George Jackson (March 12, 1945 – April 14, 2013) – Get Involved (1973)
The unsung staff songwriter at FAME Studios penned hundreds of songs including this powerful political anthem that we should all take to heart in 2024.
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George Jackson was a Southern soul singer who was also a prolific songwriter. He wrote hundreds of songs during his career for artists including James Carr, Clarence Carter, Candi Staton, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Clay, and is probably best known for co-writing the Bob Seger classic “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
Born in rural Mississippi, George Henry Jackson moved with his family to the Delta city of Greenville, MS when he was five. He began writing songs in high school. Interviewed years later, he recalled these early days:
“I was mainly influenced by my grandmother, who was very religious, so I come from a gospel background. I played guitar a lot in church, and I was influenced by a lot of gospel groups like Five Blind Boys Of Mississippi, Sam Cooke and his Soul Stirrers, Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward. When I first started out, I was trying to write songs. I travelled to different places from Greenville to Chicago, Kansas City and I tried my luck also in New York where I finally got a chance to record my first record in Syracuse.”
Sadly, that record was never released. His first single, the wallflower anthem “Won't Nobody Cha-Cha With Me” b/w “Who Was That Guy” (both written by Jackson) came out on Ike Turner’s Prann label in 1963. Jackson got a chance to meet him at a show in Greenville, and Ike liked his songs enough to take him to New Orleans to record them. The single was credited to George Jackson and The Vanlons, with Ike producing both sides.
After being rejected as an artist by Stax Records, Jackson began working at their Memphis competitor GoldWax Records as a songwriter, writing for the label’s artists like James Carr (for whom he wrote the upbeat 1966 jam “Coming Back To Me Baby”) and the Ovations. He released more of his own singles on Goldwax, and later on Hi Records and Decca.
In the late sixties Jackson was signed as an artist by Rick Hall at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and also hired as a staff songwriter. Along with fellow songwriter Mickey Buckins, he co-wrote the superb heartbreak tale “I'm Just Living A Lie” for Bettye Swann, co-produced by Phil Wright and Hall and released in 1971.
Along with songwriters Eugene Williams and Raymond Moore, Jackson wrote a political message song around the time of the 1972 election called “Get Involved,” originally intended for Wilson Pickett. It encouraged folks who want a better world to get up off our butts and vote, because otherwise, a**holes like Nixon (and Trump) will always win. Hall liked the demo that blue-eyed soul singer George Soulé cut for Jackson, and recorded him singing it instead. It went to #35 R&B in early 1973.
Jackson solely wrote the socially conscious jam “If I Could Reach Out (And Help Somebody)” (1973) for Otis Clay, which was recorded at Royal Sound Studios in Memphis and produced by Willie Mitchell.
Seven years later, Clay would record a song Jackson co-wrote with Johnny Henderson, “The Only Way Is Up” (1980), which became the title track to his 1982 LP and a modern soul classic. Yazz and the Plastic Population took it to #1 on the UK charts when they covered it in 1988.
In 1981, Jackson released one of his own singles on the Memphis-based Crosstown Records label, “Ain't Nothing But Sorrow (Down Atlanta Way).” Its B-side, the socially conscious anthem “We Need You More” which he co-wrote with Robert Alton Miller, reminded us love can triumph over hate.
Rest in Power, George Jackson.
Further info:
“George Jackson,” interview by Heikki Suosalo, SoulExpress.net.
“George Jackson, Rock Songwriter, Dies at 68,” obituary, The New York Times, April 15, 2013.
“George Jackson: Songwriter who penned hundreds of soul, rock and r'n'b tunes,” obituary, The Independent (UK), April 22, 2013.
#soul #funk #FAMEStudios #GeorgeJackson