Chicagoan of the year in music: Syl Johnson
Chicago soul great Syl Johnson is 74 years old, and he can’t remember a year that music didn’t play a fundamental role in his life.
While growing up in a one-bedroom shack in Mississippi, young Sylvester Thompson was around music all the time (his name was changed to Johnson once he started recording in Chicago). His father and uncles played violin, guitar and banjo, and Sylvester and his brothers Jimmy and Mack hung on every note.
“My daddy could play harmonica as good as Little Walter,” Johnson says. By the time he came to Chicago as a teenager in 1950, young Syl was a pretty fair guitar player. He bonded with a kid named Sam Maghett, future Chicago blues great “Magic Sam,” and soon became a key player on Chicago’s blues, soul and R&B scenes.
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