MILLIE JACKSON
photo courtesy of Millie Jackson
The Great Woman of Raunchy Soul
Interview by Jason Gross
(June 2025)
"You want me to talk dirty to prove that it's really me?" Jackson asked me when I was stunned to be speaking to her, almost in disbelief. But it was sure as hell her- brassy, sassy, loud and utterly hilarious, still at age 80. Her string of R&B hits at Spring Records in the early '70's hit a peak with 1974's concept album Caught Up about a love triangle. From there, Jackson (who started in the Georgia wound up in NYC and returned to Georgia) got more and explicit and up front about relationships and sex- getting album covers banned, being bleeped on the radio and stretching the whole idea of 'good taste' and what could be said on a record, years before rappers tested the limits themselves. Jackson herself pioneered the attitude of divas like Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj though you wouldn't know it from any shout outs or nods, other than Da Brat, who recorded with her. Jackson herself admits that she doesn't keep up with the rappers who followed in her footsteps and instead immerses herself in country music as she has since the beginning of her music career (having an R&B hit off a Merle Haggard song in 1977).
Two things surprised me about Jackson when I spoke to her recently. One was that she was so modest about what a pioneer she was and how brave she was with her subject matter, claiming it was just entertainment. The other surprising thing was how she didn't initially own up to her own explicit content, again saying that she was just entertaining people. One thing that shouldn't have surprised me is how freakin' funny she was- cracking up herself and me many times during the interview- and that her voice still rang out when she occasionally sang a line of one of her songs. Like I told her, "you still got it," even if she insists that she's retired now and planning to live off the dough she gets from the sale of a storm ravaged farm land. Along with her music career and the controversies involved, we got to talk about her radio show, her stage play, recording an album with Isaac Hayes, starting her own label and the art of 'talking shit.' So, let's let it rip, shall we? It was definitely the dirtiest and funniest interview I've ever done and I couldn't have asked for anything more from her.
ED NOTE: This interview has been edited for length and clarity but every bit of raunch has been left intact.
PSF: Just to start out, I got to say that some of the questions I'm going to ask are going to be kind of explicit 'cause we're talking about some of your work and that can be kind of dirty.
MJ: (laughs)
PSF: OK, you get it! I'll be professional in my dirty questions.
MJ: (faking modesty) Oh, I'm a very spiritual person, I don't know if I can let you do that...
PSF: Please forgive me....
MJ: (laughs)
PSF: You still have a great sense of humor. So... what music were you listening to before you became a singer yourself?
MJ: Well... I learned how to be able to get into Nashville and order the packages they had like 5 or 10 records for X amount of dollars, because our house was THE house to be at on the weekends. My father was a sharecropper and he kept plenty of cotton, you know, he's a farmer. But on the weekend, we were the house to be in on Saturday night. From Friday night, all day Saturday until time-to-get-dressed-to-go-to-church on Sunday. Sunday morning, you went to sleep or you went to church. But.. my father made corn liquor and I was smart enough to listen to the radio and figure out how to order all of those packages from Nashville, Randy's Record Mart, so our house was the BEST house with the BEST liquor and the BEST music!
PSF: OK, and what was the music?
MJ: Whatever the package was. It was blues, R&B and the latest stuff that you could order from packages and stuff.
PSF: Were there any particular artists that you really loved then?
MJ: Oh yeah! I loved ALL of the R&B artists. Johnny Taylor, B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Chuck Jackson.
PSF: When you were younger, did you like 'dirty' comedians like Redd Foxx and Moms Mabley?
MJ: Oh, definitely. Yeah.
PSF: Did you get to know them?
MJ: Not really. Because... Moms Mabley, I had too much respect for her to talk about those kind of things in front of her. And Redd Foxx was a disappointment to me.
PSF: Why's that?
MJ: Because he was afraid of me!
PSF: Really? Why?
MJ: Because of the way I act I guess. He didn't have no woman coming up to him, acting like I did. And because he was the way he was on record, I expected that he and I would hit it off and just be best buddies and acting like complete idiots. And he act like he was scared of me! The one time I worked with him, I go "Redd, how you doing!" He said (quietly) "Uh.. hey..." And I'm saying to myself, "'hey?' That's all he gotta say to me and looking at me like I'm crazy for speaking to him?"
Men in general didn't want nothing to do with me. The ones I expected to be complete assholes treated me like a complete lady 'cause I guess they were afraid that I was going to be offstage like I was onstage and they didn't want to be embarrassed.
photo courtesy of Millie Jackson
PSF: There's a famous story about you...
MJ: (laughs) OK...
PSF: Well, the story is, supposedly, you started out singing because someone dared you to do it at a talent contest. Is that true?
MJ: Yeah. There's nothing to it but they dared me to go on stage and I won! Nothing special.
PSF: When was this?
MJ: I got my first record deal in '69, I think. So, you know, I was doing local stuff in clubs. They had a club in Brooklyn called the 521 and Tip Top and all those little clubs that everybody hung out in and sang. And the earlier artists who were good, but didn't have record deals, they all worked these little clubs. So I was in 'em and I could get up and sing and people would dance. "OK, I dare you to go up there and sing." "Or what...?" "I'll give ya a dollar." Or else somebody else would go up and sing, you know, and (they'd say) "I'll bet you won't follow that." "What? THAT? Hell yeah, I'll follow that! Gimme five dollars."
PSF: When you started performing in the clubs, what kind of material were you singing?
MJ: Mostly, the men's songs. I didn't like women's songs. I liked Gladys Knight and the Pips but you know... There were no women that was doing songs that I wanted to do. They may be brazen and have the nerve to do certain things but if somebody came out with a song that said something I need to say, I would add to it. I'd do the song and when I first started singing, I did all the clubs and stuff because I would talk to the audience and go out into the audience. I didn't care. So it all worked.
PSF: Do you remember any of those early songs that you did in the clubs then?
MJ: Most of it were men's songs. Anything that was on the charts that the men would do, I would do. When I first started... I think I was doing Maxine Brown "It's All In My Mind." But I mostly did the men's songs. Tyrone Davis, you know. Johnny Taylor. I might do one song by B.B. King if I could break it up. I would say things that he wouldn't say but it was a song that you could add your own lyrics to and play with. But I didn't do a lot of women's songs. Gladys Knight. Who else..? In the early days before I recorded, just singing locally, I might have done something by Maxine Brown, Etta James. But mostly I did the men's songs because the audience seemed to appreciate me doing the men's songs better, I guess because women didn't have the nerve to do that and I was doing it. (laughs)
MJ's 1972 debut album
PSF: So what led you to work with Spring Records?
MJ: Joe Simon. (cuts it off there and laughs)
PSF: OK, what's the story behind that?
MJ: He was one of the owners of Spring. (ED NOTE: also an R&B singer/songwriter/producer) My office was at 1650 Broadway (Manhattan), which is at 51st Street and they were at 53rd. So we'd hang out, go up there and get off of work and hang out downstairs in the bar at the restaurant at 1650. And Juggy Murray Jones (singer/songwriter/producer/label owner) was right down the street. So, all of the record labels was in a five block radius from 1650 Broadway where I was working at, the day gig.
PSF: What was the day gig?
MJ: I worked for Strauss, the candy people had restaurants. They had a hundred and something restaurants and then they also had... coffee service. So, with me being a decent cook, they had carts that you take to the offices and serve food for six or seven hours in the offices. They came up and get coffee and cakes and Danishes and stuff. But I was a pretty decent cook too. They enjoyed my food because I knew to make stuff that wasn't on the menu. (laughs)
PSF: So when you started with Spring, you already some early R&B hits with them. Was that kind of overwhelming for you?
MJ: Well... not really. I kept my job at Strauss and Kimerbly Knitwear down in the Garment District and got all of my gowns and stuff for 50 percent off the regular price 'cause I worked for 'em. So, I was always looking good- when I went out talking shit, I didn't look like I'd be talking shit. (laughs) I was dressing better than the average person in my category 'cause they couldn't afford it. But I was paying wholesale. Wholesale was... $10 more than 50 percent off. (laughs)
So being in the Garment district, and the Garment district ran right into the music industry as far as New York is concerned. From 32nd street to 39th street was the garment district and then you moved up into the music industry- the record business and booking agencies and stuff. I could walk from my day gig to the record label. (laughs)
PSF: When you were doing those early songs, did you draw a lot from your own personal experiences?
MJ: Nah, not really. I just wanted them to be good songs and make 'em rhyme and come up with a subject that nobody had the nerve to record but me. (laughs)
PSF: Did you see any other singers then as kindred spirits or did you think that you were on your own with your work?
MJ: I was totally on my own because like I said, Gladys Knight and the Pips was my number one. I loved her voice. And then I would switch over the men and do a female version of a man's song that was a hit.
PSF: You were touring a long time after you started making music.
MJ: Oh yeah. I started touring in '69. I was the opening act for L.C. Cooke, Sam Cooke's brother. That's when I got to go on the road and do all of this stuff and made enough money that I didn't have to go to my day gig anymore. Kimberly Knit could go to hell and I could still pay the rent. (laughs) And as I went on, I saved enough money to send my daughter to college, pay the babysitters and all of that, 'cause I making more money working Friday, Saturday and Sunday than other people like me was doing working every night and every day.
PSF: Another bold thing you did is the Caught Up album. How did you come up with the idea to do a whole album about two sides of a love affair?
MJ: Doing what I was already doing on stage. I just decided to record it.
PSF: So it was a reflection of your stage act then?
MJ: Yeah, because I was not a singer that they'd call on stage and I'd pick up the mic and sing. I'd go up on stage and sing half a song and then I'm out in the audience, messing with people. (both laughs)
PSF: But it was unique then to do an R&B concept album, half with the wife and half with the other woman. Other R&B artists weren't doing that then.
MJ: Yeah. To me, it was just being creative, you know. Telling a story.
PSF: For that album, you were also working with the Muscle Shoals band. Did you like working with them?
MJ: Well, they were the only band that I knew that, you know, didn't have charts and all of that. When I went to Muscle Shoals to record, it was like I was going to a club tonight, you know. And whatever song I was going to record, and (producer) Brad Shapiro would let me do whatever I thought I wanted to do and he had the knowledge of how to get the band to do what was thinking. And that was it! He just did it. There's an old saying that I've heard people say when I was growing up, "if it comes up, it comes out." (laughs)
PSF: You got even bolder with Feelin' Bitchy (1977), where you were talking about cunnilingus.
MJ: I was talking about what?
PSF: (laughs) Now you're gonna make me blush. The less fancy term for it is "eating pussy."
MJ: Oh! OK! Yeah, I did talk about that, didn't I? (laughs) I forgot! What was that song?
PSF: Well, it was half of that album where you're talking about that. And the cover was pretty sexy, with your tongue out and supposedly, some stores were scared to display that. What did you decide to up the ante there and get more dirty there?
MJ: I haven't a clue! To me, I was just being funny. (laughs) And have the nerve to express it so the people can understand what I'm saying. But it really never affected me that way.
PSF: What do you mean by that?
MJ: I mean, I never thought about, you know... I'd talk about it but it doesn't mean that I'm doing it. I was never into all of that. I would rather tell you to kiss my ass and hope you don't do it for real. (both laugh)
PSF: Wow, you still got it.
MJ: Thank you! You know, I think of all of this as comedy and some of the worst things I have ever said during a show or otherwise was to see the expression on the person's face I'm talking to. Like for example, when I had the song, "Something You Can Feel." You know, I'll slap the shit out of you for trying to feel me, but I'd go out in the audience and actually feel the penises. If they let me! And the real reason I was doing it 'cause it was hilarious to me. If the guys were with another woman, she would be slapping my hand when I'm trying to feel it. And he would be scared to open his legs so I could feel it, when he was with another woman! So, it was HILARIOUS to me and had nothing to do with sex. It had to do with the fact that, as far as I was concerned, "OK, he looks like a minister- let me see if he'll let me feel it." You know. And the people in the audience would know him and they were going to be like me, seeing if they were going to let me feel it. (sings) "Is it something I can feel." (laughs)
PSF: I'm sure you got something interesting reactions from that.
MJ: Oh yeah! Definitely.
PSF: Any other instances where you did something that really got a rise out of the audiences?
MJ: I don't know! I haven't done those songs for SO long because it's hard to feel it if you're doing a concert on a home stage- they gonna have to bring it to you. (laughs)
PSF: I could tell you a story about one of your shows where you got a great reaction from the crowd with something raunchy too. I was at a show you were doing a show in the mid-'80's at Carnegie Hall with B.B. King and Bobby Blue Bland. You said to the crowd "there's a crisis in this country today! There's a lack of good black dick out there!" You got a great reaction out of the audience- lots of laughs.
MJ: I don't even remember saying it! When I'm on stage, I don't remember half the things I say. If comes up, it comes out, and I forget it did! (laughs)
PSF: But it must be great to get a reaction like that from a crowd.
MJ: Oh, definitely! You know, I'm there to please people who bought a ticket. And like I said, with "Something I Can Feel," sometimes the guy would open their legs for me to feel it. But if they were with another woman, THEY were the ones slapping my hand! And it was hilarious to me! And the audience was eating it up 'cause they was waiting to see if she was gonna let me feel it or if he was gonna push me out of the way. That kind of thing. (laughs)
PSF: At that time, even many liberated woman wouldn't have thought to do anything like that, especially in public. Where did you find the courage or guts to do that yourself?
MJ: I have no idea. When I first started this stuff, my reputation was worse than me. The people with the real nerve and think that I was bodacious and crazy or other people were the same way, I just picked up on it. Even down to the language, you know, I didn't do that much cussing but occasionally it just came out. Then it got to the point where... people enjoyed it. You know, not the ones that didn't necessarily get me to feel it but the audience loved it 'cause of the reaction of the people who was watching me do it! Or the people who wouldn't let me do it. (laughs)
PSF: Are you talking about when you starting out in the '60's when you started out or is this more in the '70's?
MJ: 70's. In fact, later 70's. After Feelin' Bitchy.
PSF: Even then, you were incredibly courageous and a pioneer.
MJ: Well, I don't know. I didn't call it courageous. I just called it... entertaining, you know. I'm enjoying what I'm doing and the people are enjoying it. That's what really mattered.
PSF: Regardless, nobody else was doing what you were then. Maybe I can't convince you that you were, but I believe that you were very brave doing what you did. Even male performers and rock acts, they weren't doing that on record, or on stage.
MJ: OK... (laughs)
PSF: You've only been married once briefly. Was there a reason for that?
MJ: When I came along, women were supposed to be laid back and doing what their husband said that they should be doing. That just was not gonna happen (for me). So it made no SENSE for me to be married when my husband was gonna be pissed off at me feeling somebody else's penis in the middle of a show. (both laugh) And then I'm gonna come home to him and say "I'm tried, I just worked, I'm going to sleep!" (both laugh)
PSF: Talk about working with Isaac Hayes (Royal Rappin's album, 1979).
MJ: You know how long ago that's been? You mean how was it recording with him or leaving him out? (laughs) He was a friend of mine- both of us been rappers, you know? But my style was feminine. (laughs)
But you know what? It took us two days. I was living in New Jersey or New York but I flew down here and did it and it took two days for us to do all the vocals.
PSF: You had an album cover with you sitting on the toilet bowl (1989's Back to the S**t! ). Some people said it was the worst cover ever but again, I was amazed at how bold you were to do something like that. Could you talk about how that happened where you posed on the toilet?
MJ: How about the fact that we all do that! If you're not sitting on the toilet, you got an outhouse! (both laugh) It came from the song "Get It Out Your System"- that was the single. So how else can you get it out your system, if you're not sitting on the toilet? (both laugh)
PSF: Is there anything about sex or relationships that's off limits in your mind to do a song about?
MJ: I... don't know on the sex part because I have, as you know, a reputation for cussing and telling people off. I don't get that sexy. (laughs) Unless you call "The Phuck U Symphony" sexy!
PSF: Was there ever anything too personal that you didn't feel comfortable sharing in songs or monologues?
MJ: (pauses) Um, not really because you know, a lot of people just don't have the nerve to ask me certain things. 'Cause they thing they gonna get cussed out, they don't wanna go there. (laughs) But other than that, no, not really. I talk about practically anything.
PSF: Yeah, that's true. You do! (both laugh) As someone who spoke so explicitly in their songs, who do you think in R&B, rap or any other style of music follow up on your example well?
MJ: I... really don't know. I can't think of anybody really who followed me. Some of the younger people, you know, tried to get involved but they were too young for the record company or their parents or somebody to let them do that so therefore, I can't really think of anybody.
PSF: In rap especially nowadays, more and more woman are getting pretty explicit with their material and I keep thinking that they couldn't have done that without you doing what you did first.
MJ: Well, I can't say that I had anything to do with that because I can't think of anybody. You know, I... use profanity but I never really got off into sex and all of that. Other people who were... thrown in the category with me, they were mostly talking about sex and that was not what I was talking about. I said "fuck you," not "I will fuck you." (laughs)
PSF: You had a stage play called "Young Man, Older Woman" (1991). Could you talk about how that came about?
MJ: That was a play I did. And, I just did it. At that point, I already had, you know, gold albums and all of that stuff. I had to become... dirty old woman star! (laughs) So that was whatever seemed like a good venture to make some money. So I decided to do the play. Somebody wanted to put it out, so I wrote it and they wanted to put it out so I did it.
PSF: You also did a radio show for a Dallas station for a while (about 1999-2012). Could you talk about that?
MJ: Yeah. Dallas gave me a job... I think I did about eight years with them. But I was tired of going to a gig, I done got a reputation. I got tired of the radio station interviews for the gigs and you look at the DJ and he's interviewing you with his hand on the button (to bleep her out) and you think you're gonna get it by. (laughs) When they found out I was doing it, they were like "she's on the air, you know? Well, she must know what she's doing if she didn't get fined or fired yet. She must know what you can and can't say." I took the radio station here 'cause I was tired of people interviewing me with their hand on the button. (laughs)
PSF: So what were you doing on your own radio show?
MJ: I was on five days a week, and basically, I just played music and talked. For the last hour, I would take phone calls and we'd do conversations about whatever we wanted to and I had MY finger on the button! (both laughs)
PSF: You started Weird Wreckurds as your own label at the start of the millennium. What have you been doing with the label and otherwise since then?
MJ: Well basically, it was just... I want my own label so I can do and say what I want to say on it. And Spring was nice enough to let me do this and so I said "if I get my own label, I can explore it further." You know, can't nobody tell me what I can and cannot do on my own label.
PSF: What are you planning now?
MJ: I'm not really planning anything. I'll be 81 in July. To me, it's... I'm not gonna starve to death. I listen to country music in my car, and always when I was singing- you know, "Back In Love By Monday" and all of that, by Merle Haggard. And you're talking about in the early (days), like '71. To me, country music just always told a better story and it always HAD a story.
I heard a country song on day and it said (singing) "you can buuuuy dirt/there will never be no mooooore/just buy dirt..." (from the Jordan Davis song) so that's what I did. (both laughs) Every time I had a new contract, I'd buy more dirt. (laugh)
PSF: So you're saying that you bought up land?
MJ: Oh yeah! I always bought real estate. I sold most of it now but I still got 53 acres, about 25 miles from here, down the road. The funniest thing about it is when I was living in (New) Jersey, and working the South mostly because of the kind of music that I was doing. If we were doing two weekends in the South, the whole band and I came down and worked Friday/Saturday/Sunday, then we went down to the farm on Monday and we'd barbeque and fished and swimmed and all of that until it was time to pull out the unforms and get ready to go to work again on Friday. (laughs) And it was cool 'cause we had a pond in the back of the trailer so we could swim and fish and drink corn liquor and act crazy and just have fun!
PSF: When was this that you're talking about now?
MJ: In the early '60's. And then I recorded and got my first record like in '69 so then, the rest of the time, I already had the farm and the pond and the band and all of that, so it was like... just do it! Have fun doing it on the weekend and have fun fishing and being crazy on Monday, Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, time to get ready to go to work on Friday! (laughs)
PSF: So you still have farm land?
MJ: Oh yeah. The funny thing about it is I got a... letter last year and my phone is forever ringing now, 'cause everybody wants to buy my farm, 'cause they think I don't know that all of the property in front of my 53 acres is going to be turned into a shopping mall. And they think I don't know that so they want to buy my farm. The lake done dried up, a tornado came through and done set the trailer in the pond that dried up in the dirt. And one of the houses I had, the tornado just tore it up and I left it there- wasn't nobody renting it out. And like I said, the trailer is sitting in the pond where we used to fish in the dirt, but the pond done dried up! (laughs) So it's just there and people don't know that I own the property. So everybody wants to buy my property and they don't think I know that there's gonna be a mall that's gonna be in front of my property. They didn't know that I had to sign the papers for the county to OK it. (laughs)
PSF: So what are you going to do about that property then?
MJ: I'm gonna sell it when the mall comes up. (laugh) When it becomes more money (for me)!
PSF: How would you advise other women to 'talk shit,' especially since no one did it like you did?
MJ: Well, I don't have a way to do it except tell the truth. And like I always said, if it comes up, it comes out. (laughs)
PSF: How do you think you'd like to be remembered?
MJ: I don't think about it. Just... you know, however they've been remembering me all these years. It's fine- just tell the truth.
photo by Darrell Lane; courtesy of Millie Jackson
