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While the name Johnny Otis is certainly synonymous with West Coast R&B, and borders on what many people would call a household name, his one-time guitar player, Pete Lewis, is a virtual unknown whose life is shrouded in mystery.

Apparently, Johnny Otis "discovered" Pete Lewis at his Barrelhouse Club, in 1947, during one of the regular Thursday night talent shows. He went on to hire Lewis to be a part of his band, in what would mark an almost ten year relationship. Legend has it that Lewis came to California by way of his birthplace, now thought to be Oklahoma City, in the year 1913 (previously it was thought to be Louisiana, which we now know to be in error).

What Pete Lewis did prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, was that he was a guitar player like no other. A disciple of T-Bone Walker, he took the electric guitar to new heights, offering sophisticated turns of phrase that bordered on jazz-inflected, to low-down gut bucket riffs that were unceremoniously wrenched out of his instrument — sometimes, all in the same song, or if need be, in the short space of a twelve-bar solo. His playing is at once, crisp, precise, and gritty — not to mention endlessly inventive — the perfect compliment to Otis' rocking big band.

From what we can gather, Lewis must have been something of a character. One anecdote, related in the book “Midnight at the Barrelhouse,” is that during a time of incessant touring, he arbitrarily one day decided to stop talking to his boss, Johnny Otis. After about a year had passed, he suddenly resumed talking to him, as if nothing had ever happened.

One member of the Otis band — a legend in his own right, tenor sax icon Ben Webster — admired Pete's playing, and the story goes that the two of them roomed together while out on the road (Be sure to listen for a couple of inspired duets between the two of them near the end of the first hour).

Although reports vary to the exact date, sometime around 1956, Johnny Otis and Pete Lewis parted company for good. Rumor has it that it was Lewis' problems with alcohol that lead to Otis seeking a replacement, which he found with yet another young and inspired talent, Jimmy Nolen.

Thanks to cracker-jack research detective Rob Ford, we happen to know that Pete Lewis was still playing guitar in the clubs of Los Angeles as late as 1962. After that, details start to get murky. According Johnny Otis, the last time he saw Pete Lewis, it was shortly after the L.A. riots of 1966. In the intervening years since he’d last seen him, Lewis had become a wino, apparently living on the streets. Lewis died a short time later, in 1970, at the age of 57. A sad and ironic end to a man whose guitar playing took no prisoners, and had few equals.

Photo of Pete "Guitar" Lewis courtesy of Ace Records/Johnny Otis Collection.

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