Ruby Johnson (April 19, 1936 – July 4, 1999) – Why You Want To Leave Me (1968)
This phenomenal, upbeat jam was one of the unsung soul singer's final records, written by Ray Clark who is only known to have written this one song.
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Ruby Johnson was a soul singer who was signed to Stax/Volt in the mid-1960s. She recorded dozens of songs, many of them masterpieces, but only one ever became a (minor) hit. Her records were re-discovered in the early 1990s after a Stax compilation came out and her first full-length album was belatedly released.
Born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the economic and cultural hub of the state’s northeastern corner that boasts one of the highest Black populations in N.C., Johnson’s family practiced Judaism. Starting with her great-grandparents, they worshipped at the city’s Temple Beth-El, where she and her eight brothers and sisters sang in the choir.
She moved to Virginia Beach after high school and began singing with R&B groups, eventually spending two years with Samuel Latham and the Rhythm Makers. In the late fifties she relocated to Washington, D.C. where she became a member of Ambrose and the Showstoppers. She acquired a manager, Never Duncan Jr., who introduced her to the producer Leonard Thomas “Dicky” Williams, a fellow North Carolinian.
They co-wrote and co-produced her superb debut single “Callin’ All Boys,” a love anthem for anyone “who don’t look like the girls in the movie show.” It was released in 1961 on the Philadelphia label V-Tone Records. Before long, Duncan began working with Clay Roberts, who owned the D.C.-based Clay Town Records, and they set up a subsidiary named Neb’s solely to release Johnson’s records.
The first single on the new sub-label was the stellar upbeat jam “What Goes Up Must Come Down” (1964), again co-written and co-produced by Duncan and Williams, b/w “I Want A Real Man.”
One of her later singles on Neb’s featured arrangements by the great Freddie Perren, who within a few years would join Motown as part of The Corporation, the songwriting/production team behind the Jackson 5’s early hits. The slow burning soul gem “Let Me Apologize” (1965) and its funky B-side “Don't Start Nothing” were both written by Williams, arranged by Perren, and produced by Clay Roberts & Jijo Productions. Original copies today sell for $300 on Discogs.
Her records on Neb’s didn’t chart, but they got her a contract with Stax Records. She went to Memphis and recorded for the label for two years, beginning with her heartfelt single “I’ll Run Your Hurt Away” which was co-written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter and released in March, 1966 on the Stax subsidiary Volt. It made it to #31 R&B, and remains her best-known song. On the B-side was the dark, funky jam “Weak Spot,” co-written by Hayes, Porter, and Steve Cropper who also played guitar on both tracks.
Next came the heartfelt love song “Come to Me My Darling,” co-written by Stax songwriter Deanie Parker and the label’s co-owner Estelle Axton, with “When My Love Comes Down” on the flip, an emotional soul-blues jam from Hayes and Porter. It was released that October.
The only song Johnson is ever known to have written was the superb jam “Keep On Keeping On,” which she co-wrote with Parker and fellow Stax staff writer Randle Catron (who later married). It was released in April, 1967 as the B-side to her final single on Volt, the Isaac Hayes-David Porter-penned, gospel-flavored “If I Ever Needed Love (I Sure Do Need It Now).”
Johnson returned to Neb’s in 1967 with the upbeat jam “Reach Out And Touch Me,” written and produced by Dicky Williams, b/w the appropriately titled “Come Back To Me.”
The heartfelt “I Can’t Do It” was one of her final singles, released on Neb’s in 1968. The phenomenal, upbeat jam “Why You Want To Leave Me” was on the B-side, produced by Williams and Duncan, and written by the unknown songwriter Ray Clark. It was possibly the only one of his songs ever recorded. Later it was re-issued as the A-side to the lonely tale “Nobody Cares,” written by Justine Washington.
Johnson left the music business behind during the seventies, and served as the director of Foster Grandparents, a D.C.-based organization that connected older adult mentors with special-needs children. She continued to sing at her local temple.
When a box set of Stax/Volt singles was released in 1991, listeners rediscovered Johnson’s records. Widespread praise for them led Fantasy Records to compile her belated first full-length album I'll Run Your Hurt Away which was released in 1993, featuring most of her singles plus unreleased tracks from her years at Stax. Johnson gave a few public performances after the album came out, allowing our world one more glimpse at her overlooked talent before her premature death at age 63.
Happy Heavenly Birthday to the great Ruby Johnson.
Further info:
“Ruby Johnson,” obituary, The Independent (UK), September 10, 1999.
“Ruby Johnson: Don't Play That Song (You Lied),” by Michael Parker, Oxford American, Issue 103, November 20, 2018.
#soul #funk #Stax #RubyJohnson
Thanks for this detailed bio of Ruby Johnson; I fell in love with “What More Can A Woman Do?” years ago and until just now knew absolutely nothing about her.