie was obviously an innovator because there are touches of jazz/funk/R&B/psychedelic rock/blues throughout. Shuggie's voice sounds a lot like Jay Kay's from Jamiroquai, and by times, his music sounds similar as well, so I would bet that Shuggie was an influencer of Jay Kay's.

Overall, this is a phenomenal record, and I am very happy to have discovered it! Will definately listen again.

Favourite songs: Sparkle City, Inspiration Information, Aht Uh Mi Hed, Ice Cold Daydream, Strawberry Letter 23

Least favourite song: if forced to pick one, Freedom Flight (it was a psychedelic rock number that ran for 12 mins and change. There were wind chimes in the background for the whole song, and they just became a bit annoying after a while)

4/5

Two of my favorite musical flavors: psychedelia and soul, perfectly balanced here, with early drum machines to boot! I remember when this was reissued on CD in 2001 and me and my friends devoured this album. Hearing these irresistible tunes and finding out it wasn't particularly well received in its time blew my mind and sent me on a neverending quest to find similar "lost" albums - but I'm not sure I'll ever find one that is both as amazingly ahead of its time and downright enjoyable as this one. Dude was 21!

Enjoyed starts great but did tail off

Nice soul/jazzy, which usually starts to bore me after a whole album, but was kind of nice to have on while I was writing the rest of these entries.

Funky, smooth, a little slow. Don’t love it, don’t hate it.

Loved this

The version that I found on Spotify was the 2013 re-release, which included a bunch of extra tracks, but I will keep this vote limited to the origional first nine tracks ("Inspiration Information" through "Not Available").

Overall, I really liked the album, for what it was. It actually felt more like two sub-albums put together into one.

The first four tracks are completely constructed compositions with vocals on top. The title track is the stand-out of them all, but I didn't think "Aht Uh Mi Hed" (read "That hurt me head" in a cockney lilt, I think) was far off.

Then, starting with "Happy House", the album gives way to more experimental and funky tracks, which are entirely instrumental. Of that set, I particularly enjoyed "Happy House", "XL-30" and (to a lesser extent "Pling!". These tracks felt more like musical streams of conciousness, and I felt a connection of influence all the way to more current tracks by artist like Knxwledge.

And then the (original) album wraps up with "Not Available", which I think is short for, "We had a song ready to record but the singer was Not Available". The song sounded ready to go, and it's just missing someone to sing along.

That sort of sums up the album in general, I think, and the fact that there were two more releases with two sets of additional tracks added seems to support this. When it was released, despite 3 years of production, the album was still sitting as a work in progress. It has some gems, shows a lot of promising ideas, and who knows... maybe a couple more re-releases and it will feel complete.

Another really cool funk album I hadn't heard before this project. I love the folksier sound mixed in here and the use of drum machines.

The phrase "Casio concerto" kept coming to mind. Maybe the programmed drums were cutting edge in 1974, but this sounds like someone playing tunes on a Casio over some pre-programmed fake drum track. BORING. It's a shame because the album started strong - "Inspiration Information" is a smooth groovy song. I liked "Sparkle City," "Happy House" and "Rainy Day." Pretty sure the one constant across those tracks is real drums, confirming to me that the programmed drums just killed this album.

inspiration inspiration