Jackie Ross: Full Bloom (1964) ... plus

The daughter of husband-and-wife preachers, Chicagoan soul diva Jackie Ross made her performing debut on her parents' radio gospel show at the early age of three. Following her father's 1954 death, the family relocated to the Windy City; there the legendary Sam Cooke, a friend of her mother, recruited Ross for his SAR label, where she issued her debut single, ‘Hard Times,’ in 1962. Following a stint singing with Syl Johnson's band, she signed to Chess Records, making her label bow with 1964's ‘Selfish One’. With its creative understated arrangement and sincere vocals, the single fell just shy of the Billboard pop Top Ten, and Ross soon issued a follow-up, ‘I've Got the Skill’ - which was just as compelling but failed to chart with the authority of its predecessor -, as well as an album, Full Bloom. If more consideration had been given to the filler, this debut by Ms. Ross would have been excellent, considering that the arrangements by Riley Hampton and Phil Wright are in the best sophisticated style of the Chicago soul school. Jackie's rendition of ‘I Had a Talk with My Man’ rivals labelmate Mitty Collier's renowned version. She does two standards, too, ‘Misty’ and ‘Summertime,’ in the gospel-tinged voice that first delighted members of her parents' church. Ross' career with Chess lasted only two years; she left in 1966 over an insultingly low royalty check paid to her for ‘Selfish One.’ In 1967 Jackie landed at Brunswick; two years later, she moved to Jerry Butler's Fountain Productions, but sadly failed to recapture her earlier commercial success. This reissue of her only album for Chess adds several bonus cuts to up the track length to 17, and I included SEVEN more: her first single ‘Hard Times’, another two Chess singles from 1965, 'Jerk and Twine / New Lover' and ‘Dynamite Lovin' / You Really Know How to Hurt a Girl,’ and her 1967 Brunswick 45 ‘Keep Your Chin Up / Love Is Easy to Lose‘. Besides all the aforementioned, other titles include ‘Change Your Ways’, ‘Don't Take My Love’, ‘Everything But Love’, ‘Wasting Time’, 'Trust in Me' and ‘I Wanna Hear It from You’. http://www.allmusic.com/, http://www.artistdirect.com/

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Jackie Ross performs this re-recording of her biggest hit 'Selfish One':

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The same for the classic old fave from 1967 'Keep Your Chin Up':

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