From the Hip with Benjy Mudie

Rob Zipper (Otis Waygood Blues Band | Lead Singer and Saxophonist) tells the wild, full story This episode is for Gen X music lovers who grew up hearing the name Otis Waygood and wondering what really happened. Benjy Mudie sits down with Rob Zipper, lead singer and saxophonist of the Otis Waygood Blues Band, for the first time in decades to relive the extraordinary story of the band that Rian Malan called "our Led Zeppelin, our Free, maybe even our Rolling Stones." Rob takes you back to Rhodesia in the early 1960s, the teen band scene in Salisbury, and the moment Morris Trigger sang "Rock Around the Clock" in standard one and changed everything. He traces the blues education that began with Benny Millar, the maverick guitarist who introduced the band to Eric Clapton, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and Bob Dylan years before anyone else knew who they were. The episode goes deep on the band's explosive arrival in South Africa in 1969: the Battle of the Bands at Green Point Stadium, the Electric Circus in Linksfield, and the night a sharply dressed young man named Clive Calder walked up the stairs and offered them a ten percent royalty deal at EMI, an unheard-of figure that made headlines and launched a phenomenon. Rob explains the chemistry behind the Calder-Otis Waygood partnership, why it never quite worked the same way for Freedom's Children, Suck or Abstract Truth, and how Clive Calder and Ralph Simon went on to build Zomba Records, sign Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. You will hear about the three albums recorded in 1970, including the classics "Late Miss Kate," "Fever" and "Watchin' Chain"; the communal house in Parkhurst where Abstract Truth and jamming musicians from the townships were regular guests; and the tragic, quietly heartbreaking story of flute player Martin Jackson. Rob then traces the band's journey through Amsterdam's Paradiso club, a medieval commune near Tubingen, the near-miss with Richard Branson at the Virgin Manor, a late-night encounter with Del Newman (Cat Stevens and Shirley Bassey's producer), and seeing Bob Marley and the original Wailers at the Speakeasy in Oxford Circus when there were barely five tables in the room. The story ends with a white Rhodesian reggae band playing Black clubs in Stoke Newington and Handsworth, a tour supporting Tavares, and a night at the London Palladium. Otis Waygood Blues Band discography on Discogs · Zomba Records history and Clive Calder · Rian Malan - My Traitor's Heart · Vinyl Junkie Website · Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard · Connect with Benjy on LinkedIn · Music Rights Clearances