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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
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