Millie Jackson

She’s been called the “Queen of Extreme,” a moniker she’s lived up to for more than 30 years. It all started back in 1971, when the Thompson, Ga., native released “A Child of God,” a lyrically combustible tune (despite its title) that soared up the charts. Since then, Jackson has maintained her reputation as a racy, raunchy, no-holds-barred singer whose lyrics are so raw and so pungent they could make even a gutter-mouthed hardcore rapper turn red.

Despite her longevity and long list of hits (“Ask Me What You Want,” “My Man, Sweet Man,” “Hurts So Good,” “If Loving You is Wrong,” “Back in Love by Monday”), Jackson has never won a Grammy or received any of the accolades reserved for those R&B singers who safely navigate the waters of the music industry. But Jackson doesn’t seem to mind. She continues to make music, perform in concerts and plays, and host a highly successful, sometimes controversial afternoon radio show on Dallas’ KKDA (which she does from her home here in Atlanta). And she does it all with no apologies, no excuses.

Creative Loafing: What do you have in the works these days?

Millie Jackson: I just finished editing [the stage play] Young Man Older Woman. It’s on DVD and VHS now. I’m working, and I’m still doing radio. I’m just working my little buns off.

What kind of subject matter have you been dealing with lately on the show?

Everything. I go online and pull news. Whatever catches my eye — that is what we talk about. I give “their” president hell all the time. I call him “their” president, ‘cause he’s from Texas.

So you can sit in your living room with your bunny slippers on and do your show?

I do it downstairs where I have a studio. I tease everybody, telling them, “I know you wish this was television. I’m buck-naked!”

Why have you decided to release your latest CD, Not For Church Folk!, on your own label?

Well, mainly because I can do what I wanna, how I wanna. And if don’t nobody like it, I don’t care. It’s what I wanted to do. I’m not trying to go to the Grammys. When I had gold records, I didn’t go to the Grammys. You all invited me, and then you gave the Grammy to Aretha [Franklin] for something she recorded three years before. So, all of that’s behind me. If I make an album, it’s because I feel like it. It’s a song in my head that I like and I feel like saying it — case closed. If anybody wanna play it, fine. If not, fuck it.

Of all the songs you’ve done, do you have a favorite — one that’s special to you?

They all are special. Every album has a special song at a special time. Like right now “Leave Me Alone” is my special song, ‘cause that’s the way I feel right now. I don’t care if you’re selling Girl Scout cookies or you’re a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m on a diet and I can pray for my own sickness. Leave me alone. That’s where I am in my life, and I want to be left the hell alone.

So, you’ve got this concert on Dec. 28. Tell me about that.

I don’t know, I’ll figure it out. I’m probably gonna do “Leave Me Alone,” then of course the medley: “Back In Love By Monday,” “Hurts So Good” and all of those songs. But the rest of it ... I gotta do some of those things they expect me to do, but the week before I’ll decide. Up until then, I have no idea. My mind is somewhere else.

If you had to sum up what your career has been like from 1971 to 2002, how would you describe it?

Marvelous. That’s the one word. Marvelous. ‘Cause you’re talking to a little country girl from Thompson, Ga. And I don’t know what I was supposed to do. When I go home and see the people I went to school with — if I see any of them; most of them are dead — it’s like, how the hell did I escape, you know? I have a lot to be thankful for.


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Millie Jackson performs Sat., Dec. 28, at the Atlanta Civic Center, 395 Piedmont Ave. The Whispers and the Dramatics also perform. 7 p.m. $40-$70. 404-658-7159. www.ticketmaster.com.??