by Steven Sharp
November 21, 2012
Syl comes slinking out of his dressing room wearing some sort
of a pseudo military uniform. He apparently deems himself worthy of a
sergeant's rank, because that's the patch that's on his arm. His band follows
past our table. It consists of two female background singers; three horn players, among them the great Chicago baritone
sax-player Willie Henderson; a cool old Hammond B-3 keyboard player; drummer;
bass player and guitarist. They are all older black people and obviously all
soul music veterans dating to the 1960s.
They take the stage and goof around, getting plugged-in and situated. They seem very up for the show and loose. Then Syl starts talking about the history of soul in this initially disjointed rap that seems to indicate the night has the potential to go off the tracks before it even starts. After maybe 5 minutes of his "summary" of his career, he introduces the entire band before they even start playing. Underneath his military jacket, Syl is wearing a black T-shirt with white writing that says, "Is it because I'm black? SYL JOHNSON." He is also wearing a black do-rag beneath a black leather baseball hat. He is skinny.
History lesson and introductions over, Syl busts the music loose. In all my life and countless shows, I have never gotten the shivers like I got them from the first notes that band hit. It was unreal. They were so hard, tight and funky, and SPACE, in Evanston, IL, sounds so good, I almost melted off the barstool. From there it was his hard Chicago soul classics from the 1960s like "C'mon, Sock it to Me," then down to Memphis to touch on his HI Records years with Willie Mitchell, including his composition "Take Me To the River," which has been covered countless times, famously by the Talking Heads.
Syl's quirks manifested themselves throughout the first set. His guitar strap came undone and it took him quite a while, and a lot of fiddling around, to get it back on. Then he said he had only two CDs left to sell that night, and he sat on one of them while he played.
At one point after the intermission, during "Monkey Time," a blond girl in the front row shook her hair into the candle on her table and she became a funky version of Gene Simmons as her hair went up in a ball of fire probably three-feet high. Some guys around her put her hair out and everyone was in shock. I thought she would be maimed for life, an ambulance would be needed and the show was over. The band didn't even stop playing— although the female vocalists looked very concerned! When the band realized she was truly OK, Syl started singing teasing lyrics about her hair being on fire! She didn't even leave the show. And for the rest of the night the whole place reeked of burned human hair.
Near the end, Syl addressed the earliest point in his career in Chicago, when he backed Magic Sam, and he played some amazing blues guitar on two Sam classics, including "Easy Baby." He is a spectacularly gifted blues guitar player, although he initially said he was just a singer who also played guitar. He later had the crowd in stitches when he talked about how he could be the poster boy for Viagra. He want on and on about his belief, talking about "SIDE-EFFECTS, my SIDE-EFFECTS!!!!!!!" with visuals added, so he was sure we got the point.
Syl showed what a great singer, songwriter, guitarist, harp-player, showman and band leader he is. He's a treasure of American music. I'd say he is Chicago's Ike Turner and that's the highest praise I can give a guy like that.
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Steven Sharp is a blues and rock critic whose interviews with B.B. King, Johnny Winters, Jimmy Dawkins, and many, many more have appeared in Living Blues for decades. He has also published widely in other contexts. He has appeared in AlteredScale.com 1, AlteredScale.com 2, and will appear in issue 3.
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