SOUNDTRACK: FREDDIE JACKSON-“You Are My Lady” (1985).
I listened to this song after reading this story.
Somehow I assumed that this song was going to be a big old 60’s or 70’s powerful soul song.
So when I started the video on YouTube and the super cheesy 80s synths began, I thought it was accidentally playing “Endless Love” (1981) instead.
Interesting how this I created an entirely incorrect imagine of Jackson based on this story.
Reading the comments on the video, this song is hugely important to a lot of people. I honestly can’t get past the production.
But his voice is pretty fine (well, except for that middle part which is the kind of singing I do not care for).
[READ: November 21, 2019] “Arizona”
I really haven’t enjoyed much by Wideman. I just don’t like his style. I think in everything I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed what the stories were about, but I didn’t like the way he wrote them. This story was probably the one I’ve liked best by him, but it felt way too long and digressive.
It opens as a letter to “Mr. Jackson” which begins “Thank you for your music…”
I assumed it was to Michael Jackson. But it turned out to be to Freddie Jackson, a soul singer who I don’t know. Jackson is still alive which makes this story an actual letter to him (even if it as never “sent”) which is kind of weird.
The story is (as far as I can tell) largely autobiographical. The crux of the story concerns Wideman’s son [one of his three children] who was convicted of a murder that he committed while he was a minor and was sentenced to life in prison in Arizona. This is an unbelievably heartbreaking thing to have read and of course it fully colors the story (and makes me feel bad for saying I didn’t like parts of it). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 