Johnnie Taylor

Johnnie Harrison Taylor (May 5, 1934 – May 31, 2000) was an American recording artist and songwriter who performed a wide variety of genres, from blues, rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel to pop, doo-wop, and disco.

In 2022, Taylor was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early years

Johnnie Taylor was born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, United States. He grew up in West Memphis, Arkansas, performing in gospel groups as a youngster. As an adult, he had one release, "Somewhere to Lay My Head", on Chicago's Vee Jay Records label in the 1950s, as part of the gospel group The Highway Q.C.'s, which included a young Sam Cooke. Taylor's singing then was strikingly close to that of Cooke, and he was hired to take Cooke's place in the latter's gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, in 1957.

A few years later, after Cooke had established his independent SAR Records, Taylor signed on as one of the label's first acts and recorded "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" in 1962. However, SAR Records quickly became defunct after Cooke's death in 1964.

In 1966, Taylor moved to Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was dubbed "The Philosopher of Soul". He recorded with the label's house band, which included Booker T. & the M.G.'s. His hits included "I Had a Dream", "I've Got to Love Somebody's Baby" (both written by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter) and most notably "Who's Making Love", which reached No. 5 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1968. "Who's Making Love" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. In 1970, Taylor married Gerlean Rocket and they remained married until his death in 2000.

During his tenure at Stax, he became an R&B star, with over a dozen chart successes, such as " Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone", which reached No. 23 on the Hot 100 chart, "Cheaper to Keep Her" (Mack Rice) and record producer Don Davis's penned "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)", which reached No. 11 on the Hot 100 chart. "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)" also sold in excess of one million copies, and was awarded gold disc status by the R.I.A.A. in October 1973. Taylor, along with Isaac Hayes and The Staple Singers, was one of the label's flagship artists, who were credited for keeping the company afloat in the late 1960s and early 1970s after the death of its biggest star, Otis Redding, in an aviation accident. He appeared in the documentary film, ''Wattstax'', which was released in 1973.

Columbia Records

After Stax folded in 1975, Taylor switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded his biggest success with Don Davis still in charge of production, "Disco Lady", in 1976. It spent four weeks at number one on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and six weeks at the top of the R&B chart. It peaked at No. 25 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1976. "Disco Lady" was the first certified platinum single (two million copies sold) by the RIAA. Taylor recorded several more successful albums and R&B single hits with Davis on Columbia, before Brad Shapiro took over production duties, but sales generally fell away.

Malaco Records

After a short stay at a small independent label in Los Angeles, Beverly Glen Records, Taylor signed with Malaco Records after the company's founder Tommy Couch and producing partner Wolf Stephenson heard him sing at blues singer Z. Z. Hill's funeral in spring 1984.

Backed by members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, as well as in-house veterans such as former Stax keyboardist Carson Whitsett and guitarist/bandleader Bernard Jenkins, Malaco gave Taylor the type of recording freedom that Stax had given him in the late 1960s and early 1970s, enabling him to record ten albums for the label in his 16-year stint.

In 1996, Taylor's eighth album for Malaco, ''Good Love!'', reached number one on the ''Billboard'' Top Blues Albums chart (No. 15 R&B), and was the biggest record in Malaco's history. With this success, Malaco recorded a live video of Taylor at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 1997. The club portion of the ''Good Love'' video was recorded at 1001 Nightclub in Jackson, Mississippi.

Taylor's final song was "Soul Heaven", in which he dreamed of being at a concert featuring deceased African-American music icons from Louis Armstrong to Otis Redding to Z.Z. Hill to The Notorious B.I.G., among others.

Radio

In the 1980s, Johnnie Taylor was a DJ on KKDA, a radio station in the Dallas area, where he had made his home. The station's format was mostly R&B and Soul oldies and their on-the-air personalities were often local R&B, Soul, blues, and jazz musicians. Taylor was billed as "The Wailer, Johnnie Taylor".

Death

Taylor died of a heart attack at Charlton Methodist Hospital in Dallas, Texas, on May 31, 2000, aged 66. Stax billed Johnnie Taylor as "The Philosopher of Soul". He was also known as "the Blues Wailer". He was buried beside his mother, Ida Mae Taylor, at Forrest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.

His highly complex personal life was revealed after his death. Having six accepted children and three others with confirmed paternity born to three different mothers, the difficulties associated with executing his will were presented in an episode of the TV program ''The Will: Family Secrets Revealed'' called "The Estate of Johnnie Taylor". In a 2021 ''Rolling Stone'' article, Fonda Bryant, one of the nine heirs of Taylor's estate, shared some of the complexities that she and her other siblings have had to deal with during the past decade regarding her father's royalty payments from Sony Music. Bryant believed that the alleged lack of transparency concerning those payouts was reason enough for Sony to disclose her father's personal information. Sony's refusal to do so left Bryant and the other heirs in the dark. Music industry attorney Erin Jacobson stated in the article that "'a label is not just going to turn over a bunch of financial records to anyone that asks for it.'" An audit is a viable option for "heirs who are distrustful of a label's accounting" practices. The down side to doing one, though, is the exorbitant amount of money that it would cost to do so, something to "unrealistic for most heirs like Bryant."

Awards and nominations

Taylor was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1999. Taylor was also a three-time Grammy Award nominee. In 2015 Taylor was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2022, Taylor was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. His induction citation stated "Taylor liked to emphasize that he could sing more than blues, as indeed he amply proved when performing gospel and soul, but among African-American audiences, he reigned as the top headliner of his era at blues events".

Grammy Awards

Taylor was nominated for three career Grammy Awards without a win.

, -
, rowspan="1", 1969
, rowspan="1", "Who's Making Love"
, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
,
, -
, rowspan="1", 1977
, rowspan="1", "Disco Lady"
, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
,
, -
, rowspan="1", 2001
, rowspan="1", ''Gotta Get the Groove Back''
, Best Traditional R&B Vocal Album
,
, -

Johnnie Taylor was awarded the ''first-ever'' Platinum Record Award in history by the RIAA for his two-million-selling smash hit, "Disco Lady".

Musical influence

In 2004, the UK's Shapeshifters sampled Taylor's 1982 "What About My Love?", for their No. 1 hit single, "Lola's Theme".

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

*''Live at the Summit Club'' - Stax/Fantasy 8628 (recorded 1972; released 2007)
* ''FunkSoulBrother'' - Fuel/Universal. Retrospective album

Singles

References

External links

Complete Discography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Johnnie
1934 births
2000 deaths
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues singers
American gospel singers
American soul musicians
Soul-blues musicians
Blues musicians from Arkansas
People from Crittenden County, Arkansas
People from West Memphis, Arkansas
Stax Records artists
20th-century American singers
Singers from Arkansas
20th-century American male singers
Malaco Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Arkansas