Detroit, 1934. A boy born into the boxing ring -- literally, his father was a fighter -- and raised in the church, singing in the choir, learning to move. Jackie Wilson started as a Golden Gloves boxer before he found that his real weapon was his voice.
He replaced Clyde McPhatter in Billy Ward & the Dominoes in 1953, absorbed the discipline of the vocal group tradition, and then stepped out on his own in 1957. He was the first Black vocalist who understood that singing and performance were the same thing. He did not just sing songs. He enacted them.
The 1950s R&B scene was built on vocal groups and solo crooners who stood still and sang sweet. Jackie Wilson walked into that world and brought the physicality of the boxing ring and the ecstasy of the church. He split his pants on stage. He dropped to his knees. He ran through the audience. He was called Mr. Excitement and the title fit because he made excitement look like a spiritual practice. The cost was that critics did not know what to make of him. He was too wild for the conservative R&B establishment, too Black for the crossover pop machine, too emotional for the cool jazz cats. He recorded for Brunswick and worked with producer Carl Davis, making records that swung between pop confections and deep soul workouts.
"(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" from 1967 is the song that finally captured everything he could do. The track opens with that piano riff and those handclaps, then Wilson enters at full power, riding the groove like a wave he is directing. His voice goes from a growl to a shout to a cry in the space of a line. The backup singers, the horns, the bass -- it all locks behind him, but the center is always that voice, that joy that sounds earned rather than performed.
The song hit number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and became his signature, but it was also the last great moment before everything went wrong. A medley of "The Greatest" / "No Pity (In the Naked City)" from 1968 maintained the level, but the label was pushing him toward Las Vegas and easy pop, and the grit was getting sanded off.
Jackie Wilson collapsed on stage in 1973, suffered a heart attack during a benefit show at the Latin Casino in New Jersey. He never fully recovered. He spent the last eight years of his life in a coma or near-comatose state, dying in 1984 at forty-nine. The story is devastating and it is not the whole story. The whole story is that voice, that energy, that refusal to be anything less than spectacular. Michael Jackson cited him as a primary influence. Bruno Mars carries his DNA. Every singer who has ever dropped to their knees in the middle of a song is channeling Jackie Wilson. Mr. Excitement is gone. The excitement is not.
