You never find the Holy Grail where it’s supposed to be. My personal chalice was amidst the waft of beer saturation and customers circling their hands for another round. It gave me hope in a churning sea of constant needs.

In order to survive the rigors of waiting tables, one must reach a meditative state; the brain must achieve cruise control while everything else speeds up to a flurry. Most of us find inner sanctum through music. The right CD relaxes both customer and server. The wrong selection produces an invisible tempest, a jangling typhoon that disrupts meal and rhythm.

One moment sticks out in particular. It was the day Shuggie Otis came into my life and disrupted every notion I had about music. The bartender we had that day has always been my personal favorite. He’s not the quickest, and his memory dissipates as it gets busier. But his taste for music is regal. He’s always introducing my ears to new sounds, and I, in return, show him avenues of music he missed on the first look-see.

“Have you ever heard this guy?” the bartender asked, showing me a CD insert of a man sporting an acoustic guitar and an Afro that looked top heavy.

“Shu-ggie O-Tis? Nope. Can’t say I have. What’s it like?”

The bartender’s smile turned Cheshire. “I think it’s about time you had a little Shuggie in your life.”

With that he whirled around, popped “Inspiration Information” into the player, and my world went back to knee-high tube socks and Wham-O’s.

The whole bar seemed to gyrate with ‘70s California soul. Customer’s heads bobbed like a beach ball riding waves, wait staff shucked and jived around the tables, and the overhead lights seemed to morph into glitter balls. There were teases of Sly, intervals of Stevie, and soul with more gravity than Parliament Funkadelic.

Yet, it was like nothing I’d ever heard. The R&B that was indicative of the ‘70s is Shuggie’s landscape, but the simple texture of the album belies the layers that “Inspiration” possesses. After this initial listen (followed by a requested repeat, again and again), I soaked up Shuggie like an emaciated sponge.

Most of the instruments on “Inspiration”— bass, drum machine (Otis was one of, if not the first, to use the drum machine) electric guitar, and piano — were done by Shuggie. He also did all the horn arrangements, as well as the songwriting.

It’s no wonder that Shuggie was asked to join the Stones when guitarist Mick Taylor left in 1974. He furthered his elusive legend by declining the imperial offer.

“I had my own group, my own label deal,” he said years later in the liner notes. “I just wanted to do what I want to do. I had my own identity.”

An understatement, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Otis? Here’s a guy who played bass on Frank Zappa’s “Peaches and Regalia” at age 15 and released his first album, “Freedom Flight” at a wizened 17 years. His father, R&B madman Johnny Otis (who was best known for the classic, “Willie and the Hand Jive”) enlisted his son as the band’s guitarist when Shuggie was 12 (he wore dark glasses and a painted moustache to further his age).

Johnny gently prodded the boy to write his own music. Usually working alone, Shuggie wrote most of the songs to “Inspiration” with the aid of a singular drum machine. While out with his father’s R&B revue, Shuggie would overlook the compositions and then figure out how lyrics would fit in.

“We had this camper, and I remember coming back [to Los Angeles] from a tour,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Tom Moon. “My dad had this TV appearance to do or something. He told me ‘Why don’t you stay out here and work on those songs?’ That’s when I wrote ‘Inspiration Information’ — in an hour while I was waiting for him.”

An hour? The only thing I can compare it to is when Duke Ellington wrote “Mood Indigo” while waiting for his mother to finish cooking.

A bold statement? Oh yes. Duke is a one-of-a-kind visionary, but so was Shuggie. I promise after an initial listen of “Inspiration,” the only thing you’ll hear yourself saying (after the body quits gyrating) is “how did this kid put out an album of this stature at age 20?”

I’m still pondering that one. Just re-released on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, “Inspiration” is Shuggie’s trump card, kind of like Bob Marley’s “Catch a Fire” or Stevie Wonder’s “Talking Book.” There’s so much to this album that even an eternity of listening won’t pick up every granule of soul.

The simple pop renderings of the title song “Inspiration Information” and “Strawberry Letter 23”(which was originally on Shuggie’s first album, “Freedom Flight,” as well as a 1977 hit for the Brothers Johnson) are crowd pleasers and are sure to make any party a success. But it’s not just party music. Even his pop renderings have layers to it that are lacking in the formula Billboard hits of today. His gentle voice provides a crest for the brain to ride on as he spills waves of fluid guitar work, articulate keyboards, and the ever-reliable drum machine.

“Sparkle City” is downright nasty. What starts as a happy go lucky soul number, cascades into some serious funk as the number draws to a close. That’s the Shuggie signature. The song starts with one face, before revealing its Hyde personality. “Aht Uh Mi Hed” (which masters the art of misspelling in the tradition of Sly Stone’s “ThankU Falletin Me Be Mice Elf”) is what a pop song should be. The song builds amidst triangles, heavy bass lines, acoustic guitars, and Shuggie lending a tender voice that even mom would love.

Of course, Otis could also be dirty. “Sweet Thang” is rugged Delta Blues. The slide work on this number (along with acoustic piano accompaniment) reveals that Shuggie wasn’t just delving into California boogaloo. It’s the kind of number that recalls the foothills of Mississippi and all the juke joints in between.

Instrumentals are also abounding on this album. Shuggie was not afraid to take risks — tufts of jazz appear on these voiceless numbers; and the harmonic complexities he learned playing with Frank Zappa and Al Kooper are abundant on the organ based “XL-30” and the 13-minute “Freedom Flight.”

So why did “Inspiration Information” not become an instant classic? There’s no clear-cut explanation, but there are several factors that may have led to its demise in the ‘70s. At the time, Shuggie had acres of freedom to do his material. It wasn’t until the late ‘70s that the industry began to really put the clamp down on artistic integrity. It took Otis three years to put “Inspiration” together, and that may have been one of his downfalls.

“Shortly after I completed the album, I turned it in and it was printed up, we [Otis and his father] were dropped from the label,” Shuggie told Moon. “Both of us were working on new stuff.” (Two years before, Columbia had built a studio behind the Otis’ home.) “We were pretty shocked. It was like I’d had this big thrill, and now came this big letdown ....

“I said ‘Oh, it’s no big deal, we’ll get another [label] right away.’ With the popularity we had at the time, I thought it would be easy. We still don’t have a big-label deal. That’s why [Inspiration] wasn’t followed up.”

Legend has it that “Inspiration” only lasted in the stores a couple of weeks before being dropped. Fans popped up sparsely, and the ones who praised the record were Shuggie’s peers. The album floored Sly Stone, and bands like Spirit and Blood Sweat and Tears all asked Shuggie to join them. He declined all offers, believing that he could be a viable frontman on his own. He sought out execs he believed would share his model for blues/funk.

“Some of them had their ideas of what I should do,” he told Moon. “They’d mention producers and all that, which offended me. As usual, they didn’t understand what I was trying to do.”

Some believe that Otis was just simply eons ahead of his time:

“You have to wonder if people at the time thought this was a fantastic record,” said Sean O’Hagan of the band, High Llamas. “Or did they think, (incredulously) ‘Why are you doing this?’ I’m always aware that the early ‘70s were one of the worst times for objectivity in music because everyone was so focused on technique. People were so obsessed with being good players. There was a preoccupation with this idea about finally creating high art out of Pop and R&B music. It’s reflected in the fact that there were many people of great ability and accomplishment. You’ve got to remember that this record was made at that time.”

It didn’t help that the early ‘70s was ripe with masterpieces like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” Sly Stone’s “Fresh” and Funkadelic’s “Cosmic Slop” (to name a mere smattering). There was such a “saturation” of great soul music that “Inspiration” probably fell through the floorboards, only to be enjoyed by music Sherlocks that snooped through every record bin.

Shuggie returned to traditional blues in the early ‘80s, and he presently plays in his father’s band, and works and records with his own combo (in his native Bay Area). Now 48, Shuggie has garnered wisps of fame thanks to the re-release of “Inspiration.” He was recently on David Letterman, and he has a new armada of young rabid fans. He plans (one day) to do a follow up to “Inspiration” and mini tours may help this ascension (although there are many reports of bad health).

Whatever Shuggie Otis does, I wish him well. It took 27 years for me to get to know the fellow, but it’s good to know my eyes finally see the sheen. “Inspiration” has one of those imprints that epoxies to the soul. It’s kind of like that first kiss, or visiting a new country. It opens the eyes a little more, and gives you a memory that liberates a smile.

(Hunter Pope can be reached at w.h.pope@worldnet.att.net)