Now it's the turn of Syl Johnson: RIP

Yet another of the great soul singers has passed away, this time Syl Johnson, at the age of 85, who has died only a few days after the death of his brother, bluesman Jimmy Johnson. Syl moved from Holly Springs, Mississippi, to Chicago in 1950 and first recorded as a solo artist with 'Teardrops' for Federal, backed by Freddie King. He moved to the Chicago based Twinight label where he recorded some memorable tracks, many of them self-penned, including 'Come On Sock It To Me', 'Different Strokes', 'Dresses Too Short,'Is It Because I'm Black' and 'One Way Ticket To Nowhere'. He moved to Hi where he recorded more wonderful records with Willie Mitchell, including 'We Did It', 'Back For A Taste Of Your Love', 'Diamond In the Rough', 'Take Me To The River' (his biggest success) and 'I Only Have Love'. After that he recorded for his own Sharma label and had success with 'Ms Fine Brown Frame'. He retired but when, later, tracks such as 'Different Strokes' and 'Is It Because I'm Black' were sampled by rappers he returned to recording with 'Back In the Game' for Delmark Records, which featured his daughter Syleena Johnson. While at Hi he was over shadowed to some extent by Al Green, but the quality of his material, his fantastic voice and great stage act put him in the very highest rank of soul artists. I saw him quite a few times from the nineties onwards, including Jazzfest and Blues estafette in 1997, the Ponderosa Stomp in 2008, where he was backed by the Hi Rhythm Section, and the Porretta Soul Festival in 2012. Of his performance at Porretta I wrote at the time: 'Next on was Syl Johnson, another of my favourite soul men, who started brightly with 'That's Why' and 'Straight Love, No Chaser', but then began moaning about unpaid royalties on sampled records and beginning a lengthy call and response session with the audience. Eventually he got his considerable act together accompanying himself on guitar with excellent versions of 'Any Way The Wind Blows', 'Sock It To Me', 'Is It Because I'm Black' (with some 'Reconsider Baby' thrown in) and 'Take Me To The River'.' The photo above shows Syl at Porretta and those below shows him with me at Porretta and at the Ponderosa Stomp. RIP to Syl and Jimmy - what a cruel double loss.

There have been a couple of other notable deaths in recent days. One of these is record producer Morty Craft, at the age of 101, who recorded hits for MGM by Connie Francis, Tommy Edwards and Conway Twitty, and for Warwick by Johnny and the Hurricanes. He was interviewed by John Broven in his seminal work 'Record Makers and Breakers'. Also drummer Philip Paul, who was the studio drummer at King Records and played on the hits of Hank Ballard, Little Willie John, Charles Brown, Wynonie Harris and Freddie King. He was 96. And 83 year old Kansas City blues guitarist Millage Gilbert, who played at a couple of Gerard Homan's Shakedown blues shows and at the Blues Estafette. The Vinyl Word raises a glass to them all.