Jackie Wilson influences Elvis’ attire and stage persona
My argument is that the influence between Jackie Wilson and Elvis Presley was in fact one-directional and it was not mutual, nor did they equally bring to the table. Wilson and Presley did not influence each other at all much less equally, it was really only Wilson that influenced Presley. Another reason why Elvis could not have influenced Wilson is his lack of rhythm and ability to move to his own music—culturally appropriated music to be exact. That’s why he couldn’t move to it, it wasn’t his. Look at the Jailhouse Rock music video. Anybody with rhythm can see that Elvis has no rhythm and can’t move in general much less to move like Wilson. It’s very unlikely that the poignantly rhythmic Wilson could be influenced by someone who has no rhythm. Thirdly, Wilson was a humble dude (musicians were humble back then, generally speaking). So he probably didn’t even notice how immense his influence was on Elvis, not just on his vocal style but on his stage persona and Mohawk-looking hairstyle too. Still, many African American men wore this hairstyle in the 1960s.
Jackie Wilson’s daughter who goes by the name-spelling, Alexyss Tylor, on YouTube asserts that her father used to wear gold-lined, glittery-jumpsuits when performing on stage and he took Elvis to where he could get those jumpsuits. She added that she likes to wear jumpsuits too, indicating that that trait was inherited from her father. When Elvis first saw Jackie live, Jackie was wearing a cowboy hat and singing like a cowboy. He was good at going on the stage with a mildly different persona everytime. If you watch enough of Jackie Wilson’s later performances that are in color and not black-and-white, he was always in a different costume every performance. Therefore, the jumpsuit was one of the many attires he would change regularly from performance to performance as he didn’t perform in one attire for too long.
In this rare interview, Jackie Wilson talks of Elvis Presley
Jackie Wilson says in this rare interview that Elvis was a “good friend” and that he helped him to get people to come to his shows. Well, it’s the least he could do after culturally appropriating black culture for so long and making a lot of money from doing it. Elvis recognized Jackie Wilson as the best he’s ever seen perform. But did Elvis realize that he had white-performer privilege when he finally met Wilson 10 years after seeing him live at that club in Vegas in 1956? Who knows. It seems unlikely that he didn’t because he could clearly see that he had no problem getting people to his shows but Jackie Wilson, his number 1 influence, did. It’s a wildly held notion that Elvis didn’t like going to clubs and rarely went. However, because he liked to see Jackie Wilson perform, he went and that made a ton of people go to see Jackie Wilson perform.
As stated in part one, by the time Elvis met Wilson the former had already imitated so many African American male musicians that he thought he was them. It was like a possession brought about by his own obsession with black music and culture. It was to the point that even Wilson thought that he was being influenced by Elvis when, in fact, he was being influenced by a Elvis that had already copied and impersonated so many other black musicians that if black musicians or African American musicians were drawn to Elvis, they were really just drawn to their own culture that Presley had long since been imitating. Whitewashing your own culture and bringing it back to you to fool you into thinking it’s theirs and that it wasn’t originally lifted! That’s what Elvis is to Wilson or to any black musician of this time period mistakenly thinking Elvis influenced them. Jackie wasn’t drawn to Elvis. Just drawn to the seasoned-black-musician-imitator that he was.
The so-called king eventually dropped the black act or gimmick when he retired. Even though the only way you can drop an act is if it was an act to begin with.
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If you agree please let me know in the comment section. Thanks for reading this far!
Jackie Wilson influences James Brown and Michael Jackson Part 2
Yes this is how Jackie Wilson would’ve appeared to a young Michael Jackson watching backstage when he was in the Jackson-5. I just found out that when the grown Michael was taking his jacket off and flinging it into the audience that was another one of the many Jackie Wilson showmanship moves that Michael borrowed. Michael Jackson never stopped doing that. When Wilson got older, though, he started having some qualms about taking his jacket off and throwing it into the audience of screaming hormone-induced females like in his younger days. Induced by none other than Jackie Wilson himself. He was insane atleast when it came to performance and in a good way. Actually Sam Cooke did this too, the attire-stripping. But when Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson did something similar because they were best friends and they both influenced each other, it’s easy to know who it came from first. And flinging your jacket out into the audience is more of a Jackie Wilson thing. Never understood why Michael Jackson used to throw his jacket, hat or shoe out into the audience; it looked impressive but I thought it was literally just theatricality because once his jacket was out of his hands, the lights went dark. It wasn’t until I found out he actually got that from Jackie Wilson whereupon if Jackie Wilson is doing it it actually makes more sense.
Jackie Wilson and Motown Records
Jackie Wilson on The Soul Train (1971)
Warm, friendly, soft-spoken, HUMBLE and full of heart and personality. That’s Jackie Wilson. The man, the myth, the legend. He probably wasn’t having the best of days during this interview like someone told him some bad news but he still manages to be kind and welcoming just before this soul train performance. His face speaks of foreboding…Nat Turnapol anyone? I will speak of how his manager was milking him of royalties in another post.
Like Wilson stated, he “started in 1957 around the same time as Berry Gordy Jr who owned a small recording company known as Motown records.” Wilson sung the hit songs Gordy wrote which (very likely) funneled much needed finances into Motown records, transforming “Motown records” from only a name to a real functioning record company, thereby becoming instrumental in its startup, and everybody knows how huge Motown records would become. If he didn’t sing those songs, they would’ve never been hits. Like I said about Big Mama Thornton, some singers do make the song a hit. So Wilson was the engine that drove Motown records from a startup record company to full-fledged hammer responsible for banging hits, after hits, after hits. Pun intended. Therefore, he should be listed as one of the founders of Motown.
Funny Don Cornelius would ask Jackie Wilson how he’s keeping up with the times when he already was the times. He was a major influence on many artists including Michael Jackson who would in return influence a slew of other artists that came after him essentially defining the American pop music industry. Wilson never got to see what Michael would become, in other words, he never got to what his influence did. Therefore, he played a huge role in what the pop music industry would become. How are you going to keep up with the times when you are making the times what it is? Adjust to the changes when you already are the changes.
Sources
Amazon.com: Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley eBook: Guralnick, Peter: Kindle Store
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