General Johnson, RIP

It's a close call, but probably the music from America that I loved the most in the 60s was the soaring voice of Levi Stubbs Jnr with the Four Tops, singing the songs of Holland, Dozier and Holland.

When the songwriters left Motown in 1967 to set up their own label, their principal vehicle was The Chairmen of The Board, with the slightly cracking vocals of General Norman Johnson on most of the leads - and as the singles came out in the early seventies, they were a good replacement. Give Me Just a Little More Time, You've Got Me Dangling On A String, Pay to the Piper, Everything's Tuesday, Elmo James, Working on a Building of Love and the original version of Patches, written by Johnson himself.  Most greatest hits CDs will give you all of those.

General Johnson died in Atlanta this week at the age of 67.  It wasn't a military title - just a father with a sense of humour, we think.  A father who got General into the business aged 6, singing as a boy wonder with dad's all black gospel group, The Israelites.

General kept writing and performing into the 80s and 90s, largely what he called "beach music", to crowds around the Carolinas up to August of this year.  This is one of his last recordings, from 2009.