Chuck Jackson

During the 1960s Chuck Jackson rose to prominence as a leading soul performer, landing 15 singles inside the R&B Top 40 across the full decade. Two of his most successful releases, the 1961 single “I Don’t Want to Cry” and the 1962 single “Any Day Now,” ranked among the finest and most memorable specimens of the period’s sleek pop-soul sound, while his Wand Records catalog secured lasting esteem among devotees of classic R&B. His vocal timbre possessed depth, and his interpretive style combined refinement with expressive nuance, allowing him to articulate sorrow with lucid detail and a measured edge of intensity that endowed his readings with authority and depth suited to superior songs. He numbered among the earliest vocalists to introduce Burt Bacharach material to a broad public, and the performances of “I Wake Up Crying,” “The Breaking Point,” and “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” establish him as one of the composer’s most astute exponents. Although his 1967 switch from Wand to Motown Records seemed a logical advance, the move unexpectedly checked his progress; he nevertheless retained strong drawing power on stage, and subsequent albums such as I’ll Take Care of You with Cissy Houston and 1998’s I’ll Never Get Over You showed he retained his command of outstanding material.

Chuck Jackson entered the world in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on July 22, 1937. When he was still a boy his father departed, prompting his mother to move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for employment while young Chuck went to live with his grandmother in Latta, South Carolina. He began performing early; at six he sang on a gospel radio broadcast, and at eleven he served as lead singer in a choir that captured a statewide contest. By fourteen he had rejoined his family in Pittsburgh and began slipping out to visit jazz venues. At fifteen he entered the local doo-wop ensemble the 5 Mellows and also sang and recorded with the gospel unit the Ray Raspberry Gospel Singers alongside Doris Willingham.

Following high-school graduation Jackson received a scholarship to study music at South Carolina State College, a historically Black institution, yet civil-rights demonstrations that produced nearby violence prompted him to withdraw and return to Pittsburgh. He soon reentered the city’s music circles and in 1957 joined the established doo-wop act the Del Vikings. A split among founding members at that moment produced two simultaneous iterations of the group, so the version containing Jackson adopted the name the Versatiles. While touring with the Versatiles Jackson formed a friendship with R&B luminary Jackie Wilson, who assisted him in beginning a solo career and booked him as an opening act. Jackson’s performance at New York’s Apollo Theater in Wilson’s company caught the attention of songwriter-producer Luther Dixon, who recognized his star potential and secured a recording agreement with Wand Records, a subsidiary of Scepter Records.

Jackson’s debut Wand single, the Dixon co-write “I Don’t Want to Cry,” appeared in early 1961, climbed to number five on the R&B Singles chart, and reached number 36 on the pop chart. The follow-up “(It Never Happens) In Real Life” peaked at number 22 R&B though it missed the pop Top 40, while “I Wake Up Crying” attained number 13 R&B. Jackson’s career crest arrived in 1962 when “Any Day Now,” a portrayal of impending solitude after a lover’s departure, became his largest success thanks to his forceful delivery, Bob Hilliard’s incisive lyric, and Burt Bacharach’s indelible melody; the record rose to number two R&B and number 23 pop. He became a frequent concert draw and continued to register R&B chart entries for the remainder of the decade, including profitable pairings with Doris Taylor on 1964’s “Beg Me” and with Maxine Brown on 1965’s “Something You Got.” Still lacking another pop crossover comparable to “Any Day Now,” Jackson accepted Smokey Robinson’s assurance that Motown Records would sign him once he fulfilled his Wand obligations and therefore joined the label in 1967.

His initial Motown album, Chuck Jackson Arrives!, surfaced in 1968; the extracted single, a revival of the Miracles’ “(You Can’t Let the Boy Overpower) The Man in You,” reached number 94 pop but failed to chart R&B. Although 1969’s “Are You Lonely for Me Baby” climbed to number 27 R&B, its parent album Goin’ Back to Chuck Jackson sold modestly, as did 1970’s Teardrops Keep Fallin’ On My Heart. Jackson later described the Motown relocation as “one of the worst mistakes I ever made in my life,” adding in a Record Mirror interview, “Motown is a sound and they have to mold talent to suit that sound … They were renowned for creating their own artists and, if you give it some thought, you’d be hard pushed to find any established artist who has joined the company and gone on to bigger things.” He resurfaced in 1973 with the Steve Barri-produced Through All Times on ABC Records; two singles charted—“I Only Get This Feeling” at number 35 R&B and “I Can’t Break Away” at number 62 R&B—yet ABC declined a follow-up album, and his next LP, 1975’s Needing You, Wanting You, appeared on All Platinum. Five further years elapsed before 1980’s I Wanna Give You Some Love on EMI-America.

For several years Jackson concentrated on live performances until producer Peter Denenberg united him with fellow soul veteran Cissy Houston for the 1992 Shanachie duet album I’ll Take Care of You. In the mid-1990s he attended the Carolina Beach Music Awards, an annual tribute to the dance-oriented vintage R&B favored throughout the American South, where he encountered producer-songwriter Charles Wallert, an admirer of his catalog. Wallert subsequently invited Jackson to record a single for his Carolina imprint; “How Long Have You Been Loving Me” resonated with audiences, leading Wallert to pair Jackson with Dionne Warwick in 1997 for the duet single “If I Let Myself Go” b/w “What Goes Around Comes Around.” Both tracks received sufficient airplay to place the release at number 13 on the Adult Contemporary Singles chart. The Wallert-produced sides were collected on the 1998 album I’ll Never Get Over You. Jackson received induction into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2015. He died on February 16, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 85.