John Otway

On tour

Pictures

Listen to, buy or share

Buy

Buy on Amazon Amazon Expand purchase options
  • Digital download
  • Amazon Amazon
  • 7digital 7digital
  • iTunes iTunes
  • Physical media
  • Amazon Amazon Search
  • eBay eBay Search
  • 46,428
    scrobbles
  • 5,972
    listeners

Tags

Everyone’s tags

More tags

Biography

Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom (1972 – present)

John Otway, (born October 2, 1952, in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom) is a self-confessed unsuccessful singer songwriter, who built a large cult audience through unrelenting touring, a surreal sense of humour and a winning underdog personality.

Although his first single, Gypsy/Misty Mountain was released in 1972, Otway shot to fame on the back of punk rock and a gymnastic performance on The Old Grey Whistle Test. His sixth single, the half-spoken love song Really Free reached number 27 in the UK Singles Chart in 1977. It would be his greatest success for some time and consequently is still easy to track down on the second-hand market. Much scarcer is the picture cover which was only present on a small proportion of the singles. Rarer still, and almost impossible to find, is the advertising sleeve, a die-cut thin paper sleeve printed with an advert for the debut album, snippets of newspaper and magazine reviews and a cut-out “Really Free” body sticker. The song earned him a five album deal with Polydor Records, who viewed him as a punk rather than merely an eccentric.

His first album, recorded with Wild Willy Barrett, was produced by Pete Townshend but sold only fitfully. The follow-up singles fared no better despite some imaginative promotion, which included an offer for Otway to come to a buyer’s house and perform the 1979 single, Frightened And Scared, if their copy was one of only three copies from which the vocal had been omitted. Otway’s and Barrett’s only other UK chart success came in July 1980 with DK 50-80, a modest #45 hit.
Read more… Edit bio

Top Albums

Events

Add event

Listening Trend

5,972listeners all time
46,428scrobbles all time
Recent listeners trend:

Start scrobbling and track your listening history

Last.fm users scrobble the music they play in iTunes, Spotify, Rdio and over 200 other music players.

Create a Last.fm profile

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up.

Top Listeners