The Lipster

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jackie DeShannon: the high-flying, genre-hopping, pioneering pop woman that the ‘60s forgot. She’s done bloody everything, and the 63-year-old American’s also very possibly the most adorable person I’ve ever spoken to on my dusty office phone.

What's more, she's Lipster-savvy to boot. “I love your site, thank goodness for you!,” she squeals happily down the phone from her home with her husband in LA, before talking me through her thoughts about our Daily Sounds, Weekly Mag Reports and Cult Dames. “And you want to me to be a Cult Dame?”, she asks, bewildered. “Like Eartha Kitt? My God, I’d be honoured!”

In celebration of her new greatest hits album, out this week on EMI Records, here’s why our Jackie truly deserves the title:

She was the only female teenage singer-songwriter writing in the West Coast in the early ‘60s – when women were hardly allowed in the studio

Sharon Lee Myers – Jackie’s name before her first manager suggested something more androgynous to fit her into the early ’60s boy-heavy scene – started writing and recording young. C’Mon Everybody-wailing rock and roller Eddie Cochran was so impressed with her talents at the age of 16 that he paid for her to go to LA and hook up with a studio. “I was the only woman out there writing and producing,” she explains. “I mean in New York there was Carole King, but she had Goffey and I had no one.” At 18, she wrote her first big US hit, Faded Love, and by 1963 she’d written Needles And Pins and When You Walk In The Room, which became massive hits for The Searchers. “I had a rough go of it – no one would let me try at first, apart from demos, but I really kept at them”, she cackles. What a star.

She genre-hopped to her heart’s content and didn’t care what people said

”People wanted to put me in a box but I wouldn’t let them. They said I was inconsistent. I just loved a whole bunch of stuff, and what’s wrong with that?” In the ‘60s and beyond, Jackie recorded rockabilly, gospel, folk, country and teen pop, and she won’t apologise for her flitty tastes either. “Why should I? I just did what I was interested in at the time. And I’ve worked with Randy Newman, Jimmy Page, Van Morrison, really good men who appreciated what I do, so I’m not letting other men get me down.” You tell ‘em, lady.

She was the first solo artist to tour with the Beatles, sang for Burt Bacharach and got busy with Elvis

Still only 19, Jackie got the best gig of all – supporting The Beatles on their scream-mongering 1964 US tour. “When I met them, Paul came out of the car, and I was just dying, sticking my little hand out going, hello, I’m Jackie. Paul just smiled and said, ‘I know who you are’.” Then Burt Bacharach had her sing some of his songs, including What The World Needs Now I Love. Then came Elvis. Did you go out with him, Jackie? She laughs. “He was a great guy, really grounded, and yes, he didn’t look bad either.” Jackie, you’re not answering the question, dear. “I didn’t go out with him, no. But we did hook up.” Jackie is giggling saucily down the phone now. “Several times.” What a minx.

She loves writing for ballsy ladies

”Nothing has ever made me happier than writing for strong women, I’m telling you.” Jackie then lists her personal favourite self-penned songs. These include Come Stay With Me, the top ten hit she wrote the ‘60s for Marianne Faithfull, Tracey Ullman’s Breakaway in the ’80s and Put A Little Love In Your Heart, made into a hit by Annie Lennox and Al Green in 1988 and – oh yes – Dolly Parton in 1993. “Hearing a woman sing something I’ve written is just the best.”

Christ alive, she co-wrote Bette Davis Eyes

As covered in Grammy-winning'80s fashion by the shoulder pad-bothering Kim Carnes – and a track I used to sing into my hairbrush as a chubby, pop-loving child. “That’s the kind of things I dream of with my songs, you know. That’s what it’s all about!” Jackie, can you adopt me, please?

She’s still a ball-busting broad and always will be

And let’s allow the lady herself to tell you how: “The thing about sites like yours is that they’re vital. Because for women, it’s always the same – they get judged just by their gender, put in a corner, like they always have been. It’s all ‘If you don’t have the lips and the boobs then just forget about the music’. But young women are fighting against that now, they really are, and we need to encourage them not go with type, to be who they are, not fall out of cars with everything hanging out, and just have the patience to keep it true. We do!” We couldn’t have put it sweeter ourselves. Jackie, consider yourself anointed.

Jackie DeShannon's digitally remastered Best Of collection, Her Own Kind Of Light, is out now