Johnnie Taylor
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Johnnie Harrison Taylor (May 5, 1937 – May 31, 2000) was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from gospel, blues and soul to pop, doo-wop and disco.
Taylor was born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas. He had one release, "Somewhere to Lay My Head", on Chicago's Chance Records in the 1950s, as part of the doo-wop group Five Echoes. His singing was strikingly close to that of Sam Cooke, and he was hired to take Cooke's place in Cooke's gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, in 1957.
A few years later, after Cooke had established his independent SAR Records, Taylor signed on 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, who dubbed him "The Philosopher of Soul". He was, for a time, their best-selling artist, outselling such stars as Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. His hits included "I Had a Dream" and "I've Got to Love Somebody's Baby" and especially "Who's Making Love?", which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Top 40 and No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1968.
After Stax folded in the early 1970s, Taylor switched to Columbia Records, where he made his best-known hit, "Disco Lady", in 1975. "Disco Lady" was the first certified double-platinum single by the RIAA.
Columbia pigeonholed Taylor as a disco artist, however, and neglected his wide-ranging talent. Not surprisingly, his record sales slipped. In 1982, he recorded "What About My Love?" In 2004, the song would be sampled for "Lola's Theme", by Shape:UK After a brief stint at Beverly Glen Records, Taylor signed with Malaco Records after the label heard him sing at blues singer Z.Z. Hill's funeral in the spring of 1984.
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 Malaco label in his sixteen year stint. Taylor's record sales were good but not enough for the singer to receive the national attention he once had.
However, in 1996, Taylor's eighth album on the label, Good Love!, became the #1 Top Blues Album on the Billboard charts, and #15 on the trade journal's R&B charts, as well as 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.
Taylor was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1999. He died of a massive heart attack at Charleton Methodist Hospital in Dallas on May 31, 2000 at the age of 62.
In what would turn out to be a sad foreshadowing, Taylor's final song was "Soul Heaven", in which he dreamed of being at a concert featuring deceased soul singers such as Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, and Sam Cooke, among others. In one verse, Taylor sang, "I didn't want to wake up/I was havin' such a good time".
