User:Myndstate/Otis conway

Otis Conway
Clearance Otis Conway (1962- present) is an American Country music performer from Macon, Georgia. Conway is currently serving a life sentence for murder.

Early Life
Conway grew up in Macon, Georgia. He was one of four children raised by his mulatto mother Edna Conway. Otis’ father Earl Conway was incarcerated while he was an infant and never played a significant role in his upbringing.

Conway’s mother remembers him as a quiet boy who with a train fascination. Conway dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to pursue a career as an auto mechanic. He spent his evenings practicing bass guitar and visiting local bars with a group of friends that would later become a little known country band called The Peach Boys. Conway was also a member of several other country and garage rock bands including The Tumbleweeds and Diablo.

The Peach Boys
By the time Conway was 18 years old he had quit his mechanic job and taken to playing bass full time. While The Peach Boys had developed a following in the Alabama club scene, Conway’s abilities as a bass player were openly regarded as questionable. By nearly every account including those given by close friends and family of Conway, his bass playing was substandard. Earl Buford (Peach Boys drummer 1983-1985) once famously compared Conway’s bass technique to “the sound of a cow shittin’ on a wood floor”. Some critics have gone as far as suggesting that the Peach Boys may have been a successful band if not for the erratic and unpolished sound of Conway on bass.

The Peach Boys were well known during the early 1980’s for their wild live performances. They often arrived late to shows and used stage time to string their guitars and smoke marijuana cigarettes. Peach Boys performances often ended with scuffles in the audience or on stage. Conway was particularly famous for showing up so heavily intoxicated that he could not remember any of the band’s songs. A local legend suggests that at one such performance, Earl Ward (Peach Boys singer/lead guitar 1980-1982) unplugged Conway’s bass amp without him noticing and he continued to play silent random notes throughout the night. In the summer of 1984 Slave was approached by executives from Casablanca Records. Their debut E.P.. was recorded in just 3 weeks but was shelved just weeks before release due to copyright issues. As it turned out, the Peach Boys’ band name was identical to that of a disco act who had released several successful singles in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Defying Casablanca’s wishes Conway and company remained unwilling to change the name of the band, sealing their destiny as an unknown local act with a really crappy bass player. Their Casablanca E.P. has been bootlegged and circulated on the internet causing lukewarm responses. Though the Peach Boys’ efforts were consistently panned by critics, the band continued to perform to packed road houses throughout Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas until Conway’s arrest in 1985.

Legal Trouble
Conway was arrested several times by Alabama police for minor offenses during his youth. As a teenager his mother began to notice that Conway took an unusually strong interest in roller skating which, at the time, was not popular with many Alabama youth and caused friction between Conway and his peers. By the age of 17, Conway was a well known member of a local motorcycle gang. After receiving a citation for driving under the influence of narcotics in 1979, Conway was restricted to riding in sidecars. Friends of Conway have suggested that this humiliating period in his life had adverse effects on his personality, causing Conway to become violent and dependant on drugs and alcohol. By the time Otis was 19 years old he was an alcoholic as well as a heavy heroin user. Conway was also nagged by a persistent case of athlete’s foot that lasted throughout his early adult life.

On the night of July 10th, 1985, Conway was using heroin and drinking heavily on the porch of his cousin’s Hoover, Alabama home when he was approached by neighbor Earl Horton about the volume of his music. An argument followed and the Horton returned home to alert the police. Minutes later an enraged Conway entered Horton’s home and attacked him with a Lynyrd Skynyrd commemorative gold record replica. When police arrived on the scene Conway was spattered with blood, playing Treasure Island on his Commodore 64 video game system. A brief investigation revealed the mutilated body of Earl Horton stuffed in the sidecar of Conway’s Triumph motorcycle.

At his trial, Conway’s defense team argued that due to his drug dependence, he was unfit for trial. After just 4 days the jury found Otis Conway guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death. Conway later successfully appealed the death sentence, which was overturned in favor of a lighter sentence of 97 years in prison, affectively a life sentence. Conway is currently serving his time at Beverly Green Correctional Institution in Mobile Alabama where he plays in the prison’s blues band. Conway has reportedly recorded several albums worth of material during his time in prison which has not been released due to the public’s disinterest in his music and his decision to record under the name Warren Zevon.

Category:American Musicians Category:American Inmates Category:Murderers Category:Country Music Artists