On music’s need for a new Millie Jackson

We’ve reached a sad new point in the singing of ballads where all the girls are sad and bitter, but none of them have a plan to do much of anything about it. Adele’s polite anger is Florence’s ankle deep depression, and all of the American women are too rich or too in love to remember getting fucked over. As a way of introducing you, the reader to one of my favorite singers ever, or, if aware re-introducing you to an important mode of expression, let’s talk about the 1970s most underrated diva, Millie Jackson.

Millie could sing. As soulful and free and Gladys Knight, Millie broke every rule, and with the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section of Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding fame behind her, you had no other choice but to listen. She’s crass. I became aware of her as Black Sheep sampled her “Fuck You Symphony” in 1993, literally four minutes of the expletive being sang at different octaves. For albums Feelin’ Bitchy and Back to the Shit! she was photographed, panties down, sitting astride a toilet. Not shocked enough? Enjoy the nine minute and 21 second “lover done wrong” soliloquy she morphs Luther Ingram’s “If Loving You Is Wrong” into. It’s undeniably brilliant, and as a blueprint to the women of the next generation, a statement that when talent meets legitimate emotional liberation, an instant legacy is created.