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In 1957 he joined the Soul Stirrers when the vocal group’s leader went into secular music. Although the production may be a little to slick for some tastes, Taylors gutsy singing makes the music sound gritty, and very few. Taylor was born in Crawfordsville, Ark., and started as a singer in gospel groups. Taylor received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 1996. 44 on his list of the 500 top chart performers in R&B. & the MG’s.Ĭhart archivist Joel Whitburn ranked Taylor at No. His only other Top 10 pop record was “Who’s Making Love” in 1968, but Taylor had a prolific career in the R&B field, where he had 13 top 10 hits and was a mainstay of Memphis’ legendary Stax Records, working alongside such artists as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Booker T. “Disco Lady,” the first single ever to earn the then-new platinum designation (for sales of 2 million copies), was Taylor’s biggest mainstream success, staying at No. Authorities in Dallas said the singer was stricken at his home in suburban Duncanville and died Wednesday at Charleton Methodist Medical Center. He leaves a wife, Gerlean, and four children.Johnnie Taylor, whose 1976 “Disco Lady” was a hit on the dance floor and in the pop charts, has died, apparently of a heart attack. Taylor had a sell-out concert at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas in May. His 1996 album, Good Love, one of his best for Malaco, sold more than 400,000 copies, and last November's Gotta Get The Groove Back is in the Billboard chart. It took a couple of albums to blend the Malaco house style with that of the artist, and thereafter sets such as This Is Your Night, Lover Boy and In Control all sold well in the southern states. In 1984 he emerged again with the Jackson-based Malaco Records, one of the few labels left that catered for the blues and old-school soul market in the South. He briefly flickered again in 1982, joining Bobby Womack and Anita Baker on the short-lived Beverly Glen label for Just Ain't Good Enough. Ever Ready, in 1978, was the last of his albums CBS released in this country. It was a commercial peak Taylor would never scale again. The album it came from, Eargasm, was similarly popular. Their first song for the major, Disco Lady, pulled the neat trick of calling itself a disco record when it was really just a churning, bass-heavy soul tune, and became the biggest selling single in CBS's history. When Stax Records succumbed to the weight of its accumulated debts in 1975, Taylor signed for CBS and wisely took his regular producer with him. We're Getting Careless With Our Love, a superb Don Davis/ Frank Johnson tune inspired by Billy Paul's Me & Mrs Jones and the number one hit I Believe In You, both from the superb Taylored In Silk album, made him a huge box office draw across the States. Top-10 R&B singles - such as Testify and I Could Never Be President - built his reputation for consistency, while Taylor's musical peaks occurred during the middle 70s. Initially, he had not liked the song - Detroit producer Don Davis had managed successfully to merge the southern-fried, horn-blasted gutsiness of Stax with the uptown, bass-propelled drive of Motown - but the chart placing soon changed his mind.įor the next seven years, Taylor enjoyed a virtually unbroken run of hit 45s and big-selling albums. But in 1968, a pulsating Homer Banks, Al Jackson and Bettye Crutcher composition, Who's Making Love, shot Taylor into the charts - the record made number one in the R&B lists and number five in the pop chart. Left to decide between Berry Gordy's slick Motown set-up in Detroit or heading south, Taylor flipped a coin and made for Memphis and Stax Records.įor two years, he was portrayed as a blues artist. Later, Taylor joined Cooke in the secular world of rhythm and blues, signing for his SAR Records label and enjoying a couple of minor successes, including Rome Wasn't Built In A Day. In 1960, Cooke went solo and asked Taylor to replace him as lead tenor his naturally grittier approach contributed towards Stirrers hits like Stand By Me, Father and The Love Of God. But his first loyalty was to the Lord and, like many contemporaries, he was heavily influenced by the vocal style of Sam Cooke, then lead voice in the Soul Stirrers, the hottest act in gospel music. Taylor was born in Craw fordsville, Arkansas, in the middle of blues country, when Howlin' Wolf and Junior Parker were in the neighbourhood and at their peak. Although he rarely wrote his own material and had little instrumental skill, his unique phrasing and sense of vocal rhythm set him apart, even during soul's most commercially vibrant years, from the late 60s to mid-70s. Johnnie Taylor, who has died of a heart attack aged 62, was a great soul stylist.