Song of the Day 7/27: Jackie Wilson, “Lonely Teardrops”

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

If Elvis Presley were here, he’d sing the praises of classic R&B/soul singer Jackie Wilson. He’d even sound like Jackie. Elvis called himself “the white Jackie Wilson” and raved about this “real slender … colored guy” to Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis at a 1956 session at Sun Records. He and Wilson eventually became longtime friends.

Jackie admired Elvis too,v although he called Al Jolson — Al Jolson! — “the greatest entertainer of this or any other era.”

Since (if?) Elvis isn’t here, we could pull Van Morrison from his cave down on Cyprus Avenue to praise Jackie. One of his best songs is called “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile).” “Jackie Wilson said it was ‘Reet Petite’/Kind of love you got knock me off my feet.” “Reet Petite” was a Jackie Wilson hit. And you know James Brown and Michael Jackson had watched Jackie cavort on stage with his back-flips, knee-drops and slide-steps.

Wilson’s hits included “Lonely Teardrops,” “Higher and Higher” and “I’ll Be satisfied,” sung in what has been described as an “operatic, multi-octave” voice. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 1987. Rolling Stone rated him one of the 100 most influential artists of rock ’n’ roll’s first half-century.

Wilson did not lead what you’d call a calm life. He was shot and seriously wounded by his wife for philandering, arrested on a morals charge in South Carolina for having a white woman in his motel room, arrested for assaulting a cop he thought was getting rough with a fan, jumped out of a second-floor window to avoid arrest for defaulting on a loan, charged with federal tax evasion before making a deal with the IRS.

Jackie Wilson had a heart attack on stage at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, N.J., in 1975. He keeled over while singing the line “my heart is crying” from “Lonely Teardrops.” Fans at first thought it was just one of his stage moves. He never fully recovered — Elvis paid a large portion of his medical expenses — and died in 1984 at age 49 after a career that can only be called “reet petite.”

Here’s Jackie doing “Lonely Teardrops” on ”American Bandstand.” The song was co-written by Berry Gordy Jr., who used the money he made from it to start Motown Records.

This is a performance by Jackie Wilson, Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire. Yeah, that’s right. Trickery.

Jackie Wilson said, “Reet Petite.”