I ran across a really incredible soul song in a playlist last week and looked up the artist…and found out about Jackie Shane, “a gay, cross-dressing soul singer born in Nashville, TN in 1940. He [sic] made his away across the Canadian border in the early ’60s and, in 1963, scored a local and soon forgotten hit in Toronto.”
How is there not more info out there about Jackie Shane? Jackie doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry, just a mention under the entry for “Toronto Sound” (who knew that was a thing?). There’s one introductory article about her here, where I got the opening quote, and that points us to a radio documentary that tells her story a little more in-depth.
But listen to Jackie’s hit at the very least. Like Jackie, it’s pretty fab and deserves more exposure.