Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.
“Syl Johnson‘s band was playing there, and I won a singing contest,” Ross says in Robert Pruter’s 1991 book Chicago Soul. “The award was a weekend of singing and being paid. And that started me singing in Syl’s band. We worked a lot of places, and I was working with Syl Johnson when Bill Doc Lee discovered me.”
The good times didn’t last at Chess, though. After more great tracks, such as the jaunty “Dynamite Lovin’” and the slow-building “Take Me for a Little While” (also recorded by Evie Sands, much to Ross’s chagrin), Ross started to suspect that she wasn’t being paid everything she was owed. According to Nadine Cohodas, author of the 2000 Chess history Spinning Blues Into Gold, Ross “disagreed with the notion that she shouldn’t concern herself with sales royalties because the record was really a means to better and more performing dates. ‘They sounded like I should be grateful because they put my name out there so I could work.’”
Ross has returned to singing gospel in Chicago churches, but she doesn’t stick to it exclusively—in 2010, for instance, she joined the R&B extravaganza at the Old Town School of Folk Music celebrating Syl Johnson’s Numero Group box set. “Her main thing (before the pandemic) has been designing and crafting dresses and doing other tailoring under the ‘Sew What? by Jackie’ name,” says soul scholar and Reader contributor Aaron Cohen. “She’s also been a nutritionist.” Here’s hoping that this living legend—who’s so much more than a one-hit wonder—can be coaxed back onto the stage when in-person concerts are safe for septuagenarians again! v
