Dee D. Jackson (born July 15, 1944) – Galaxy Of Love (1978)

This space anthem was co-written by the British-born space disco diva who had an international disco hit with "Automatic Lover."

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Dee D. Jackson is a singer/songwriter best remembered for her 1977 European disco mega-hit “Automatic Lover.”

Born in Oxford, England, Deirdre Elaine Cozier took music lessons and learned to play both the violin and piano when she was young. At age 19 she married a traveling minstrel who disappeared with all their possessions after three weeks. She traveled from the UK to Germany looking for him, but without luck. In Munich she found a manager and started singing in clubs around the city.

She met the husband and wife producing team Gary and Patti Unwin, who gave her the stage name Dee D. Jackson. They produced her first single “Man Of A Man” (1977) b/w “Only Your Love,” which only sold a few thousand copies. Undeterred, the Unwins took her into the studio to record a full-length space disco-themed album. When its lead single “Automatic Lover” was released later that year it was an immediate smash, going top-five in Germany and the UK, and selling approximately seven million copies in Europe alone. It was one of the biggest euro-disco hits of the late seventies.

Although Jackson co-wrote the song, solely writing the chorus, she was not initially credited as a co-writer and denied her fair share of songwriting royalties for years. She co-wrote several other songs on her debut LP Cosmic Curves, released in early 1978. One was the epic sci fi space disco title track that foretold Earth running afoul of a future galactic tribunal, charged with “treason against the universal powers.” Thankfully, “something the Earthlings call love” saves the day. Her co-writing credits also included the interstellar jam “Red Flight.”

She co-wrote the superb space anthem “Galaxy Of Love” with the Unwins, her co-writers on most of the rest of the album.

Jackson released a few more singles during 1979, which were collected on her second album Thunder & Lightning (1980). This time the Unwins penned most songs, but she did co-write the superb disco jam “Sky Walking” with them, which was chosen as the lead single in Japan when the LP was eventually issued there in 1984.

Mostly due to the songwriting dispute over “Automatic Lover,” she parted ways with the couple in the early eighties. Jackson moved to Italy where she set up her own recording studio, released some italo disco singles, and became a producer herself.

Happy 70th Birthday to the great Dee D. Jackson.

Further info:

“Unidentified Object Could Be Earthling: Dee D. Jackson's 'Cosmic Curves',” We Are The Mutants, January 15, 2018.

“The incredible story of outer space Euro-disco diva Dee D. Jackson,” DangerousMinds.net, February 18, 2018.

#soul #funk #disco #spacedisco #DeeDJackson