10 Artists With Incredible Gaps Between Studio Albums

Guitarist and singer Shuggie Otis gained huge recognition in the 1990s, when the Acid Jazz movement stirred up a wave of enthusiasm for psyche-tinged, wigged out explorations. Prince, David Byrne and Lenny Kravitz are just three of the big names who championed Otis at the time. Strange, then, that Otis' last album up to that point had been released two decades earlier. That album, Inspiration Information, gained the attention of contemporary luminaries such as B. B. King and Frank Zappa. It has latterly become an acknowledged classic.

Otis was something of a child prodigy, performing professionally from an early age. He cut several albums as a sideman, and three magnificent solo records for Epic records, Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970), Freedom Flight (1971), and the above-mentioned Inspiration Information (1974). Shuggie worked with some of the biggest names around, including Etta James, Louis Jordan and Bobby Bland, and his solo albums featured a wealth of guest talent.

For whatever reason, Otis turned down collaborative offers from The Rolling Stones and Quincy Jones and, it seems, generally dragged his feet with regard to recording new material. Epic Records finally dropped the guitarist, who did not release another record under his own name until four decades later, when Inter-Fusion (2018) appeared to mixed reviews.