Millie Jackson - Biography
The career of Millie Jackson famously started with her sassy mouth and courageous bravado. While attending a concert at the small Harlem club Smalls Paradise in the 1960s, Jackson was said to have heckled the woman singing onstage during a singing contest. Indignant, the woman dared Jackson to come onstage and try it herself. Jackson did not hesitate and, after piping out Ben E. King’s “Don’t Play It No More,” the crowd went wild. Within weeks she was working the club circuit in New York. Since then she has cultivated a reputation for harsh, comical, often sexually explicit lyrics, with famous songs like “Breakin’ Up Somebody Else’s Home” and “Check in The Mail” a small part of her repertoire. Primarily considered a disco artist, Jackson has also ventured into blues, soul and country music.
Born in Georgia in 1944, Jackson was raised by parents who were sharecroppers. When her mother passed away, her father moved the remaining family to New Jersey in the late 1950s. Jackson, being an unruly teenager who was prone to strong opinions and defiance, proved too much to handle for her father, and he moved Millie to Brooklyn to live with her aunt. With her exquisite beauty, Jackson began modeling for black fashion and culture magazines like Jive and Sepia while in New York.
By the early 70s, Jackson raised some eyebrows at the high-profile record label, MGM, and the company subsequently released her initial single, “A Child of God (It’s Hard to Believe).” The song was picked up by many gospel music DJs who presumed it a gospel number—yet many grew dismayed and offended by the lyrical content, which was as far from gospel as possible. Several radio stations banned the song from airplay and the label dropped Jackson. Regardless of the various turmoils surrounding the song, “A Child of God (It’s Hard to Believe)” went all the way to #22 the R&B charts. Spring Records noticed the young singer and released Jackson’s second single, a track called “Ask Me What You Want.” The song didn’t deceive anybody, but it did very well anyway by becoming a top ten hit on the R&B’s. All the while Jackson was playing out live and becoming a darling on the R&B club circuit.
In 1972, with only two singles behind her, Jackson had nevertheless made a reputation for her cutting-edge lyrics and performances. Taking advantage of the moment and striking while the iron was still hot, she released a third single, “My Man, A Sweet Man,” and it too ascended into the top ten on the R&B charts (she notoriously hated this song as it did not represent her as a person lyrically. She didn't need no man!). With a star in the making, Spring Records released her first full-length album the same year, Millie Jackson (1972). Many consider this debut release to be one of the finest R&B records of the early 70s. Though relatively new to the music world, Jackson sounds like a seasoned pro on Millie Jackson, screaming out tunes like “I Gotta Get Away (From My Own Self)” and “You’re The Joy of My Life,” along with her first three hit singles that were also issued here. The songs “I Ain’t Giving Up” and “I Miss You Baby” are fierce R&B romps, still played by DJs in R&B clubs today. The production skills of Raeford Gerald helped to sculpt the sound that Jackson would become famous for.
Jackson’s second full-length album, It Hurts So Good (Southbound), came out in 1973, and this time she incorporated her southern roots into the music. Gerald’s production skills were once again noteworthy for her new seedier affair, as Jackson explored topical songs about life in the ghetto. The tracks “I Cry,” Two-Faced World” and “Hypocrisy” were all anthems of the streets. The single, “It Hurts So Good” once again charted in the top ten of the R&B charts and was featured in the film, Cleopatra Brown. The track “Good to the Very Last Drop” had a sustainable dance floor vibe that continues to be a favorite even today. Jackson, who helped produce the album with Brad Shapiro, ended up threatening to leave the label when they failed to give credit for her work. Not only did Southbound relent, but Jackson was given much more artistic control over her final product moving forward with the label.
Which was important because, in 1974, Jackson and Southbound released what is widely considered to be her masterpiece, Caught Up (1974 Southbound). Many claim this album as the quintessential Jackson effort, even stronger than her debut. The concept album not only explores themes of infidelity and love triangles from the other woman’s point of view, it delves into very real regrets and moral indignities. Possibly the most famous song from Caught Up is “The Rap” - nearly six minutes of lewd exploits and racy lyrical content with Jackson testifying about the truths of raw love. The album opens with the song “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right.” Another notable track on the album is the Bobby Goldsboro tune “Summer (The First Time),” about a young woman losing her innocence to an older man. Jackson went to Muscle Shoals to record with The Swampers and the sound of the album is undeniably funky. Caught Up would prove to be Jackson’s hallmark album, the one most closely associated to her throughout her career. It received two Grammy nominations that year, but the flip side was that the record was often regarded as a novelty item as well, due to its explicit content.
Southbound Records, aware of the fickle nature of the music industry, quickly followed Jackson’s triumph with I Got to Try It One Time (1974 Southbound). Although not the monster of her previous release, the album did exceptionally well on the R&B charts and included disparate elements loosely tied to Caught Up. Once again aided by the production help of Shapiro, the production and songcraft incorporate many of ’70s soul music trends (swank, horns, groove, blaxploitation). I Got to Try It One Time kept Jackson in the limelight, with songs like the title track becoming an instant hit on the R&B charts and the more reflective numbers like “One Night Stand” and “How Do You Feel the Morning After” keeping with Jackson’s boldness.
The mid-70s were Jackson’s high water mark commercially, but she would release albums on Southbound, Spring, Polydor and Jive through the rest of the decade and all through the 1980s. Still Caught Up (1975 Spellbound) further slandered faceless characters of sordid natures, the astonishing Feelin' Bitchy (1977)- possibly one of her finest efforts, incorpoartes just about everything excellent about Millie, Get It Out’cha System (1978 Spring), another fantastic song cycle, this time about the stress of life in work and love, which had a sizzling cover of Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again." She ended the decade with what is regarded as one of the era's finest live albums, a double LP titledd Live & Uncensored, it includes her notorious classical music appropriation "Phuck U Symphony," along side many of her most well known tunes and surprising covers of Toto's "Hold The Line," Rod Stewart's "Do Ya' Think I'm Sexy," and The Delfonics "Didn't I Blow Your Mind." The band sounds rough, raw, and funky- and Millie's voice is a gruff, gritty soul shout that won't stop. A near masterwork of absolute R&B, disco infused entertainment. For Men Only (1980 Polydor), which hisses and scathes through ballads and dialogues; Imitation of Love (1986 Jive/Novus), which returned her to the top ten on the R&B charts with a pair of hits; and Young Man, Older Woman (1991 Jive/Novus), an album that demonstrated that she still could belt with the same passion that made her name in the 70s.
Jackson even enjoyed success on the country music charts with her version of the Merle Haggard song, “If You’re Not Back in Love by Monday.” Throughout the years, her songs have been sampled numerous times by rap artists. Her daughter, R&B singer Keisha Jackson, followed in her mother’s footsteps, recording the mini-hit “Hot Little Love Affair” in 1989 for her self-titled debut.
Millie Jackson is often remembered as the X-rated voice of 70s soul because of her no-hold’s-barred edge and delivery. Though her popularity waned in the 1980s, she left an indelible mark on soul music, and still performs to this day, sporadically- forever an original.