Freddie Jackson, R&B Hitmaker, Dead at 70

Freddie Jackson, the soul balladeer and slow jams firebrand whose “Rock Me Tonight,” “You Are My Lady,” and “Have You Ever Loved Somebody” dominated R&B radio in the Eighties, died Monday. The singer’s social media confirmed the news but did not list a cause of death. He was 70.

“Freddie was more than a legendary voice,” a statement from Jackson’s family said. “He was a kind, generous soul who loved his fans, his family, his friends, and his music with everything he had. For decades he gave us the songs that became the soundtrack to our love stories, our celebrations, and our most treasured memories. That gift will live on forever.” Funeral arrangements will be announced at a later date.

Jackson crooned his hits like he was wringing every ounce of emotion out of every word, making it as sexy as possible before the moment faded. In 1989, The New York Times described Jackson as “one of black pop’s most elegant performers, a singer who can turn a heartbreak ballad into a world view.” Comparing Jackson to Luther Vandross, Rolling Stone wrote in 1987 that “Jackson is more the pillow-talking love man, the tender grind partner.”

Born on Oct. 2, 1957 in Harlem, Jackson started singing gospel music and briefly fronted a group called Mystic Merlin on the West Coast before returning to New York. In a 1985 interview with Jet, singer Melba Moore recalled how she discovered Jackson’s talent when she saw him in a New York nightclub three years earlier. “I said, ‘My God, what a voice,’” she recalled. “I just screamed like everybody else.” She hired him as a backup singer and composer and helped get him a deal at Capitol Records. Moore would later record the Number One R&B song “A Little Bit More” with Jackson.

Jackson would find popular fame in his late twenties singing songs with mature themes. His velvety vocals on a string of hits off his debut album, 1985’s Rock Me Tonight, made him an instant star. The album held the Number One position on Billboard’s R&B chart for 16 weeks straight thanks to “Rock Me Tonight (For Old Time’s Sake),” “You Are My Lady,” “He’ll Never Love You (Like I Do)” and “Love Is Just a Touch Away.” It also reached Number 10 on the Billboard 200 and was later certified platinum. His breakthrough success got him nominated for two Grammys.

His next three albums, 1986’s Just Like the First Time, 1988’s Don’t Let Love Slip Away, and 1990’s Do Me Again also peaked at Number One on the R&B chart and were certified gold or platinum as he scored an impressive succession of Number One R&B singles: “Tasty Love,” “Have You Ever Loved Somebody,” “Jam Tonight,” “Nice ‘N’ Slow” (which won him an American Music Award), “Hey Lover,” “Love Me Down,” and “Do Me Again.” Outside of music, King parlayed his fame into an appearance in the movie King of New York and episodes of The Golden Girls and Family Matters.

He seemed unstoppable until the ascendency of New Jack Swing and hip-hop, which he told the media he didn’t like. His chart dominance declined in the Nineties, but he continued logging albums on Billboard’s list of Top 100 R&B Albums. As recently as 2010, his album For You made it up to Number 48 on the chart.

But even with lower sales, he nevertheless remained the benchmark for R&B cool. Outkast’s Big Boi immortalized Jackson in a verse on “So Fresh, So Clean” by comparing himself to the singer by saying he’s “cooler than Freddie Jackson sipping a milkshake in a snowstorm.”

”My music is for people who like to hold hands in concert … it’s intimate,” Jackson told the Times in 1989. “With all the racial tension going on today, all the hate, my songs, which are about love, make more sense than ever. If people could diminish some of their hate, the chaos and trouble in life wouldn’t be so strong.”