First Listen: Gregg Jackson gives us “One for the Road”

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(March 6, 2019) The music industry and Gregg Jackson were both in different places in 1982 when Jackson released the jazzy southern soul classic “One For the Road.” The industry was in the post-disco phase and the era of the self-contained R&B and funk band was nearing an end, and all of that meant there were fewer places on the radio for songs like “One for the Road,” and masculine, rangy adult baritones like the one possessed by Jackson that could put a soulful spin on a Sinatra-esque story of drowning one’s sorry in liquor.

Jackson was an industry veteran at that time who sang with and for countless soul music luminaries. He counted Otis Redding as a mentor and friend. Jackson returns in 2019 version of “One for the Road,” that is set to be released on Feb. 28 in two versions produced by Nigel Lowis. The two versions are called the Uptown and Downtown mixes. I’m digging the one that transforms “One for the Road,” from a slow, jazz infused torch song to a lushly orchestrated mid-tempo Philly soul funk-disco cut of the type PIR might have released in 1975.

Jackson has suffered a personal life that gives the song added poignancy. The singer lost his wife late last year, and Jackson and the production group dedicate the updated “One for the Road” to her memory. Check it out.

By Howard Dukes

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