Jackie DeShannon

Ever since June 1956 – when she released Baby Honey and I’m Crazy Darlin’ under the name of Sherry Lee on the Mar-Vel label – Jackie DeShannon (real name Sharon Lee Myers) has been an artist to be reckoned with.

This Kentucky-born singer/songwriter is best-known in the UK for her chart successes Needles and Pins and When You Walk In The Room, which were both British 60s hits for The Searchers. These two songs were hits in the US for Jackie herself.

As a writer she scored hits with Brenda Lee (Dum Dum), The Carpenters (Boat To Sail), The Byrds (Don’t Doubt Yourself Babe), Marianne Faithfull (Come & Stay With Me) and The Searchers (When You Walk In The Room).

Growing up on a 500 acre Kentucky farm, DeShannon learned about music from her parents.

Her entire family was musical- her mother was a singer and had a radio show. Grandmother used to play old Irish folk songs, father played harmonica, and all her uncles played and sang.

In early childhood, she was also exposed to blues singers like Lightnin’ Hopkins.

When she was 11, the family moved to Illinois. where Jackie also had a radio show. At 15, she got interested in jazz and went on the road, singing.

By the time the 1960s rolled around, she was a blonde pop diva with a cool, seductive voice, and her talent as a songwriter was much in demand.

She was also a self-assured producer, manoeuvring – with some difficulty – through the male-dominated LA studio scene.

One of the best female vocalists of the 60s, Jackie recorded a wide range of songs herself, from composers such as Jack Nitzsche, Sonny Bono, Bobby Womack, Chip Taylor, and early Carole Bayer Sager and Toni Wine.

She was one of the first to record a song by Jamie Robertson (The Weight), and she co-wrote Put A Little Love In My Heart with Jimmy Holiday and Randy Myers.

From sessions with Bacharach and David – who at that time were riding high with their string of hits for Dionne Warwick – What The World Needs Now charted up to #7 in the US, and was later used over the closing titles of the movie Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969).

In addition to her musical career, Jackie acted in many US TV productions.

But during this period, things just didn’t seem to be going right. There were personal problems: a second marriage fell through, a nervous breakdown ensued, a creative slump persisted, and her recordings, however good, seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Though it seemed that if Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Paul Anka could find a place in the pop spectrum, there certainly ought to be a niche for Jackie DeShannon, the right formula had yet to be found.

In 1975, she joined Columbia, which gave her the support and participation she had always craved. Writing now with Donna Weiss, she put together a strong. vividly emotional album, with bold treatments of sexuality from the feminine perspective.

The album was not a big seller, but it did serve to establish Jackie as a force to be reckoned with. She returned to hit-making form in 1981 when she co-wrote Kim Carnes’s chart-topping Bette Davis Eyes.

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