rhythm and blues singer; actor
Personal Information
Born on July 15, 1944, in Thompson, GA; married once, late 1960s; children: Neisha, Jerroll.
Career
Made professional debut in New Jersey nightclub, 1964; released self-titled debut, 1972; earned several gold records during the 1970s; wrote and starred in two Broadway musicals, late 1990s.
Life's Work
Long before contemporary rap albums carried parental-advisory warnings, Millie Jackson's highly charged, sexually explicit soul records bore the admonishment "For Mature Audiences Only." Her mid-song, minutes-long tales of heartache and betrayal, usually delivered in rather frank language, gave Jackson a cult following for her originality, but also made her records all but unplayable on the radio. Despite these drawbacks, Jackson's popularity has endured well into a third decade, and music writers have deemed her the ultimate godmother to pop music's tough-talking rap divas of the 1990s.
Jackson was born in 1944 in Thompson, Georgia, and brought up in her grandparents' home. It was a devout household, and she attended church services as often as six days a week at times. When she was 15, she moved to New Jersey, where her father lived, and found work at Schrafft's, a famous New York City luncheon counter. She began her singing career one night on a dare at a Harlem nightclub, joining a band on stage at the urging of her friends. Her first paid engagement came in 1964 at a Hoboken, New Jersey venue; only in 1967 did she quit Schrafft's and embark on her first real concert tour. Life on the road proved to be difficult and unprofitable. Jackson returned to New York and took a clerical job in the garment district, although she continued to sing at night.
Single Parent
At this point in her life, Jackson became pregnant and married the father of her daughter. It was a short-lived union, however, and neither motherhood nor the romantic setback dampened her enthusiasm for performing. She cut her first single in 1970, and soon gained enough minor attention to win a record contract with Polydor, which released her debut, Millie Jackson, in 1972. The work offered standard soul fare, and a Billboard critic termed it "a top-drawer debut." Other reviewers compared her with Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin, among others. During the first years of Jackson's career, record-company executives attempted to groom her as the next Diana Ross.
Two of Jackson's songs from the early 1970s climbed onto the Top Ten on the R&B charts. --"Ask Me What You Want" and "My Man a Sweet Man." She had another hit with "Hurts So Good," a track that was included in the soundtrack to Cleopatra Jones, a blaxploitation film. Her most notable success came with the single "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right," which earned her a Grammy nomination in the best female R&B vocalist category in 1974.
The Muscle Shoals Sound
Buoyed by this success, Jackson had enough leverage to convince her management company to let her co-produce some of her own tracks. The 1974 album, Caught Up, marked this new musical direction, as well as the start of collaborative efforts with a group of musicians from the famed Muscle Shoals Studios. Jackson's records became paeans to soured romance, mini-dramas about lust, infidelity, and betrayal that occurred mid-song. She had already done such monologues for several years during her live shows. "When I started singing, in order to be a good female vocalist you had to hit a higher note than the other female vocalists, and with this low voice of mine, there weren't too many high notes to hit," she told Boston Globe writer Jim Sullivan. "So I used to talk my way out of it and I found the audience liked me better talking than they did singing." Reviewers used the word "rap" to describe her style as early as 1976.
This approach became Jackson's signature style, and began earning her legions of devoted fans. Nearly all of her subsequent albums continued in this vein. Because Jackson's songs dealt with frank topics, and used words that were prohibited by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines, few of her songs received significant air time on the radio. Despite this drawback, several of Jackson's albums went on to earn her gold records, and she became known as the "Richard Pryor of Soul" for her free use of profanity. Even the usually recalcitrant legion of music critics seemed to appreciate Jackson's talents. In a 1978 review of Jackson's album, Get It Out 'Cha System, a Billboard review termed it "ablaze with wit and wisdom, musical and lyrical."
Rejected Disco Slot
Jackson's stage shows became legendary events. She interacted with the audience, taunted the men, and brought fans into the act itself. When disco emerged as a credible new musical genre in the mid-1970s, critics began comparing a new star, Donna Summer, to Jackson, especially after Summer enjoyed great success with the hits "I Feel Love" and "Love to Love You Baby." The new, sexually charged atmosphere within music forced record company executives to reassess Jackson's talents, and the changing times also caused Jackson to re-evaluate her own career. "To be perfectly honest with you, I never took this serious until three years ago," she told Washington Post writer Jacqueline Trescott in 1980. "My contract was up; I renegotiated. And said, 'I am worth this much money? I better start taking it seriously.'"
Two successful live albums cogently showcased Jackson's unique stage presence and repudiated any efforts to peg her as an overproduced disco queen: Live and Uncensored from 1980, which included outtakes from shows at such venues as the Roxy in Los Angeles, and Live and Outrageous, released two years later. She continued to write, record, and produce new material every year or so, and even cut a duet with Elton John, "Act of War," that enjoyed modest chart success in Britain in 1985. In 1989, Jackson made her New York stage debut with a musical she co-wrote, Young Man, Older Woman. The musical played at the Beacon Theater, and toured elsewhere as well. It also provided the material for an album of the same name. Young Man, Older Woman was less a dramatic event than a nightclub act built around a romantic plot, one in which Jackson leaves her no-good husband for a younger man. The show garnered a positive review from the New York Times's Neil Strauss, who compared her voice to that of Tina Turner's and asserted that the musical "proves that Ms. Jackson still has the strength, prurience, humor and taste for the extreme to hold her position as a big sister to most female rappers."
Jackson admitted elsewhere that the impetus for Young Man, Older Woman was drawn from real-life experiences, in some cases dating men more than 25 years her junior. She had never remarried after her first match ended in divorce, but did have a second child in the late 1970s. "Let's face it, when you reach my age and you haven't gotten married, chances are if you want to go anywhere, it may be that he is going to be younger," the 53-year-old singer told Jet in 1998. "[Men] my age are married, divorced or have so many hangups you don't want to be bothered with them anyway. If you're looking for an escort, he'll probably be younger. I have no problem with it."
Jackson followed the success of her play with The Sequel--It Ain't Over!, which debuted at the Beacon in early 1997. The musical opens with Jackson's wedding to a younger man, a psychiatrist played by Douglas Knyght-Smith. The union quickly disintegrates over the course of several numbers that showcase Jackson's unique vocal talents. She still attracted a cult following, noted Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times, and still went off into her characteristic monologues during the songs--where "Jackson gives a display of the star power and showmanship that account for the excitement of the fans who turn out."
Jackson's 1999 release, Between the Sheets, was a compilation of her most memorable tracks, including "Hurts So Good" and "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right." "There's only one Millie Jackson, and she's here in all her fabulous glory," declared Billboard reviewer Michael Paoletta. For a performer who had never courted stardom, Jackson was undoubtedly pleased that she had achieved a place in music history. "This is an industry where you don't have ambitions," she told Trescott in the Washington Post interview in 1980. "The public will tell you where you are going for the next three or four years. You just say, I hope you will be nice and remember to take me somewhere."
Awards
Nominated for Grammy Award as best female R&B vocalist, 1974, for "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right."
Works
Selected discography
- Millie Jackson, Spring/Polydor, 1972.
- It Hurts So Good, 1973.
- Caught Up, 1974.
- Soul Believer, 1974.
- Still Caught Up, 1975.
- Free and In Love, Spring/Polydor, 1976.
- Best of Millie Jackson, 1976.
- Lovingly Yours, 1977.
- Get It Out 'Cha System, Spring/Polydor, 1978.
- A Moment's Pleasure, 1979.
- (With Isaac Hayes) Royal Rappings, 1979.
- Live and Uncensored, 1980.
- For Men Only, Spring/Polydor, 1980.
- Just a Lil' Bit Country, 1981.
- Live and Outrageous, 1982.
- Hard Times, 1982.
- E.S.P. (Extra Sexual Persuasion), 1984.
- An Imitation of Love, 1986.
- The Tide Is Turning, 1988.
- Back to the S***, 1989.
- Young Man, Older Woman, 1992.
- Totally Unrestricted! The Millie Jackson Anthology, Rhino, 1998.
- Between the Sheets, Buddha/BMG, 1999.
Further Reading
Books
- Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, edited by Colin Larkin, Guinness Publishing, 1992, p. 1250.
- Billboard, September 9, 1972; April 24, 1976; July 8, 1978; December 8, 1979; June 14, 1980; October 2, 1999, p. 30.
- Boston Globe, June 24, 1980.
- Jet, March 23, 1998, pp. 14-16.
- New York Times, July 20, 1989, p. C19; January 16, 1995, p. C17; February 4, 1997.
- Village Voice, January 6, 1998, p. 77.
- Washington Post, March 8, 1980, p. B1.
— Carol Brennan
