Syl Johnson: Is It Because I'm Black (grey & black swirl vinyl) [NUMERO]

Why you'll love it

Numero's 50th anniversary edition presses the album on grey & black swirl vinyl. Its title song reached No. 11 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 68 on the Hot 100 at the end of 1969.

This edition

• Grey & black swirl vinyl
• 50th anniversary edition
• Stereo mix

About the album

By 1969 Syl Johnson had a run of modest hits about romance and heartbreak, and then he changed the subject. After Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he wanted to write a song, and he was plain that it wasn't about hating anybody; he called it a sympathy song. Written with producer Jimmy Jones and Glenn Watts, "Is It Because I'm Black" became the heart of this Chicago soul album on the Twinight label.

Johnson cut it with guitarist John Bishop, bassist Bernard Reed and drummer Hal "Heavy" Nesbitt, players who had been working at Brunswick under Carl Davis, plus horn players Michael Davis and Jerry Wilson. They named themselves The Pieces of Peace and went on the road with him. The title track is a slow, smouldering ballad with a Mississippi-born bluesman's grit in every line, and the album fills out with deep, funky takes on "Come Together" and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" alongside "Concrete Reservation," "Black Balloons" and "Right On."

His obituary called the title song among the most affecting of the civil rights era, and journalist Lanre Bakare said Johnson sings it as though he's giving a sermon in church. Consider this your Sunday best, available any day of the week.

Also at Kops: more Syl Johnson on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Twinight / Numero Group (cat# NUM1208), a reissue of the 1970 album.