Millie Jackson

Millie Jackson is an African-American R&B singer. Her powerful vocal performances are also distinguished by long, humorous, and explicit spoken sections in her music; her work from the 1970s and 80s, is often cited as an influence on female rappers. Millie Jackson was born in the small town of Thompson, Georgia, on 15 July 1944; she was the daughter of a sharecropper. Her mother died while Jackson was still a child, and subsequently she and her father moved to Newark, New Jersey. By the time she was in her mid-teens, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, and lived with an aunt. She occasionally worked as a model for magazines like Jive and Sepia. Her career is said to have begun on a dare to enter a 1964 Harlem nightclub talent contest, which she soundly won. Though she first recorded for MGM records, she soon left and began her long association with Spring records. Among her early hits was Hurts So Good which was featured in the blaxploitation film Cleopatra Jones. She is a former Grammy Award nominee for If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right) from the album Caught Up. On that album, the follow-up Still Caught Up, and others, she was backed by the renowned Muscle Shoals rhythm section. Her voice is frequently compared to Gladys Knight's. Jackson wrote and starred in the touring play "Young Man, Older Woman," based on her album of the same title. Jackson now runs her own record label, Weird Wreckuds. For the past several years Jackson has had her own radio show in Dallas, Texas. Broadcasting via remote from her home in Atlanta, Jackson can be found working in afternoon drive time from 3-6 pm on KKDA 730 AM. In 2000 her voice featured in "Am I wrong" by Etienne de Crecy, sampled from her performance in "If loving you is wrong".