Day 240: Jackie Wilson – Higher and Higher

I was in the market for another album to accompany me washing my hair today, so I thought I’d go for something inoffensive, not too intricate and still entertaining enough to pass the time. My knowledge of Jackie Wilson was pretty minimal, I thought he was pretty much any old soul/pop singer from the ‘50s, but I thought I’d give him a spin anyway.

Album cover courtesy of Brunswick Records

Jackie Wilson, aka Mr Excitement, was a singer from Detroit who was active from 1953 to 1975, when he fell into a coma after having a heart attack on stage. He’d dropped out of school at 15 and became a boxer, but his mother forced him to stop so he became a solo singer at a night club. Then, he joined a group called the Dominoes for a few years. He went solo in 1957.

Higher and Higher was Jackie Wilson’s first album where he collaborated with Chicago soul producer Carl Davis, and it earned him his sixth top ten single on the pop charts. It features Jackie Wilson’s powerful and energetic vocals along with wonderfully played pop-R&B-soul with a whole lot of variety to it.

 I have to say I was surprised by the album, I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. Something about it just draws me in. "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" has to go into some list of the sunniest, warmest songs of all time, and fun fact, it features Maurice White from Earth, Wind & Fire on the drums. And even something like “I Don’t Need You Around” is a pretty simple ballad around the well-worn topic of having found someone better than your previous partner, but even that is just somehow elevated into being a cut above the rest.

I went into the shower with dirty hair, I emerged a clean-haired Jackie Wilson fan. Much changed in 31 minutes. And apparently this wasn’t even his best album! Another huge success to this project, it’s a 9/10.