Freddie Jackson Dies: R&B Hitmaker Behind “Rock Me Tonight”,”You Are My Lady” & Many More Was 69

Freddie Jackson, the soulful, Grammy-nominated singer who racked up 10 No. 1 R&B hits including “Rock Me Tonight” and “You Are My Lady” and had eight other Top 10s in just six years, died October 5, days after his 70th birthday.

The news was announced Tuesday on Jackson’s social media accounts, but no cause of death was listed.

After recording three albums with the Los Angeles band Mystic Merlin, Jackson went solo and returned to his native New York. With his emotive crooning style, he became a dominant force on R&B radio from his 1985 debut into the early 1990s, scoring back-to-back No. 1 hits right off the bat with “Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake)” and “You Are My Lady.” Both also made the Top 20 on Billboard’s pop singles chart.

That success earned Jackson a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist — he lost to “Smooth Operator” group Sade — and another, Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male, for “You Are My Lady.” Watch the video for that song here and for “Rock Me Tonight” below:

The hits would keep comin’. Jackson topped the R&B chart eight more times with such ’80s songs as “Tasty Love,” “Jam Tonight,” “Hey Lover,” “Nice ‘N’ Slow” and the Melba Moore duet “A Little Bit Moore.” He also had a pair of No. 1s in the early 1990s with “Love Me Down” and “Do It Again.” Three others reached No. 2. “Nice ‘N’ Slow” won an American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single in 1988.

Moore remembered Jackson in a statement released Tuesday. “My heart is broken over the loss of a great singer and even a greater friend, Freddie Jackson,” the multi-Grammy nominee and Tony winner wrote. “When we worked together on songs such as our hit, ‘A Little Bit More’, his sense of humor had me laughing during the sessions. We had such a special relationship. I will forever miss my dear friend. Rest peacefully, Freddie.”

Born on October 2, 1956, in Harlem, Jackson released more than a dozen solo albums from 1985-2018, with his first two — Rock Me Tonight (1985) and Just Like the First Time (1987) — going platinum and his debut making the pop Top 10. They began a string of four consecutive No. 1s on Billboard‘s R&B albums chart, followed by 1988’s Don’t Let Love Slip Away and 1990’s Do Me Again, both of which went gold.

His fifth album, Time for Love, would be Jackson’s last for Capitol Records, his label since the start of his solo career. It peaked at No. 7 on the R&B LPs chart, becoming his final Top 10 record. Switching to RCA as R&B radio tastes evolved, his 1994 album Here It Is would be Jackson’s last big commercial success, reaching No. 11 and spawning the No. 2 R&B hit “I Could Use a Little Love (Right Now).” He continued to record for various labels through 2018, reaching the Top 50 on the R&B chart with most of them.

Jackson’s songs have been featured in dozens of films and TV shows over the decades, ranging from One Life to Live, The Golden Girls and All Dogs Go to Heaven to Family Matters, Ally McBeal, Love & Basketball and most recently the Chris Rock-directed Top Five. He performed three times on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and made more than a half-dozen appearances on Soul Train.

After being off the road for a while, Jackson returned to touring in 2014 and again in 2017. He received the Legend Award at the 2019 Black Music Honors ceremony.

Information on survivors or a memorial service was not immediately available.

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