from Joe McEwen a/k/a Mr. C
A brief note to mark the passing of Pittsburgh soul man Johnny Daye (John DiBucci), who passed away on May 6 in his hometown. The energetic, tender-and-tough-voiced Daye recorded just six singles in a recording career that lasted from 1965 to 1968, but managed to get “discovered” – signed and mentored – by both Johnny Nash at Jomada Records and Otis Redding at
Stax in that brief time. Most of the white teens who were held spellbound by the voices of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, and Solomon Burke filtered their music through a rock and roll lens. The Righteous Brothers in Los Angeles, Roy Head in Houston, the Rolling Stones in London, and Mitch Ryder in Detroit, all had dramatic success accommodating the new music called soul to their own style. But for Johnny Daye in Pittsburgh, like the Magnificent Men out of Harrisburg, Steve Colt in Boston, Baltimore’s Bob Brady, and Philadelphia’s Temptones, accommodation was out of the question. Instead they went all in, not just adopting a soul style, but putting all their cards on the table. They competed on soul’s home turf, let the best man win. When the Magnificent Men first appeared on stage at the Uptown Theater in North Philadelphia, the audience was silent until lead singers David Bupp and Buddy King opened their mouths to sing. Then they went wild, when they heard a group that sounded like Smokey and the Miracles, with moves to match.
Johnny Daye was a natural by all accounts, a singer, dancer, and all-around sharp entertainer who could really wow a crowd. When he substituted for Wilson Pickett as an opening act for Otis Redding in Pittsburgh in the spring of 1967, Otis, watched from the wings, enthralled. He took Johnny on the road with him, then to Stax Records, where Steve Cropper was given the job of producing the Big O’s young guy. The hard-driving “What’ll I Do for Satisfaction” came out just two weeks before Redding’s plane crashed into that Wisconsin lake, and the record’s fate was inevitably linked to the company’s dark, post-Otis period of depression. Cropper also produced the deep soul follow-up, “Stay Baby Stay,” in the summer of 1968, one of the first singles on the reinvigorated, finger-snap yellow Stax label. But in that tense summer, on the heels of the deaths of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the country seemed to have little appetite for “blue-eyed” soul. With his career all-but-over at age 25, Johnny Daye returned to the Iron City, where he worked over the years as a car salesman, security guard, bus driver, and telephone company employee. Years later, out of nowhere, “What’ll I Do for Satisfaction” popped up on Janet Jackson’s Jam-and-Lewis-produced Janet, in a faithful updated cover that became the ninth single from her mega-hit album.
When asked about Johnny Daye, Steve Cropper said, “The kid was dynamite….Otis really wanted to do a lot with him.” Johnny’s brother echoed Cropper’s words . “Otis told Johnny he’d make him a star when he got back.” But Otis never did get back. And Johnny Daye remained a legend for a small group of dedicated fans. As it is and as it was, Johnny Daye coulda been a contender.
To read more about Johnny Daye.. check out this post on the I DiG PGH blog and his obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette