After Otis Redding passed away, Stax not only canceled the new distribution contract with Atlantic, but changed its own sound which once had been the delegate of southern soul. For those who listen to the Euro-American music and were christened a R&B or soul fan of the '60s, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T & the MG's and the Memphis horns are the real Stax. Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers are among my favorites, however, I hear them not as Stax but as ones of the '70s when anything was done. JT a.k.a. Johnnie Taylor took Stax, a bit depressed by the loss of Otis, to the '70s with his hit Who's Making Love . He is a fine tenor trained by gospel, sometimes shouts, sometimes sings in high spirits and sometimes use his voice sweet. Because of his skillfulness and the diversified backing sounds, however, he is less individual or characteristic in my impression. I don't say I cannot recognize "JT's voice", but it's hard for me to describe him in wider expression. What I think after tracing his long career is that people always drift away with the times and change what they think and what they do at each time, and that it's impossible for them to be the same title from first to last.
Born and bread in Arkansas of the south and moving to Chicago and so on, his first title was generally a gospel singer. Why I say "generally" is because he joined a secular doo-wap group for a time. Since he was looked on by Sam Cooke who was on the circuit across the country, he sang with the Highway Q.C.'s and then the Soul Stirrers both of which had once held Sam as a member. The three disc compilation "Lifetime" which covers almost all of his career also contains some Specialty recordings. The Love of God was my first experience of JT and I found his delivery quite like Sam Cooke's. As the result of sitting the seat of Sam and doing Sam's tunes at some gigs, he sang like Sam naturally and this was what his audience expected. The Soul Stirrers was released from Specialty and moved to Sam's label SAR. On "Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story" you can hear Stand by Me Father, a tune of which he took the lead. He, religious on the one hand but selfish on the other, ran over a girl by a car which he drove while high on marijuana. He soon managed to get out of the jail but he was shut out of the group. After preaching at church, he entered SAR again as a secular singer and cut a moderate hit Baby We've Got Love or Dance What You Wanna. The way he went between gospel and the secular keenly suggests that money should go ahead of principle or creed.
Inspired by another man Little Johnny Taylor in Los Angeles who cut the blues Part Time Love (you can hear on like "Birth of Soul" ), JT got the next title of a blues singer with his own penned I Need Lots of Love orYou Can Run (but You Can't Hide) from SAR. After Sam Cooke was shot to death and SAR wound up business, he moved to Stax of Memphis near his birthplace and released tunes backed by that 'loose and tight' sound of the MG's. Under the shadow of Otis, the shiny front man of Stax, "Raw Blues" and "Little Bluebird" were his albums of the time and have fine and interesting recordings including small hits I Had a Dream or I've Got to Love Somebody's Baby, Somebody's Sleeping in My Bed , and renditions like Part Time Love and James-Brownized Sixteen Ton appeared on "Lifetime", an old big hit by Tennessee Ernie Ford .
As soul years came near, JT cut more Otis-influenced That Bone or Toe Hold and then his next title 'Philosopher of soul' came with Who's Making Love . This fine tune, which combined the MG's and the Memphis horns with Detroit-style twinkling tambourine, was under the production of Don Davis who had once worked at Motown. And then as appeared on Testify (I Wanna) or Love Bones or Steal Away or I Am Somebody or Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone , Don took a rather unique way to produce the mood of experimental studio recordings of Motown's Norman Whitfield by using earthy southern soul musicians like the MG's or folks in Muscle Shoals. When people went bored, Don took another way, such as the ballad I Believe in You (You Believe in Me) or jazzy Cheaper to Keep Her, to put JT on the wave of vogue and JT himself rode on it.
After Stax went bankrupt, he found himself at the corporate Columbia together with Don Davis and there came his next title disco king. Except for the sanitary female chorus and the world-wide cliche 'boogie', I feel fine with the groove of Disco Lady spawned by the bass of William "Bootsy" Collins of the Parliament, though it is notorious for soul fans. And I found his voice super-soulful among other discos anywhere for sale. The compilation of that era "Rated X-Traordinaire" also contains a discofied God is Standing by penned by himself in his Soul Stirrers years, however, it seems to me that he gradually fell into a monotonous and usual disco pattern at last. This might be the times anyone could escape from. Moving to Malaco, the refuge temple for veteran soul singers, he kept on singing old-school soul. On Soul Heaven which was cut just before his death unexpectedly, JT seems to feel fine with singing about a concert of all-stars, from Sam Cooke, Otis Redding to Duke Ellington, Miles Davis. I often hear about those who changed their own residence and finally settle themselves at their own hometown. As for JT, I think he was invited to his hometown as a matter of course by his own voice, which seems to be versatile but is actually stubborn. (2007/05/28)