J.J. Jackson "The Great J.J. Jackson" '66

A killer album by the justly described Great JJ Jackson – and one that's been a darn tough one to find over the years! The leadoff cut is JJ's amazing single "But It's Alright", a slammin' soul track that always stops us dead whenever we hear it – which isn't often enough! The rest of the material is excellent too, and there are lots of nice tracks like "I Dig Girls", "Courage Ain't Strength", "Too Late", "Try Me", "Down But Not Out", Sho Nuff (Got A Good Thing Going", and "Four Walls". He's equally adept at uptempo soul and more ballad inflected tunes – great stuff all the way! The Collectors Choice CD version includes 8 bonus tracks, effectively encapsulating his Warner recordings of the mid 60s! Bonus tracks include "You've Got Me Dizzy", "Come See Me (I'm Your Man)", "Give Me Back To Love", "Ain't Too Proud To Beg", "Love Is A Hurting Thing", "Boogaloo Baby" and more. 20 tracks in all.  © 1996-2015, Dusty Groove, Inc.J.J. Jackson may be remembered for just one song, but that tune was a doozy -- "But It's Alright" was a tight, hard-grooving bit of Northern soul (so Northern it was actually recorded in England) with a swinging and swaggering vocal from Jackson, and it was catchy enough to become a major hit in 1966 and then hit the pop charts again in 1969. The Great J.J. Jackson was released after "But It's Alright" became a hit for the second time, and combines four songs from Jackson's 1966 debut album (imaginatively called But It's Alright) with eight newer tracks. Funkier and more psychedelic-influenced sounds may have been making their presence known at the end of the '60s, but Jackson was a man devoted to old-school soul, and the tone of this album is consistent despite the three years separating the two batches of material. Jackson's vocals suggests he learned more than a little from Otis Redding, and while his songs and the arrangements reflect the East Coast R&B sound (with some Motown around the edges), he wasn't afraid to add a good portion of Southern grit to his performances, and the results offer up the best of both worlds. Jackson was also a strong songwriter even if he never came up with another number quite as emphatic as "But It's Alright" (he even borrowed a bit of its melody for "Four Walls [Three Windows and Two Doors]"), and there are a few songs here that by all rights should have been hits, including "Too Late," "Try Me," and "Down But Not Out." For their 2009 reissue of The Great J.J. Jackson, Collectors' Choice Music included the eight songs from 1966's But It's Alright that didn't make the cut for the 1969 edition (among then "The Stones That I Throw," an early Robbie Robertson composition that predates the Hawks' evolution into the Band), effectively giving fans both albums built around Jackson's biggest hit. The original release was already a top-shelf soul session, and in expanded form this is arguably the definitive J.J. Jackson collection.(Mark Deming, Allmusic)

trax:

01 But It's Allright 02 Try Me 03 That Ain't Right 04 You've Got Me Dizzy 05 A Change Is Gonna Come 06 I Dig Girls 07 Come And See Me (I'm Your Man) 08 The Stones That I Throw 09 Give Me Back The Love 10 Ain't Too Proud To Beg 11 Love Is a Hurting Thing 12 Boogaloo Baby 13 Let It Out

...Many Thanks To Jillem For The J.J. Jackson Share! served by Gyro1966...