Good Lord, yet another sad loss this year to the world of soul music.
Syl Johnson
aka Sylvester Thompson died yesterday aged 85. The news was passed to me
by Gary Van Den Bussche who played his "Is It Because I'm Black" only
last week on his radio show.
He was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago in the 50s where he
began singing the blues with Magic Sam and released his first solo
single in 1959.
His first charting single came in 1967 with "Come Sock It To Me"
followed by the much sampled "Different Strokes" (reissued only
last year by Numero Group and posted
HERE).
He had seven R&B chart entries on Twilight (later renamed Twinight) before
joining Willie Mitchell's Hi label in 1972 and continued with another
ten R&B hits and recorded four albums for Hi as well as two on Twilight.
However, before signing to Chicago's Twilight label, he had recorded
around ten singles between 1959-1967 including one that has been played
on Northern Soul dancefloors for many, many years "Do You Know What Love
Is" in 1966 which is one of only four listed singles on Monk Higgins'
Special Agent label. It was released twice as the first two releases on
the label with different B sides.
His biggest chart success came in 1975 with the first cover of Al
Green's "Take Me To The River" reaching #48 Hot 100 and #12 R&B
which also had a great ballad "Could I Be Falling In Love" on the
flip.
In the 80s he released a few albums on his own Shama label with the title
track of the second "Ms Fine Brown Frame" being his last hit in 1982 and then
went into semi-retirement but made a comeback in the 90s after learning that
"Different Strokes" had been sampled my many hip-hop artists.
There is an excellent 6 x LP or 4 x CD compilation from Numero Group from
2010 "The Complete Mythology". A 2015 documentary, Sly Johnson: Any Way The Wind Blows, has been made available online for the first time today on Vimeo.
It also transpires that his older brother, blues singer/guitarist Jimmy Johnson, died on 31 Jan 2022 aged 93. They recorded an album together in 2001 "Two Johnsons Are Better Than One". Deepest sympathies to the Johnson (Thompson) family at this very sad time.
As a tribute I've selected some of his best recordings from 60s-80s in playlist
below and included a YouTube clip of his version of Nate Evans (Impressions)
"Main Squeeze", a non-album track which isn't on Spotify.
1 comment:
Nice selection from this great artist.
I am very sad and at the beginning of the year the series continues.
Yves
Post a Comment