Johnny Otis, the “godfather of rhythm and blues” who wrote and recorded the R&B classic “Willie and the Hand Jive” and for decades evangelized black music to white audiences as a bandleader and radio ...

In a new biography titled "Midnight at the Barrelhouse –– The Johnny Otis Story" (University of Minnesota Press, 2010), George Lipsitz, professor of Black Studies and sociology at UC Santa Barbara, ...

Johnny Otis, an R&B renaissance man and visionary whose passion for the blues, the back beat and racial equality helped ignite a West Coast music style in the late-1940s that made rock and roll ...

This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 1989 interview with the late Johnny Otis, an R&B musician, producer, nightclub owner and talent scout who ...

JOHNNY OTIS: Well, this goes back to the mid '40s, and it was my first record date with my own band, as I recall. And we did three things. I went to the producer after we had completed the third one ...

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today, we continue our archive series R&B, rockabilly and early rock 'n' roll. Before Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog," it was recorded by Big Mama Thornton. The ...

Otis, who died in 2012, started out leading a big band. Later, as a talent scout, he discovered such performers as Big Mama Thornton, Esther Phillips and Etta James. Originally broadcast in 1989.