Otis Blackwell was a struggling blues singer in New York City when he struck gold on a different path—writing songs for others to sing, and in particular, Elvis Presley. A fortunate meeting with a music publisher led Blackwell to submit a demo of his song “Don’t Be Cruel,” and Elvis—singing it much like Blackwell—made it into a No. 1 single for RCA Victor in 1956. Many others, written wholly or in part by Blackwell, were to follow, including “All Shook Up,” “Paralyzed”, and “Return To Sender” for Elvis, “Breathless” and “Great Balls of Fire” for Jerry Lee Lewis, “Hey Little Girl” and “Just Keep It Up” for Dee Clark, and “Handy Man” for Jimmy Jones. Because of a conflicting contract with another publisher, Blackwell also wrote songs under his stepfather John Davenport’s name, most notably the Little Willie John/Peggy Lee hit “Fever.” His catalog at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI, the music rights organization that collects royalties for songwriters and publishers), numbers over 400 songs and he claimed to have written over 1000.
Blackwell was born in Brooklyn on February 16, 1932 (although other dates are sometimes cited) and began singing and dancing in local bars in his youth. He recalled that many songs he wrote were based on piano boogies and shuffles he devised. Blackwell began recording for RCA Victor in 1952 and for various labels thereafter. “Daddy Rollin’ Stone” on the Jay-Dee label was the best known of his records but none of them reached the national charts.
Finding his niche as a songwriter and less enamored with performing, he tended to avoid the limelight–so much so that he never even met Presley or many other singers who recorded his songs. “We had just a great thing going and I just wanted to leave it alone,” Blackwell later said. “I just wanted to keep writing and let him do the singing.”
Blackwell enjoyed a moment of fame when he sang “Don’t Be Cruel” on Late Night with David Letterman in 1984, and, capitalizing on the interest his songwriting reputation had generated, he began performing again in later years with a repertoire of his compositions made famous by the stars. A Brooklyn resident most of his life, he lived his final years in Nashville, where he died on May 6, 2002.
Otis Blackwell, inducted in 2022 to The Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame
– Jim O’Neal, BluEsoterica.com