Syl Johnson

by Bill Pollak

Originally published in MusicHound R&B: The Essential Album Guide, Gary Graff, Josh Freedom du Lac, and Jim McFarlin (eds.); Visible Ink Press (Detroit, MI): 1998.

Born Sylvester Thompson, July 1, 1936, Holly Springs, Mississippi

Soul music is a language. The satisfaction that we derive from a great soul performance comes from our sense that the feelings that the singer is expressing could not have been expressed as well in any other language. That's why a great soul performance means so much more than just a combination of music and lyrics. The message is in the singer's delivery--the subtleties of nuance, pacing, emphasis, phrasing, and attitude. It follows that the greatest soul singers are those most skilled at communicating subtle messages through the medium of their voices; skill as a soul singer has more to do with communication than with vocal ability per se.

By this standard, Syl Johnson is a master of the soul genre. It's as if Johnson has a cry that permanently resides in his voice box, lending a disorienting, world-weary sadness to even the most innocuous lyrics ("Come On Sock It To Me," "Different Strokes") and a sense of desperate urgency to expressions of joy and celebration ("We Did It," "Back for a Taste of Your Love," "I'm Gonna Take You Home to See Mama"). In his more substantive songs--"Anyway the Wind Blows," "Wind, Blow Her Back My Way," "Please Don't Give Up On Me," "I Let a Good Girl Go," "Concrete Reservation"--Johnson's expressions of pain and despair through the medium of his achingly thin, frayed tenor/falsetto is chillingly precise and deeply compelling.

Another of Johnson's great artistic strengths is his ability to synthesize disparate threads of music--blues, gospel, R&B, country, and dance music--into a sound that is at once firmly rooted in tradition and entirely unique. For example, Johnson entered the soul pantheon by way of Chicago blues, enabling him to inform his soul singing with that music's jagged edges. Johnson lived next door to west side Chicago blues legend Magic Sam (Sam Maghett); his brother Mac Thompson was Magic Sam's bass player, and his other brother Jimmy Johnson is a blues guitarist/vocalist who now records for Chicago's Alligator Records. Syl's blues pedigree, established before his first recordings as a soul vocalist, includes stints on guitar and harmonica with Magic Sam, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Shakey Jake, and many others.

Johnson made his first solo recordings with Federal, a subsidiary of King Records of Cincinnati, backed by Freddie King on guitar. After the Federal singles failed to click, Johnson began recording for Twilight (later Twinight) Records of Chicago in the mid to late 1960s. His Twilight/Twinight recordings, rougher and edgier than his more well-known later recordings for Hi, represent the Holy Grail to Syl Johnson enthusiasts, and Johnson himself considers them his best recordings. Beginning with his first hit for Twilight, "Come On Sock It to Me" in 1967, Johnson dominated the label as both a hitmaker and a producer of other artists such as the Notations and the Radiants. Like other black songwriters of the late 1960s--Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and Norman Whitfield to name a few--Johnson's Twinight period also explored themes of African-American identity and social problems ("Is It Because I'm Black," 1969, and "Concrete Reservation," 1970, among others).

In 1968, Johnson cut "Dresses Too Short," the first of several Twinight recordings produced in Memphis with Willie Mitchell and his production machine of the Hi Rhythm Section--Charles Hodges (keyboards), Mabon "Teenie" Hodges (guitar), Leroy Hodges (bass), and Al Jackson, Jr. or Howard Grimes (drums). From the first time he heard Johnson sing, Mitchell had been struck by the uniquely expressive qualities of Johnson's voice, and in 1971 he brought Johnson to Hi Records of Memphis. Between 1971 and 1976, Johnson recorded three LPs and a number of 45s for Hi.

Willie Mitchell and Hi Records are best known for the recordings of 1970s superstar Al Green. Because of the superficial similarities between the timbre of Johnson's voice and Green's, Johnson was always to some extent in Green's shadow, commercially if not artistically. But a closer listen to Johnson's Hi recordings confirms a rare instance in which a great producer placed a brilliant singer in a perfect musical setting, yielding music of tremendous power and enduring value: "Back for a Taste of Your Love" and "Take Me to the River" were the biggest pop hits, but there could and should have been many more. The great moments in this body of work are far too numerous to detail, but here are a few: the orgasmic horn shout in "I Wanna Take You Home to See Mama"; The relentless groove of "Let Yourself Go"; all the wonderful album cuts in which Mitchell stretched traditional song structures and turned them upside down and inside out ("I Hate I Walked Away," "I Hear the Love Chimes," "Keeping Down Confusion"); the chill that goes straight to your spine when Syl threatens the guy on the pay phone in "Watch What You Do to Me." The utter desolation of "Please Don't Give Up On Me"; the nearly unbearable beauty of "Could I Be Falling In Love With You"...

After the Hi years ended, Johnson produced two worthy LPs for his own Shama label, the latter of which ([Ms. Fine Brown Frame], 1982) was picked up for distribution by Boardwalk Records and produced Johnson's last hit record, the title cut. After dropping out of the music business to operate a chain of fish restaurants in Chicago, Johnson reemerged on Delmark Records in 1995, along with the Hi Rhythm Section, with a great comeback disc, [Back in the Game].

Buy first: [Best of the Hi Records Years] (Capitol/Right Stuff, 1995, prod. Willie Mitchell) (5 bones) is a good introduction to some of the high points of Johnson's peak period in Memphis.

Buy next:

• [Twilight & Twinight - Masters Collection] (Collectables, 1996, prod. Various) (4 1/2 bones) documents the raw exhuberance of Johnson's first soul recordings. This is pure, stripped-down soul music that goes straight for the heart.
• [Is It Because I'm Black?] (Charly, 1994, prod. Various) (4 1/2 bones) covers much of the same ground.
• [Music to My Ears] (Hi, 1991, prod. Willie Mitchell) (5 bones) is another great collection of singles and album cuts from the Hi years.
• [Back For a Taste of Your Love/Diamond in the Rough] (Hi 1973, Hi 1974/Hi, 1995, prod. Willie Mitchell) (5 bones) is a CD collection of the first two Johnson LPs on Hi.
• The other two Hi LPs, one great and one awful (see below) are collected on [Total Explosion/Uptown Shaketown] (Hi 1975, Hi 1979/Hi, 1995, prod. Willie Mitchell, Jerry Barnes) (3 bones).
• Johnson's comeback disc with the Hi Rhythm Section is [Back In the Game] (Delmark, 1995, prod. Pete Nathan) (4 bones). Syl sings as well as he ever did, the musicians are in top form, and this may contain the best version ever of the much-recorded Al Green song "Take Me To the River"; but overall, the disc doesn't quite stand up to the original recordings on Hi. Missing is a certain care and attention to detail in the Hi productions that can be attributed to the much larger commercial market at which the Hi recordings were targeted.

Avoid:

• Syl Johnson's final album on Hi [Uptown Shakedown] (Hi, 1979, prod. Jerry Barnes) (WOOF!) is abominable. It was recorded after Mitchell's relationship with Hi had ended, solely to fulfill Johnson's contract to Cream Records, the label that had inherited ownership of Hi. Its only achievement is to capture on one record everything that was awful about disco. Particularly offensive is the "Otis Redding Medley," which manages to demean the legacy of one soul great and the memory of another.
• [This Time Together by Father and Daughter] Syl & Syleena Johnson (Twinight, 1995, prod. Syl Johnson) (1 bone) gives some low-budget disc time to Syl's daughter, who also sings with him on [Back in the Game].

The rest:

• [A-Sides] (Hi, 1994, prod. Willie Mitchell) (4 1/2 bones).
• [Take Me to the River] (Capitol Special Products, 1994, prod. Willie Mitchell) (4 1/2 bones).

Worth searching for:

• [Twinight's Chicago Soul Heaven] (Kent, 1996, prod. Various) (4 1/2 bones) is a retrospective of the label for which Johnson was the prime creative force as its most successful recording artist and producer of many of its other records. This blistering set of hard-core Chicago soul includes a few cuts by Johnson.
• [Brings Out the Blues in Me] (Shama, 1980, prod. Syl Johnson) (3 bones) is an exhuberant, if somewhat noisy (too many guitars!) return to Johnson's Chicago blues roots with guest stars such as his brother Mac Thompson and James Cotton.
• [Ms. Fine Brown Frame] (Boardwalk, 1982, prod. Syl Johnson) (4 bones) provides more evidence of Johnson's eclecticism, as he pulls off a surprisingly successful amalgamation of disco, blues, and soul.

Influenced by: Billy Boy Arnold, Magic Sam, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Freddie King, James Brown, Donny Hathaway, Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Influenced: Tyrone Davis, Robert Cray, the Subdudes, Jonny Lang, Earth Wind & Fire

Read more soul articles by Bill Pollak

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Last update: 12/15/2004