Jackie Wilson was one of the first R&B superstars back in the ’50s but his music had a second lease of life thanks to Van Morrison and Dexys Midnight Runners in the ’70s and ’80s.
Like many of my age, I first heard the name Jackie Wilson in 1982 when Dexy’s Midnight Runners had a hit with Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile).
Not long after that I came across Van Morrison’s original from ten years earlier. But I still hadn’t heard Jackie Wilson himself until 1986, when his 1957 debut single Reet Petite – aided by a Claymation video – became the Christmas No.1.
So I’m not sure I’d ever even seen Jackie Wilson who became one of the first R&B superstars not because of Reet Petite – a minor hit at the time, written by future Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., but due to his1959 million-seller Lonely Teardrops.
Nicknamed “Mr Excitement” for his hyperactive stagecraft – splits, spins and slides, backflips and kneedrops – Wilson was cited as an influence by James Brown, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Teddy Prendergass.
A former boxer, he was also a bit of a bad boy, as notorious for his temper and womanising as his operatic multi-octave vocal range. In 1961 he was shot and seriously wounded in New York by a jealous girlfriend, Juanita Jones, who caught him with another woman.
That other woman, Sam Cook’s ex Harlean Harris, would later become Wilson’s second wife, marrying him in 1967 – the same year an unreformed Wilson and his drummer, Jimmy Smith, were arrested on “morals” charges in South Carolina after being found “entertaining” two white women in their motel room.
Berry Gordy, who discovered Wilson when he was singing in a vocal group called The Falcons with his cousin Levi Stubbs – later leader of The Four Tops – called Wilson “The greatest singer I’ve ever heard – the epitome of natural greatness.
Sadly his career was blighted by personal problems – three of his children died in adult life – and struggles with drink and drugs throughout the ’70s.
It was brought to an end in 1975 when he suffered a massive heart attack while singing Lonely Teardrops at the Latin Casino in New Jersey – reportedly at the exact time he sang the words “My heart is crying.”
As he collapsed he hit his head on some stage equipment, resulting in serious brain damage, and he spent eight years in a coma until his death from pneumonia at the age of only 49 on January 21, 1984.
Elvis Presley, with whom he had developed a friendship and mutual admiration, covered a large portion of his medical bills and Michael Jackson, another avid admirer, paid for his funeral.