He remained with the Memphis soul powerhouse until 1975, recording such classic numbers as Who’s Making Love, Steal Away, Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone, I Believe In You (You Believe In Me) and the jazz-tinged Cheaper to Keep Her, among others all told, he charted on Stax 24 times. 19 with his debut for the label, an Isaac Hayes / Dave Porter blues number called I Had a Dream. His first chart hit was in 1963 on the SAR affiliate label Derby, but he didn’t really hit his stride until1966, when he joined Stax and quickly hit No. By the following year, though, he was recording for SAR as a secular artist. In 1960, after a police investigation following an auto accident found him to have been driving under the influence of marijuana, he unrepentantly left the Stirrers to become a Baptist preacher (“The Reverend Johnnie Taylor ”).
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Johnnie Taylor was-to put it mildly-a free spirit, even by the somewhat disingenuously permissive standards of the gospel world. He also retained many of the vocal mannerisms he had adapted from Cooke, including a fluttering melisma patterned after the “yodel” (“Whoa-whoa-a-whoa”) that was one of Cooke’s most indelible trademarks. The connection with Cooke remained strong-the Stirrers, with Johnnie at the helm, were the first act to record for SAR, the label Cooke co-founded with J.W.
He remained with the QCs until 1957, when the Soul Stirrers themselves recruited him to replace Cooke, who added the final “e” to his name while making his crossover into secular music. In the early ’50s, he moved to Chicago, where he sang doo-wop with the Five Echoes (their records on the Sabre and Vee-Jay labels are prized collectors’ items) before joining forces with a youthful gospel group called the Highway QCs, whose original lead singer, a dashing young man named “Sam Cook,” had left to join the nationally renowned Soul Stirrers. According to his official Social Security records, the year was 1934, although he usually claimed 1938 and his gravestone inscription reads “May 1937 – May 2000.” While growing up in the West Memphis area, he sang in church later, after moving to Kansas City, he became a member of a gospel aggregation known as the Melody Kings. Taylor was born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas, less than 15 miles west of Memphis.
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