 "Noted Singer Johnny Adams Passes Away" was the headline of a press release from the Louisiana Music Archive which told us that Johnny had died on the morning of Monday September 14th, 1998. in Our Lady of the Lake Hospital, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, having fought a "losing battle" with cancer. He was 66 years old, and his death deprived the world of arguably one of the best musical voices of our time, sadly under-recognised until the eclectic might of Scott Billington"s productions for Rounder Records took his talents to a wider market during the last decade of his life. Johnny is survived by his wife, Judy. In the overall scheme of things soulful, the quality and versatility of Johnny"s voice should have pitched him right in there with Sam Cooke, Ben E King, Jerry Butler and Jackie Wilson in the top rank of best-selling R&B singers who went on to achieve major pop success, but the musical enigma that is New Orleans, while blessed with great depths of aesthetic and metaphysical assets, perhaps proved to be the factor which restrained such a breakthrough; for all the abundance of talent and recording activity in the Crescent City since the 1950s, it is surely ironic that only Fats Domino, Irma Thomas and Lee Dorsey managed to achieve significant lasting success, with the added irony that this came from links which took their recording career base away from New Orleans (Fats and Irma with Imperial in Hollywood, Lee with Bell in New York). Johnny did join Atlantic, as you will read later, but their "golden soul" bubble was deflating at the time and the union was not fruitful, and thus the dependence of the hometown boy on local resources was to prove a hindrance to his progress. Release Me / You Made A New Man Out Of Me / In A Moment Of Weakness / I Won't Cry / I want to Walk Through This Life With You / Reconsider Me / If I Could See You One More Time / South Side of Soul Street / Georgia Morning Dew / Real Live Livin' Hurtin' Man / Lonely Man / Proud Woman / A Losing Battle / How Can I Prove I Love You / You Can Depend On Me / Let Me Be By Myself / It's Got To Be Something / Share Your Love With Me / Your Love Is All I Need / Stairway to Heaven / After All The Good Is Gone / Chasing Rainbows / Love Me Now / Hell Yes I Cheated
|
The rich, vibrant and soulful voice of Johnny Adams first broke beyond New Orleans city limits when 'Release Me' reached the US Hot 100 in December 1968 on SSS International, and many of his recordings for that label were re-issued on "Released" (RPMSH 219) in 2001. Johnny was signed to Rounder Records in 1983, where he recorded eleven LPs before his untimely death from cancer in 1998, building a global reputation as a fine singer in the realms of soul and blues.