With this success, Malaco recorded a live video of Taylor at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 1997. 15 R&B), and was the biggest record in Malaco's history. In 1996, Taylor's eighth album for Malaco, Good Love!, reached number one on the Billboard Top Blues Albums chart (No. Hill's funeral in spring 1984.īacked by members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, as well as in-house veterans such as former Stax keyboardist Carson Whitsett and guitarist/bandleader Bernard Jenkins, 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 label in his 16-year stint.
Taylor recorded several more successful albums and R&B single hits with Davis on Columbia, before Brad Shapiro took over production duties, but sales generally fell away.Īfter a short stay at a small independent label in Los Angeles, Beverly Glen Records, Taylor signed with Malaco Records after the company's founder Tommy Couch and producing partner Wolf Stephenson heard him sing at blues singer Z. "Disco Lady" was the first certified platinum single (two million copies sold) by the RIAA. It spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and six weeks at the top of the R&B chart. Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) Īfter Stax folded in 1975, Taylor switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded his biggest success with Don Davis still in charge of production, " Disco Lady", in 1976. "For a journeyman he's a minor genius-who knows more about fucking around than Alfred Kinsey." He appeared in the documentary film, Wattstax, which was released in 1973. Taylor, along with Isaac Hayes and The Staple Singers, was one of the label's flagship artists, who were credited for keeping the company afloat in the late 1960s and early 1970s after the death of its biggest star, Otis Redding, in an aviation accident. "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)" also sold in excess of one million copies, and was awarded gold disc status by the R.I.A.A. 23 on the Hot 100 chart, "Cheaper to Keep Her" ( Mack Rice) and record producer Don Davis's penned "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)", which reached No. ĭuring his tenure at Stax, he became an R&B star, with over a dozen chart successes, such as " Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone", which reached No. In 1970, Taylor married Gerlean Rocket and they remained married until his death in 2000. "Who's Making Love" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. His hits included "I Had a Dream", "I've Got to Love Somebody's Baby" (both written by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter) and most notably " Who's Making Love", which reached No. He recorded with the label's house band, which included Booker T. In 1966, Taylor moved to Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was dubbed "The Philosopher of Soul". However, SAR Records quickly became defunct after Cooke's death in 1964. Ī few years later, after Cooke had established his independent SAR Records, Taylor signed on as one of the label's first acts and recorded "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" in 1962.
Taylor's singing then was strikingly close to that of Cooke, and he was hired to take Cooke's place in the latter's gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, in 1957. As an adult, he had one release, "Somewhere to Lay My Head", on Chicago's Vee Jay Records label in the 1950s, as part of the gospel group The Highway Q.C.'s, which included a young Sam Cooke. He grew up in West Memphis, Arkansas, performing in gospel groups as a youngster. Johnnie Taylor was born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, United States.