In the late 1950s, a New Orleans songwriter named Dorothy LaBostrie heard a voice drifting up through her floorboards from the apartment below, where Laten John Adams Jr. was singing in the bathtub. She knocked on his door and convinced the gospel singer to go secular, launching the career of Johnny Adams, The Tan Canary, a vocalist with a multi-octave range and a falsetto that masked the break between chest and head voice. Born in 1932, the oldest of 10 children, Adams honed his endurance in gospel groups like the Soul Revivers and Bessie Griffin’s Consolators before recording LaBostrie’s ballad I Won’t Cry in 1959 for the Ric label, produced by a teenage Mac Rebennack, the future Dr. John.

This deep dive follows Adams through the 1962 national hit A Losing Battle, the collapse of Ric Records after founder Joe Ruffino’s death, his wilderness years bouncing between labels, and his 1968 move to Shelby Singleton’s Nashville-based SSS International, where Release Me and the 1969 country-soul smash Reconsider Me reached number eight R and B and number 28 pop. It then covers his lean 1970s at Dorothy’s Medallion Lounge and his 15-year renaissance at Rounder Records with producer Scott Billington, nine albums spanning blues, jazz, and tribute records to Percy Mayfield and Doc Pomus, a W.C. Handy Award, and collaborations with Aaron Neville, Harry Connick Jr., and Dr. John before his death in Baton Rouge on September 14, 1998.

• How gospel served as an athletic boot camp for mid-century R and B singers
• Why a seasoned singer took direction from a 17-year-old producer in New Orleans’ fluid studio culture
• How country songwriting’s sparse structure gave Adams’ gospel voice room to soar on Reconsider Me
• Why nightclub years in the 1970s kept his instrument sharp for the Rounder era
• His jazz album Good Morning Heartache and interpretations of Gershwin and Harold Arlen