The Very Best Of Jackie Wilson Covington GA

The Very Best Of Jackie Wilson

Jackie Wilson

Brunswick/Ace Records, 1993

REVIEW BY: Duke Egbert

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 04/22/2008

There are two inherent problems with evaluating any recording by R&B great Jackie Wilson.

The first is the simplest: Wilson was a much better showman than a recording artist. On stage, Wilson was electric; performers as varied as Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson (who, before he was a punch line, put on a pretty good show himself) have praised his live genius, a genius that nevertheless only remains in a few scattered filmed performances.

The second issue is harder to quantify. Wilson’s song choices and recording style on his longtime label, Brunswick, seemed almost perversely chosen to emasculate his earthy soul sound. Instead of being firmly in the same camp as Ray Charles, two-thirds of his recorded tracks make him sound like a poor man’s Johnny Mathis. In the search for chart respectability, Brunswick took a pit bull and dressed him up like a poodle, and the result was predictably mediocre. Early in his career, Wilson had a professional relationship with Motown’s Berry Gordy -- put on the list of great musical ‘what-ifs’ the concept of Jackie Wilson recording with greats like Smokey Robinson.

So The Very Best Of Jackie Wilson really isn’t. Wilson’s very best was done onstage or was never recorded, forced instead to be a dilution of his true sound. If I sound disappointed, it’s because I am; I have added to my list of musical regrets the fact that Jackie Wilson is dead and that his record label were fools.