Born in Florida, where he was stricken with polio as a young child,
Walter Jackson spent his young adulthood in Detroit, where he never let his need for crutches prevent him from performing whenever he could, and by the time Columbia Records signed him and relocated him to Chicago in the early '60s,
Jackson had developed into a thoroughly professional singer with an incredibly controlled and emotive baritone. Placed on Columbia's OKeh subsidiary and given songs to work with from songwriters like the great
Curtis Mayfield,
Jackson quickly became the epitome of what was then called big-city soul, turning out records marked by strong production, orchestration, horns, and full massed backup vocals. His voice was so strong, however, that it easily became the central anchor in any production he was involved with, and there really is no singer in the history of soul, uptown or otherwise, quite like
Walter Jackson. This wonderful set contains
Jackson's complete debut album from 1965,
It's All Over, with ten bonus tracks added in, and given the quality on display here, it is truly amazing that
Jackson didn't enjoy more high chart action than he did. His voice and approach, which really had more in common with singers like
Nat King Cole than the deep soul singers of the day, anticipates the so-called uptown soul movement by some three decades, and if soul singers can be said to croon, well,
Jackson invented the technique. The
It's All Over album was itself cobbled together from whatever singles and B-sides OKeh had on hand when
Jackson's version of the title tune,
Curtis Mayfield's gorgeous "It's All Over," went Top Ten on the R&B charts in 1965, but largely because of
Jackson's huge, steady vocals, the album now seems much more unified in concept than it actually was. Not surprisingly, some of the best songs here were written by
Mayfield, including the aforementioned "It's All Over," the brilliant "That's What Mama Say," and a pair of previously unreleased
Mayfield gems, "It's Hard to Believe" and "Tell the World." It would be unfair to think of
Jackson as simply a
Mayfield interpreter, though, since whatever he sang he made completely his own. Nearly forgotten these days,
Jackson is due for a rediscovery, and Kent seems committed to bringing his complete body of work back into print.
It's All Over is a great start.