JACKIE WILSON – LONELY TEARDROPS
Tony Douglas (Routledge, 2005)

The review was published in Now Dig This, November 2005.

Talk about being indecisive: this book was published in hardback in 2001 as “Jackie Wilson – The Man, The Music, The Mob” and now it is “Jackie Wilson – Lonely Teardrops”. In his introduction, the author Tony Douglas refers to the book as “Jackie Wilson – The Inside Story Of Mr. Excitement And The Mob”. So is there yet another version of the book with this title? Is this some clever ploy to make us buy the same book more than once? The changes in the new edition are minimal and sometimes in the wrong direction. “Guinness” which was spelt correctly is now “Guiness”; “Do It The Right Way” becomes “Do It The Right Wa”; and on page 157 of the new book, you will find “<A>” instead of a couple of sentences.

As well as a good proof reader, the book needs an editor. Tony Douglas’ gushing prose is monotonous as he tells us over and over that Jackie Wilson is a wonderful singer. He marvels at his operatic range but he never tells us what it actually is. However, that doesn’t make Jackie Wilson unique as thousands of opera singers have also that flexibility. And just how great was his voice when compared to Sam Cooke, Roy Hamilton, Ray Charles or Elvis Presley?

What is significant is that Jackie Wilson applied his talent to popular music. From time to time he sang pop versions of the classics and I would have like to know if he had a hankering to perform with symphony orchestras. Douglas quotes a music writer, Don Waller, who says, “There wasn’t a pop singer alive who could stretch such a thin piece of material into the aural equivalent of an Armani suit.” This ridiculous assessment needs some evaluation from the author, as the song in question is “Danny Boy”, which is among the most emotional ballads ever written.

Still, all this can’t get in the way of a good, well-researched story. Jackie Wilson was raised in Detroit, and as his father was an out of work alcoholic, how did he afford the drink? Jackie wanted to be a boxer but was persuaded that this might ruin his looks. He lost two front teeth and after blowing out his dentures on stage whilst rolling his R’s in “Reet Petite”, he rarely sang the song again. Maybe that’s why he didn’t sing opera.

Jackie established himself in Billy Ward and the Dominoes by telling Ward that he could sing better than Clyde McPhatter. Such braggadocio occurs throughout the book – Jackie Wilson was too arrogant for his own good and relied on instinct rather than vocal training. We are told of the strict discipline in Ward’s band and yet we learn of their love of under age sex, so which is correct, or doesn’t that count? Jackie Wilson was married when he was 16 (and because he used somebody else’s ID, his wife became Freda Richards). He had little respect for his wife as he couldn’t keep his trousers on and one incident follows another – he is knifed by a prostitute and he is shot by a nurse who is carrying his child.

Sometime NDT should do a feature on the reading habits of rock’n’roll stars. Jackie loved “Captain Marvel” and “Tales From The Crypt”, so you can imagine him, Elvis and Gene Vincent swopping comics. Maybe it stems from a poor education and certainly Jackie was very gullible in business dealings. He had little idea what was going on and when told he had $11.85 in the bank, he assumed it was $11,850. He was an easy target for drug pushers and he was controlled by the Mafia.

Jackie’s thinking was immensely confused and after talking to Sammy Davis, he couldn’t decide whether to be Jewish or Christian. When his father died, he went into a rage and smashed all his gospel records. He took little interest in his children. His son, Jackie Wilson Jr, became a father when he was 14 and when he was killed two years later, Wilson didn’t even attend the funeral. Instead he asked a reporter to take photographs of his son in his coffin. To quote a John Prine song, “Some Humans Ain’t Human”.

The illustrations in the original book had an unpleasant, cut-out presentation so I am pleased that it is more conventional this time. There are photos of Jackie Wilson with Elvis Presley, Clyde McPhatter, Little Willie John and the Everly Brothers.

This time the discography is more comprehensive, listing all Jackie’s albums tracks, but the singles section is appallingly laid out, making it difficult to differentiate between A and B sides. However, any comprehensive discography of Jackie Wilson should include his records as part of Billy Ward and the Dominoes. And why not give details of the Edsel reissues? Surely many readers will want to know about them.

Right to the final paragraph, Tony Douglas raves on about Wilson’s voice. He concludes, “Trying to explain with words the magnificence of his honey-rich, emotion-racked voice is like trying to describe a Rembrandt painting to a blind person.” So why have you been doing just that for 250 pages, mate?

Spencer Leigh