THE FIRST JOHNNIE TAYLOR BIOGRAPHY:

IS “EVERYTHING OUT IN THE OPEN”?

I can’t help thinking how rewarding it would have been, if an established and knowledgeable music reporter and writer like David Ritz had spent days or weeks with Johnnie Taylor, when he was still alive, and gone through all the phases in his career – and then published the definite Johnnie Taylor bio. By picking up David, I had in mind the fact that actually at one point he was living in Dallas, knew Johnnie and even had profiled him.

Johnnie wasn’t very willing to grant interviews and according to some of my colleagues he wasn’t always an easy person to get along with, but I believe that once he’d grow to trust you, he’d put “everything out in the open”, like the title of his 1988 Malaco song says.

Now Gregory M. Hasty with the help of one of Johnnie’s sons, T.J. Hooker Taylor, noticed to his surprise that there doesn’t exist one single biography of Johnnie Taylor. Being himself a writer – also a painter, former DJ and a banker – he started his research, interviewed dozens of people, compiled pieces of information from here and there and not long ago finished his (fourth) book, I Believe in You, subtitled “the incredible journey of R&B legend JOHNNIE TAYLOR” (286 pages; ISBN 978-1-6657-5876-5; www.archwaypublishing.com). Fortunately, the index is included and together with the “sources” section they cover as many as 45 pages. The disappointing and inaccurate three-page discography is only a list of the titles of Johnnie’s albums. Incidentally, that mysterious album Take This Heart of Mine on Fania in 1995 is a re-release of an EP on LA Records in 1982. There are many small-size photos scattered across the book, some of those PR pics we’ve seen before but there are also many new family photos mostly from T.J.’s collection.

Gregory goes chronologically through Johnnie’s career. Born the 5^th of May in 1934 in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, Johnnie started out in a church, developed a sort of “child star” status, and at ten moved to Kansas City and three years later joined his first secular group, the Melody Kings. His recording career, however, was launched in Chicago, where he moved after he had turned 19.

  At this point I’d like to bring up the first inadequacy in this book. Soul music aficionados are usually very interested in the early fledgling steps in the artist’s career. Here the author goes hastily through the 1950s and the early 60s and actually reaches the Stax era already on page 50 (out of 220). There is a hint of the very first record that Johnnie’s voice is on, but not a clear indication. As far as I know, that single was So Lonesome by the Five Echoes on Sabre in 1954, where Johnnie shares the lead with Walter Spriggs. Allegedly in that group Johnnie replaced Tommy Hunt, who was drafted, but interestingly Tommy himself writes in his autobiography Only Human that “The Echoes did find a replacement for me. His name was Little Johnny Taylor.” And Tommy writes that he was switching over to the Moonglows at that point, and not marching off to the Korean war.

Those days Johnnie was balancing between the secular Five Echoes and the gospel quartet named the Highway Q.C.’s, singing in both of them. When the Five Echoes moved over to Vee-Jay Records in 1954, Johnnie even wrote one jump song, Tell Me Baby (Vee Jay 129), which was one of his rare excursions into songwriting. My second complaint is that there are many inaccuracies in the book, some very elementary. Or what do you say about the following sentences: “A decade earlier in 1944, Specialty Records was established in Los Angeles by its founder, Art Rupe. He was also creator of the recognizable labels Atlantic, Chess, Savoy, King, and Modern Records.”???

A SOUL STIRRER

Johnnie replaced Sam Cooke in the Soul Stirrers in 1957, but he was dropped three years later. Although lovable, those days he was also a very difficult character with a big ego, and he also was too keen on weed and – besides music – worked as a part-time pimp. On top of that, two years earlier he had been ordained as a minister in Chicago. Talk about contradictions! However, in 1961 he signed a solo artist contract with the Sar label, owned by his good friend Sam Cooke, and there his first release in April 1961 was titled A Whole Lot of Woman (Sar 114). The one that’s mentioned in the book - Never, Never - came out only next year (Sar 131).  I’m sure that genuine Johnnie Taylor fans are yearning to get more information about Johnnie’s music during that era – about songs, sessions, stories behind releases –, and I’m sure there are still music historians and specialized researchers, who know that period well and could have shed more light on those records.

In the context of the confusion caused by Little Johnny Taylor and the song Part Time Love, there’s one common mistake: Little Johnny aka Johnny Lamont Merrett was never a member of the Mighty Clouds of Joy. He was a member of the Stars of Betlehem and the Sensational Wonders, but never a MCOJ. This I checked out with Joe Ligon for our in-depth interview (in our printed paper # 3/2005).

  Johnny relocated to Dallas in 1963 and eventually signed with Stax Records out of Memphis, Tennessee, in early ’66. Again, one correction: the singer Al Green hails not from the Dallas area but from Arkansas, and then Michigan before settling in Memphis. While at it, let’s clear up another inaccurate sentence: “(Al) Bell brought in Don Davis from Motown Records in Detroit.” Please read one of my interviews with Don, where he explains that he worked for Motown only in 1960 and ’61, and not afterwards - https://www.soulexpress.net/dondavis_interview.htm.

Anyway, Johnnie and Don proved to become a winning team on Stax Records between 1968 and ’75 with such marvellous soul hits as Who’s Making Love, Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone, Stop Doggin’ Me, I Believe in You (You Believe in Me), Cheaper to Keep Her and We’re Getting Careless with Our Love. Among Johnnie’s first-class albums from that period there are Who’s Making Love, One Step Beyond, Taylored in Silk and Super Taylor.

Gregory writes a lot about Johnnie’s personal life, even more than music. He lists accurately the births of Johnnie’s all thirteen children, their mothers and even some of his girlfriends. Although I’m not into this kind of almost gossipy documenting, I must admit that it adds to person’s full profile and perhaps that’s why is necessary. At times Gregory also gets carried away with long character descriptions, even assumptions and anecdotes. This could partially have been replaced by concentrating on music. Actually, Gregory does the first longer analysis of Johnnie’s music only when Who’s Making Love was released in 1968.

DISCO LADY

Johnnie was one of the lucky ones among established soul stars to survive the disco period, when his Don Davis produced Disco Lady turned into the first-ever platinum single in the recording history in 1976.  Gregory writes that “Columbia/CBS Records was finally introduced to the soul and R&B world, (when) they snatched up former Stax artists” like Johnnie Taylor after the company had collapsed. However, Columbia had distributed first Neptune, and later Philadelphia International Records since the early 1971 and had enjoyed massive soul hits with some of those Gamble & Huff produced gems.

After Columbia and a short stint with the Beverly Glen Records, Johnnie signed with Malaco Records out of Jackson, Mississippi. The company was established in 1967 (not in the early 60s), and especially during the 80s and 90s it was one of the leading black music companies on the market with an impressive roster of artists. Incidentally, Malaco didn’t purchase the 3614 Jackson Highway Studio that appeared on page 147 of the book, but another one on the Tennessee river. You can see the photo of the right studio and read my short history on the Muscle Shoals Sound in the following article - https://www.soulexpress.net/muscleshoals.htm. Also, that Jackson Highway Studio was never a coffin factory - and still: Rick Hall was not “an employee of Muscle Shoals.” He was the owner of Fame Records.

As Gregory points out, later in his life after calming down Johnnie showed many good aspects of himself, such as courteousness, generosity, good-heartedness and even humility. At the end of the book there are long chapters about inheritance disputes and the lives of Johnnie’s children today. One tiny detail: Tasha Taylor wasn’t born in Dallas. Please read an excerpt from my interview with Tasha:

Tasha: “My father’s mother was very sick and had slipped into a coma. My parents had to go and visit her in Kansas City, Missouri. My mother was nine months pregnant and she asked the doctors specifically ‘if I fly, will I have the baby’, and the doctors said ‘don’t worry about it’, and - sure enough - I was ready to go and was born there in Kansas City. Latasha I-da Harrison Taylor was born on August the 25^th, and three days later moved to Dallas, Texas, where she grew up.“Ida is my grandmother’s name, but they wanted to put up hyphen there, and my father’s middle name is Harrison.”

After Johnnie passed away in 2000 due to a heart attack, Malaco signed his son, Floyd Taylor. In 2000, when I visited the Malaco Records, Wolf Stephenson told me: “We signed his son, Floyd Taylor. He lives in Chicago, and he looks just like his father and sings just like him. It’s really shocking, how much he conveys the image of Johnnie Taylor, when he walks on stage. We had a writer in the studio, he walked in and the writer almost fainted, because he looks so much like Johnnie Taylor.” Please read my first interview with Floyd right after the release of his debut album Legacy on Malaco: https://www.soulexpress.net/floydtaylor.htm. Unfortunately, Floyd also died of a heart attack in 2014.

Gregory’s book is an easy read and it’s great that finally somebody has undertaken the task of compiling all this information on Johnnie Taylor, although at times it made me feel like reading a scrapbook – instead of a profound survey on Johnnie’s music. As I mentioned earlier, I only wish Johnnie himself could have participated in chronicling his life as well. Johnnie Taylor was and is one of the giants in soul music.

© Heikki Suosalo