Two Upbeat Sides by Jackie Verdell

Jackie Verdell “Hush” (Peacock, 1962/3)
Jackie Verdell “Are You Ready For This” (Decca, 1967)
  • Listen to these songs on youtube: Hush, Are You Ready For This
  • Listen to these 45s in a Spotify playlist here  with other 45s from the blog (though note, spotify doesn’t have all / many of the songs featured on the site so some playlists may be incomplete or feature slightly different versions than the original 45s I’m referring to here.
  • Download the songs by clicking the titles above

Welcome back for another go-round here at Musical Episode. Today’s post is a couple of sides by the wonderful Jackie Verdell.  While she has a limited solo discography without any major hits her voice has been heard in a lot more places. Before she struck out on her own with singles on Peacock, she was a member of the esteemed gospel group The Davis Sisters (check this amazing footage of her solo singing with Brother Joe May probably right from the time she was going solo and still an intermittent member of The Davis Sisters). 

Ad for Jackie’s Peacock release

In addition to her output on Peacock, Decca and Truth- all worth checking out- she was also working regularly as a backup singer in roles as varied as backing vocals on Van Morrison’s Moondance and Horace Silver’s excellent Nobody Knows from The United States of Mind album.

Today’s 45s are from 62/3 and 67 while she was still very active, after this period things slowed down visibly though a highlight of her career came in 1980 with a Grammy nomination for her role in Jesse Jackson’s PUSH campaign. Here’s a really neat video of her at the Grammy’s giving a little smile when her name is read. In 1981 she returned to the Davis Sisters recording the The Storm is Passing Over LP, including the superb updated version of I Believe (not that the original isn’t amazing). Her other early 80′s output includes another gospel track on Spring and an extraordinaryily funky single on WEA.

She unfortunately passed in 1991 at the young age of 53 leaving behind an amazing though unfortunately limited catalog. She clearly had the talent of so many of her contemporaries but the vagaries of the market left her without chart success. I hope you take time to appreciate these two sides and dig into her other works, you won’t be disappointed!

Until next time, peace,

-George / Snack Attack

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