Race/racism and the late Prof. Frederic G. Cassidy

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 11/3/06, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/2/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > Mr. Otis has more commonly been known as "Shuggie", actually. For the
> > benefit of anyone who didn't know how to pronounce the name there's a
> > song on his 1970 debut album with the rhyming title "Shuggie's
> > Boogie".
>
> Among what group of people has Shug more commonly been known as "Shuggie'?

That's the name that he himself has used for his entire recording
career (i.e., since the 1969 Al Kooper album that introduced him).
See:

http://www.soultracks.com/shuggie_otis.htm
http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/shuggie.htm
http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Shuggie%20Otis.html
http://www.luakabop.com/shuggie_otis/
etc.

Speaking of sweetly named singers in the orbit of Johnny Otis, I was
always partial to Sugar Pie De Santo (Afro-Filipina, while we're on
the subject of racial hybridity). Johnny dubbed her Sugar Pie not long
after he transformed her childhood friend Jamesetta Hawkins into Etta
James.


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org