Just as the Highway Q.C.'s (the minor league club) turned to Johnnie Taylor as their sound alike replacement for Sam Cooke, so The Soul Stirrers (the major league club) were forced to make the same choice when Cooke left for secular music. Taylor later continued to walk the same path when he left the Stirrers for a secular career as a bad boy soul singer.
The first 7 tracks here with just Paul Foster singing leads clearly demonstrate why I used the term 'forced to'; while Foster is a perfectly competent singer, the group lacks the excitement of the Cooke years. Taylor rekindles that feel with an almost eerie imitation of Cooke that restores the two lead feeling of the earlier group.
