Sounds Like Jackie Wilson Sang The Blues

Charlottesville

March 19, 2022

Jack Leroy Wilson Jr. (June 9, 1934 – January 21, 1984) was an American soul and rock and roll singer and performer. A tenor with a four-octave range, Wilson was a prominent figure in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. He was considered a master showman and one of the most dynamic singers and performers in pop, R&B, and rock and roll history, earning the nickname "Mr. Excitement".

Wilson gained initial fame as a member of the R&B vocal group Billy Ward and His Dominoes. He went solo in 1957 and scored over 50 chart singles spanning the genres of R&B, pop, soul, doo-wop and easy listening. This included 16 Top 10 R&B hits, six of which ranked as number ones. On the Billboard Hot 100, Wilson scored 14 top 20 pop hits, six of which reached the top 10.

Wilson was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He is also inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. Two of Wilson's recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. He was honored with the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Legacy Tribute Award in 2003.[4] In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Wilson No. 69 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and number 26 as one of the greatest singers of all time.

Life and career Illness and death

According to Larry Geller, who visited Wilson backstage in Las Vegas with Elvis Presley, the singer had a habit of taking a handful of salt tablets and drinking large amounts of water before each performance, to create profuse sweating. Wilson told Elvis Presley, "The chicks love it."

On September 29, 1975, Wilson was one of the featured acts in Dick Clark's Good Ol' Rock and Roll Revue, hosted by the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He was in the middle of singing "Lonely Teardrops" when he suffered a massive heart attack. On the words "My heart is crying" he collapsed on stage; audience members applauded as they initially thought it was part of the act. Clark sensed something was wrong, then ordered the musicians to stop the music. Cornell Gunter of the Coasters, who was backstage, noticed Wilson was not breathing. Gunter was able to resuscitate him and Wilson was then rushed to a nearby hospital.

Medical personnel worked to stabilize Wilson's vital signs, but the lack of oxygen to his brain caused him to slip into a coma. He briefly recovered in early 1976, and was even able to take a few wobbly steps, but slipped back into a semi-comatose state.

Wilson's friend, fellow singer Bobby Womack, planned a benefit at the Hollywood Palladium to raise funds for Wilson on March 4, Wilson was deemed conscious but incapacitated in early June 1976, unable to speak but aware of his surroundings. He was a resident of the Medford Leas Retirement Center in Medford, New Jersey, when he was admitted into Memorial Hospital of Burlington County in Mount Holly, New Jersey, due to having trouble taking nourishment, according to his attorney John Mulkerin. Wilson's friend Joyce McRae tried to become his caregiver while he was in a nursing home, but he was placed in the guardianship of his estranged wife Harlean Harris and her lawyer John Mulkerin in 1978.

Wilson died on January 21, 1984, at the age of 49 from complications of pneumonia. He was initially buried in an unmarked grave at Westlawn Cemetery near Detroit.

In 1987, fans raised money in a fundraiser spearheaded by an Orlando disc jockey "Jack the Rapper" Gibson to purchase a mausoleum. On June 9, 1987, his 53rd birthday, a ceremony was held and Wilson was interred in the mausoleum at Westlawn Cemetery in Wayne, Michigan. His mother Eliza Wilson, who died in 1975, was also placed in the mausoleum.

Personal life

Wilson converted to Judaism as an adult. He recorded a version of Lew Pollack and Jack Yellen’s famed Jewish-themed song “My Yiddishe Momme” in New York in November of 1960.

Wilson had a reputation for being short-tempered and promiscuous. In her autobiography, Patti LaBelle accused Wilson of sexually assaulting her backstage at a Brooklyn theater in the early 1960s.

On February 15, 1961, in Manhattan, Wilson was shot and seriously wounded by a woman named Juanita Jones. However, Jones was one of his girlfriends, and she shot him in a jealous rage after he returned to his Manhattan apartment with another woman, fashion model Harlean Harris, an ex-girlfriend of Sam Cooke. Wilson's management supposedly concocted the story about her being a zealous fan to protect Wilson's reputation. They claimed that Jones was an obsessed fan who had threatened to shoot herself, and that Wilson's intervention resulted in his being shot. Wilson was shot in the stomach; the bullet resulted in the loss of a kidney, and lodged too close to his spine to be removed.[6] In early 1975, during an interview with author Arnold Shaw, Wilson maintained it actually was a zealous fan he did not know who shot him. "We also had some trouble in 1961. That was when some crazy chick took a shot at me and nearly put me away for good..." No charges were brought against Jones.

Legal problems

In 1960, Wilson was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer when fans tried to climb on stage in New Orleans. He assaulted a policeman who had shoved one of the fans.

In 1964, Wilson jumped from a second floor window at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis to avoid being arrested after a show. His arrest stemmed from a default of a $2,200 contract judgement in which he failed to appear at The Riviera Club in 1959. He was caught by the police and jailed for a day before he posted a $3,000 bond.

In March 1967, Wilson and his drummer, Jimmy Smith, were arrested in South Carolina on "morals charges"; the two were entertaining two 24-year-old white women in their motel room.

Financial issues

In 1961, Wilson declared annual earnings of $263,000, while the average annual salary at that time was just $5,000, but he discovered that, despite being at the peak of success, he was broke. Around this time the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seized Wilson's Detroit family home. Tarnopol and his accountants were supposed to take care of such matters. Wilson made arrangements with the IRS to make restitution on the unpaid taxes; he also re-purchased the family home at auction. Nat Tarnopol had taken advantage of Wilson's naïveté, mismanaging his money since becoming his manager. Tarnopol also had power of attorney over Wilson's finances.

Tarnopol and 18 other Brunswick executives were indicted on federal charges of mail fraud and tax evasion stemming from bribery and payola scandals in 1975. Also in the indictment was the charge that Tarnopol owed at least $1 million in royalties to Wilson. In 1976 Tarnopol and the others were found guilty; an appeals court overturned their conviction 18 months later. Although the conviction was overturned, judges went into detail, outlining that Tarnopol and Brunswick Records did defraud their artists of royalties, and that they were satisfied that there was sufficient evidence for Wilson to file a lawsuit. However, a trial to sue Tarnopol for royalties never took place, as Wilson lay in a nursing home semi-comatose. Tarnopol never paid Wilson monies he had coming to him, and Wilson died owing money to Brunswick Records and an estimated $300,000 to the IRS.

Marriages and children

At the age of 17, Wilson married his girlfriend Freda Hood in 1951 while she was pregnant. Together they had four children (Jacqueline Denise (1951-1988), Sandra Kay (1953-1977), Jack Leroy Jr (1954-1970), and Anthony Duane). Hood divorced Wilson in 1965, after 14 years of marriage, as she was frustrated with his notorious womanizing.

In 1967, Wilson married his second wife, model Harlean Harris (1937–2019), at the urging of Nat Tarnopol, who thought the marriage would help repair Wilson’s public image. They had been dating since at least 1960, and had a son, John Dominick (known as Petey), born in 1963. Wilson and Harris legally separated in 1969. Wilson later lived with Lynn Guidry. They had two children, son Thor Lathon Kenneth (b. 1972 d.2018) and daughter, Li-Nie Shawn (b. 1975). Thor died on October 23, 2018 at the age of 46. Wilson was in a relationship with Guidry, who was under the impression that she was his legal wife, until his heart attack in 1975. However, Wilson and Harris never officially divorced. Harris became his court-appointed guardian in 1978.

Wilson's 16-year-old son, Jackie Jr, was shot and killed on a neighbor's porch near their Detroit home in 1970. Wilson sank into a period of depression, and for the next few years remained mostly a recluse. He turned to drug abuse and continued drinking in an attempt to cope with the loss of his son. More tragedy hit when two of Wilson's daughters died when young. His daughter Sandra died in 1977 at the age of 24 of an apparent heart attack. His eldest daughter, Jacqueline, was killed in 1988 in a drug-related incident in Highland Park, Michigan.

Wilson also fathered many other children out of wedlock with different women, including singer Bobby Brooks Wilson who performs his father's songs in tribute.