Johnnie Taylor

From the Chitlin Circuit soul thread:

(Has anybody ever written a good essay about Jody? He's the guy back on the block who's having sex to your girl while you're in the Army, and I get the idea he shows up in lots of Southern soul songs: Doesn't Johnnie Taylor have one about him, too*? As do, I would assume, other folks.)

* - yep, I just checked Whitburn: "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone," went to number 28 in 1971. (Hey, sounds like a good EMP proposal!)

-- xhuxk (xhux...), June 14th, 2006.

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Johnnie Taylor was the king of Jody songs. "Standing In for Jody" and "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" are just two; I mean every song he does is kind of about Jody-ism in some way or another. I am a nut for Johnnie Taylor (I like Johnny Taylor a lot, too, and Ted Taylor, the Louisiana soul singer, is also excellent--so I think an EMP paper on the Sooper Taylors would be good!!), and Taylor is also the king of fucking-around songs. There are these nifty new Stax reissues that includes stuff by Frederick Knight, the Dramatics, etc., and if you ask me one of the very best Stax albums-as-albums is Johnnie's "Who's Making Love," which is the typical collection of singles but which really has variety and which totally hangs together. "Hold On This Time" has a great Cropper riff, cubist guitar, and "Woman Across the River" is one of the best Stax blues ever.

-- edd s hurt (eddshur...), June 14th, 2006.

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Well, a Taylors EMP report would probably be really interesting, but I was thinking (theoretically, not volunteering!) more in terms of one about Jody himself. Who was he? And how far back do Jody songs go? Did Johnnie Taylor invent them? Or does Jody show up in blue songs during World War II or something? Was he a real person, like maybe Stagger Lee? (Was Shine who swam the Titanic a real person? I forget.) Seems like real *Mystery Train* mythology stuff, and I'm surprised nobody has tackled the research (unless they have and I just didn't notice, which is very possible. I haven't even done a google search.) (Also, do I only associate Jody with making cuckolds of military guys stationed overseas because I was *in* the military, and he was always showing up in cadences used while marching and/or running? Or is that his main deal? And otherwise, to what extent if any does he exist outside of the culture of Southern blacks--who, when I was in, seemed to make up a sizable portion of the Army?)
-- xhuxk (fakemai...), June 14th, 2006.

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This could really be hella interesting, absolutely. Is "Trapped in the Closet" the Ulysses of Jody songs?
-- Haikunym (zinogu...), June 14th, 2006.

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Here's some info I found while googling Jody songs:
http://soulfuldetroit.com/archives/10238/9918.html?1079610632

-- Sang Freud (jstrell...), June 14th, 2006.

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x-post. Taylor didn't invent the Jody song. Jody / Jodie / Joe the Grinder are pretty common figures in blues tunes.There's Louis Armstrong's "Jodie Man" which makes the "GI Joe de man" connection explicit. I wouldn't be surprised if that military connection is at the origin, though it's obviously gone through lots of transformations.
-- Roy Kasten (rfkaste...), June 14th, 2006.

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Yeah, I'd forgotten Joe The Grinder. I used to own a copy of that *Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me* prison-rap comp (on Smithsonian or Rounder or something?), and I think there might even be a Joe the Grinder rhyme on there (I *may* even have mentioned it in the pre-rap rap chapter of my second book). Anyway, this link from the link above has great stuff about Jody Army cadences; also says Johnnie Taylor himself learned about Jody while in the military:
http://p211.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm4.showMessage?topicID=153.topic

-- xhuxk (fakemai...), June 14th, 2006.

http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/832/60295832.jpg

By the way, thanks, Chuck.

http://www.northernsouldirect.co.uk/images/JOHNNIE%20TAYLOR%20-%20LIVE%20AT%20SUMMIT.jpg

On the Wattstax commentary track, Chuck D. makes the observation "He's Jody" and then "Johnnie's got your girl and gone."

Cross-cultural footnote: In Brazil they have a Jody character known as Ricardão.

There's a woman chitlin circuit soul singer out now called Ms. Jody

Johnnie Taylor does "Toe Hold" better than Wilson Pickett, that's clear. I really love Taylor's disco records--"Disco 9000" and "Love Is Better in the A.M" and of course "Disco Lady" are all just great tunes. "Who's Making Love" was the first really gigantic Stax record after Otis Redding's death, in terms of its sales and its arrangement. From what I've read, Johnnie had as big an ego as Pickett himself, which is real interesting to me.

anybody interested in this thread would probably benefit from hearing this new compilation on Ace/BGP, Memphis 70, with lotsa cool shit from David Porter, Bowlegs Miller and the Minits--post-Otis soul from various labels around Memphis.

OK, added to want list.

I'm gonna express myself . . . Revive!

TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR REWARD FOR JODY'S HIDE

After much study, I think "Who's Making Love" itself has more cubist guitar than "Hold On This Time" does.

"Hijackin' Love"

topical metaphor at the time (1971), maybe tasteless in light of recent events, but it's a great great song.

"If somebody can steal a jetplane/right from out of the sky/if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing/somebody might snatch you love out from under your eye..."

"snatch your love right out from under your eye/that's hijackin' love"

they didn't call him the philosopher of soul for nothing

Re: the "Jody" references upthread, there's now a fine singer on Ecko known as Ms. Jody...I like her track "Your Dog's about to Kill my Cat"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCCjNduv2Lg

should I tell my Jody story? Anyway, on the amazing 'Take Me To The River: A Southern Soul Story 1961-1977' there are not one, but two Jody songs.
The classic Johnnie Taylor mentioned above, and what I'm guessing is an answer song by allmusic ghost Bobby Newsome.
anyway, it's a fascinating topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLiXpd652DM

I’m obsessed with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPKJNu0ZOBQ

That was “good love” from ‘97.

28 years earlier, doing operatic soul over a break beat.

“It’s amazing”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piPXW5zb1eQ

I listened to this guy for about 5 hours and he is consistently awesome throughout the decades

Definitely impressive. I have vague positive memories of seeing him live on a bill in the 1980s sometime with Tyrone Davis at the Warner Theatre in DC.