millie jackson / isaac hayes: royal rappin's

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre

Soul, funk, and R&B. Royal Rappin's documents the meeting of two of the most theatrically gifted vocal personalities in soul music - Isaac Hayes's deep, ruminative baritone alongside Millie Jackson's fierce, uninhibited alto - across a programme that alternates between slow-burning soul ballads, funk workouts, and the extended spoken-word interludes that both artists had independently made their trademark.

Release

Released in 1979 by Polydor Records. The collaboration originated with a chance suggestion at a Spring Records party; once Hayes agreed, Jackson recalled, "the company was ecstatic." The album was Hayes's first major commercial release since his departure from Stax/Enterprise Records following his 1976 bankruptcy.

Production

Produced by Brad Shapiro - Millie Jackson's regular producer throughout her Spring Records period - and Isaac Hayes. Arrangements were by Isaac Hayes and Tom Mitchell. The session musicians included musicians from both artists' regular ensembles. Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, Sheffield, Alabama.

Reception

The album reached number 14 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and number 84 on the Billboard 200. The lead single "Do You Wanna Make Love" reached number 28 on the R&B Singles chart. Rolling Stone praised the natural chemistry between the two vocalists, noting that Hayes and Jackson "seem almost too perfectly matched - both addicted to the dramatic pause, the confessional aside, the knowing laugh". 

Millie Jackson / Isaac Hayes

Mildred Virginia Jackson (born July 15, 1944, Thomson, Georgia) is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter celebrated for the confessional directness and extended spoken-word interludes of her recordings, most notably Caught Up (1974) - covered earlier in this series. Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. (August 20, 1942, Covington, Tennessee – August 10, 2008, Memphis, Tennessee) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor, one of the principal architects of the Memphis soul sound at Stax Records and, with David Porter, the composer of "Hold On, I'm Comin'" and "Soul Man." His landmark album Hot Buttered Soul (1969) transformed the possibilities of the soul album format; his score for the film Shaft (1971) won him the Academy Award for Best Original Song and two Grammy Awards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

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if had my way / if had your way

millie jackson: caught up

album rating: ★★★★★

Genre

Southern soul and deep soul. A concept album structured as a love triangle told in two acts — Side A from the mistress's point of view, Side B from the wife's — blending sung performances with improvised spoken-word interludes.

Release

Released in late 1974 by Spring Records.

Production

Produced by Brad Shapiro and Millie Jackson, with orchestrations by Shapiro and Mike Lewis. The Muscle Shoals Swampers provided the core rhythm section. Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Sheffield, Alabama, with additional sessions at Criteria Recording Studios, Miami, Florida. Mixing was completed at Sound Shop, Nashville.

Reception

Caught Up reached number 21 on the Billboard 200 and number 4 on the US R&B Albums chart, earning Jackson her first gold disc with over 500,000 copies sold. The lead single "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right" peaked at number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received two Grammy nominations. Rolling Stone ranked the album 23rd among the best albums of 1974 in its 2024 retrospective list, praising Jackson for making the listener feel both women's pain with equal force. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest soul concept albums ever recorded.

Millie Jackson

Mildred Virginia Jackson (born July 15, 1944, Thomson, Georgia) is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter whose music is distinguished by its unflinching emotional candour and extended proto-rap spoken interludes. The daughter of a sharecropper, she moved to Newark, New Jersey as a child following her mother's death, and began performing in New York clubs in the early 1960s. She signed with Spring Records in 1971 and released her debut album the following year. Caught Up established her as a pioneering figure in the soul genre, its narrative structure and frank treatment of infidelity making it a landmark in popular music. Three of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA. She was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2015. Her songs have been sampled 189 times, covered 51 times, and remixed 6 times, according to WhoSampled.

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(if loving you is wrong) i don't want to be right

millie jackson: it hurts so good

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Southern soul / soul / funk / R&B. It Hurts So Good is the second studio album by American soul singer and songwriter Millie Jackson (born Thomson, Georgia, 1944), and the first in which she exercised meaningful creative control over her own material. It is also the album that marked the beginning of her enduring collaboration with producer Brad Shapiro, who brought her to Muscle Shoals — the Alabama studios where Aretha Franklin, Etta James and Wilson Pickett had recorded some of their finest work — and matched her with a rhythm section and sound far better suited to her powerful, earthy voice than the arrangements on her debut. The album contains some of her most politically engaged lyrics — 'I Cry', 'Hypocrisy' and 'Two-Faced World' carry a social commentary reminiscent of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On — alongside deeply personal material on desire and relationships. The title track and 'Love Doctor' were featured in the 1973 blaxploitation film Cleopatra Jones, which is how the album came to be named as it was; Millie Jackson herself recounted that the album's original title had been something else entirely, and was changed after the film's release. The album was co-produced by Raeford Gerald (who had produced her debut) and Brad Shapiro.

Label: Spring Records (distributed by Polydor Incorporated), 1973.

Producers: Raeford Gerald (side one tracks and select others); Brad Shapiro (the Muscle Shoals sessions, including the title track).

Recording studios: Media Sound Studios, New York City; Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, USA.

Critical reception: Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ in Creem, praising the production's mix of influences and the album's 'hint of concept'. Rate Your Music reviewers celebrate it as 'probably one of her more sedate albums' in terms of later notoriety, but as the one that 'showcases her amazingly soulful voice' most purely, comparing the music favourably to the best of Isaac Hayes. It is consistently praised as the album on which Millie Jackson found her own artistic identity.

Commercial success: 'It Hurts So Good', the title track, became Millie Jackson's biggest hit to that point, driven by its exposure in Cleopatra Jones. The album sold well and established Jackson as a significant voice in Southern soul and R&B. Her subsequent album Caught Up (1974) would become her most celebrated work, but It Hurts So Good is widely regarded as the turning point that made it possible.

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it hurts so good

off-album track

i cry (remix)

from the anthology/remix album exposed (2018)

millie jackson: feelin' bitchy

album rating: ★★★★★

Genre: Soul / R&B / Southern soul / quiet storm. Feelin' Bitchy is Millie Jackson's sixth studio album and her biggest commercial success, the record on which she fully embraced the raunchy, outspoken, hilariously confrontational persona that would define her entire subsequent career. Jackson (born Mildred Virginia Jackson, Thomson, Georgia, 1944) had established herself with the concept album Caught Up (1974) and its sequel Still Caught Up (1975) — groundbreaking works that combined spoken-word raps with Southern soul of the highest order, recorded at Muscle Shoals with producer Brad Shapiro. After two more restrained records in 1976, she returned with Feelin' Bitchy in August 1977, again at Muscle Shoals with Shapiro, and the album spent 38 weeks on the US R&B charts. The album opens with 'All The Way Lover', an eleven-minute extended performance that starts as a slow soul groove and expands into an elaborate comedic rap on the subject of men and their sexual obligations — what The Bay State Banner called 'a mischievous, unkind, joyously detestable yakety-yak, excused by Millie's call to Woman to take all of what men are too scared to give.' The album also includes her celebrated cover of Merle Haggard's country hit 'If You're Not Back in Love by Monday', a version of Benny Latimore's 'All The Way Lover' and original soul tracks including 'Feelin' Like a Woman', 'Lovin' Your Good Thing Away', 'A Little Taste of Outside Love' and 'You Created a Monster'. The cover photo — an image of Jackson's tongue prominently extended — caused some record stores to keep the album behind the counter.

Label: Spring Records (distributed by Polydor Incorporated), released August 1977.

Producers: Brad Shapiro and Millie Jackson.

Recording studios: Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, Sheffield, Alabama; A&R Recording Studios, New York City; Criteria Recording Studio, Miami, Florida; United Sound Studios, Detroit, Michigan.

Critical reception: Feelin' Bitchy is consistently described as the peak of Millie Jackson's discography and one of the classics of late-1970s soul. Ace Records, which reissued it in remastered form, called it 'a significant milestone in Millie Jackson's storied career.' Rate Your Music reviewers describe it as 'Millie Jackson's most popular album, and rightly so. Every song on it is a gem.' Jackson herself told Black Echoes that it was not the Haggard cover that sold the album: 'All The Way Lover sold the album.' The album was reissued with bonus tracks by Ace Records / Southbound in 2006.

Commercial success: Feelin' Bitchy reached number 4 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single 'If You're Not Back in Love by Monday' reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 43 on the Hot 100. The album was certified gold by the RIAA for over 500,000 copies sold. It attracted a devoted UK following — Jackson was voted the number 1 female singer in the Blues & Soul magazine annual poll — and she played sold-out UK dates in early 1978 performing the material.

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all the way lover

you created a monster

millie jackson: caught up

album rating: ★★★★★

(if loving you is wrong) i don't want to be right

track rating: ★★★★★