"My heart is cryin', cryin', lonely teardrops":
From Dick Clark's American Bandstand...1958, I think.
A glorious voice, and a great dancer. It's quite a legacy: probably the major influence on both James Brown and Michael Jackson. Maybe Elvis as well, though Wilson was refreshingly honest about the influence sometimes going the other way: "A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man’s music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis.” A tragic end - a heart attack on stage in 1975, at the age of only 41, followed by nine years in a coma before dying in 1984 - by which time he was largely forgotten.
With a later generation of black performers converting to Islam, it's interesting that Jackie Wilson was, according to his Wiki entry, a convert to Judaism.
From 1962, That's Why (I Love You So), and, later - 1967 - Higher and Higher, in glorious colour.
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