How old is Floyd Taylor?įloyd Taylor/Age at death What killed Johnnie Taylor? He is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri. While living in Duncanville, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, Taylor suffered a heart attack, and on May 31, 2000, he died at Charleton Methodist Hospital in Dallas. “They’re just getting rid of some stuff they don’t want,” said Gerri Taylor, referring to estate lawyers. She and Taylor divorced 20 days before he died in May 2000 of congestive heart failure at age 62.
Taylor’s ex-wife, Gerri Taylor, played down the significance of the items and the sale. During 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. with a raggedy band, Jody's prophet still makes infidelity signify ("Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone," "Little Bluebird").In 1970, Taylor married Gerlean Rocket and they remained married until his death in 2000. Only on the breakthrough "Who's Makin' Love" did he ever cut a track to equal any of dozens by Otis or Aretha, but for a journeyman he's a minor genius-who knows more about fucking around than Alfred Kinsey.
C+Ĭhronicle-The Twenty Greatest Hits ĭespite the somewhat self-serving title-the man did record for Stax pre-Don Davis, and the final track has never been a single before and will never be called a hit again-this testifies. Which is where too much of this album remains. Taylor's commitment to the traditional soul style remains unimpeachable even when he accedes to material as modish as the likable but lightweight "Disco Lady." But to call him traditional is not entirely a compliment-he still lacks the kind of aggressive originality that can take a mediocre hook-and-lyric by the ear and drag it out of oblivion. Here "It's September" (a you're-due-home lyric finished off with a sharp question mark of a guitar riff) and "I've Been Born Again" (testifying so ebulliently for fidelity that it sounds like both fun and the truth) have seduced me into listening to both sides again and again. Last time the best cuts took a while despite their hit history, which means you never got to the others without working at it. With the aid of Wade Marcus's gloopy strings, this is where Taylor goes pop, and though he's trying for silk it sounds like the same old polyester-eight songs stretched over thirty-three minutes, including one soul-wringer hit, one blues-talking hit, and filler, much of which does have a certain reflective charm. "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" is a memorable addition to the mythology of infidelity, but "I Am Somebody" is at best a competent black pride riff in biracial drag-like the rest, nothing to be ashamed of rather than something to be proud of. In which Taylor delivers a love sermon and works his two themes for two hits. But on this compilation there's plenty of definition from Don Davis, who has production and writing credit on five of the six cuts on side two, an examination of monogamy and its vicissitudes that will shortly be covered whole by none other than Charley Pride. Gritty, rhythmic, and felt just aren't enough-there has to be something absolutely distinctive in the phrasing and timbre, and he's always been a little vague in both departments. Heir to Sam Cooke in the Soul Stirrers and Otis Redding at Stax, Taylor is everything you could ask for a soul singer except great. I'm not normally a big Taylor fan, but this is a semi-greatest hits record that eliminates a lot of dross.