When it comes to underrated talents, Shuggie Otis should be one of the first names to come to mind. No less a judge than David Byrne rates his trippy R&B jams as “equal to Marvin and Curtis.”

And this sweet psychedelic soul ballad – the strangely spelt Aht Uh Mi Hed – is an underrated gem. The drum machine (actually an electronic rhythm box that used to be found on organs) sounds a lot like the one that propels Timmy Thomas’s classic Why Can’t We Live Together.

It appeared on his 1974 album Inspiration Information, on which Otis – son of the legendary bandleader Johnny Otis – played all the instruments on a collection of jazzy and Latin-tinged R&B numbers.

Overlooked at the time of release, the album was rediscovered by musicians including Prince in the 1990s, with the emergence of rare groove and acid jazz, and re-released by David Byrne (hence the quote) on his Luaka Bop label in 2001.

Shuggie is the son of legendary band leader Johnny Otis and started out playing blues guitar with his dad on songs like The Watts Breakaway. But he’s also a multi-instrumentalist, with a wide range of influences.

He never had huge success in his own right – in fact he didn’t record under his own name for nearly two decades, preferring to perform live – and was always his own man.

He has played on albums by artists including Bo Diddley, Al Kooper and Frank Zappa, playing guitar on the Hot Rats number Peaches En Regalia. But in the 1970s he turned down an offer to tour with The Rolling Stones from Billy Preston, and also declined an offer by Quincy Jones to produce an album for him.

Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is writing and recording Strawberry Letter 23 which would become a million seller for The Brothers Johnson in 1977 (and appear, two decades later, on the soundtrack of Jackie Brown).