They Hate Me Because They Ain't Me" for his debut on Capitol. He's a "bad dude" in the tradition of R&B's "bad dudes." A real bad dude who has a pretty good thing going. In addition to having recorded four No. 1-hit singles, he was named the No. 1 R&B male artist of the year (2004) by _The Source_. _Soul Survivors: Portraits of Black Composers_ is W. David Marx's first full-length book. He is the founder and president of Jubilee Records, the reissue label and production company he runs with his wife, Gail Porter. "I've always thought of myself as black-music oriented, not black-art oriented," says Marx of Jubilee's focus. "I didn't want to do a collection of paintings by black artists or drawings by black artists or anything like that. I wanted the focus to be on the music, a lot of people who probably wouldn't consider themselves black, like B.B. King and Aretha Franklin. I've always done something like this. We started doing reissues on vinyl about ten years ago. We began with Chess, then we did Atlantic, Motown. We did quite a few things. We had five albums that were nominated for a Grammy in the jazz category. We've also done two anthologies, and we do a few new reissues every year." For Marx, his involvement in the music world stemmed from the "first love of his life," the late Jackie Jackson. "I met Jackie when I was twenty-two, on tour," Marx says. "I knew that he and Aretha were in the same business. It was the same year Aretha won three Grammys—the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972. He had been in Chicago for a few years when I met him on tour. So I got to spend a lot of time with him, and I learned a lot from him. I had originally gotten involved in it because I really loved the music, and I'd been listening to it all my life. It was interesting and challenging to figure out how to get a record label, and where you could go with a record label, and how you could make a record label stand out in the marketplace, so that you could have some success." _AllMusic.com_ W. David Marx's second CD for Jubilee, _We Are Jubilee_ , features jazz saxophonist Jimmy Heath. The CD also includes an orchestral interpretation of "We Are Jubilee" by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. This is Jackie Jackson's portrait on the cover of Marx's book _Soul Survivors_. "Jackie had the strongest influence on me in terms of how I saw myself," says Marx. "The reason I say that is because, first of all, he had been my mentor and he really set the stage for me. He was my first manager. He took me under his wing. Jackie had a strong sense of pride, and I think that's the key thing for young black performers to see. What I learned most from him is that if you have any sense of pride, any sense of style, any sense of class, then people have to recognize it and respect you. Jackie was my greatest mentor. He was my manager, he was my uncle, he was my son, he was my brother." In addition to Jubilee, Marx was involved in the creation of the Jubilee Records label, a boutique record label devoted to rediscovering the musical talent of the past. Marx is a longtime student of jazz, both in the musical sense and in the visual sense. His work on the book _Soul Survivors_ is a blend of two different disciplines. It is a labor of love, for which he drew on the photographs he took when he was shooting the album cover portraits and the videos he edited for performers who appeared on the label. He is also a veteran of several photo shoots for the _Vibe_ magazine story he was doing for his book. "I learned a lot from the work that I did for _Vibe_ ," says Marx. "Even though it was a story, they had me shoot a lot of stills of artists, and they gave me as much editorial freedom as I wanted. I took a lot of still photographs of the artists and used those for the art in the book, because of my personal respect and fascination with the music. I took a lot of still photographs of some of the singers and musicians and put them into my book. "I would say that this book was in part autobiographical," Marx continues. "Many of the people in my book are family members—in particular, my granddad, who passed away about two years ago. And the people in the book who are no longer with us are my aunt [Myrtis] and my cousin [Bobby] and my granddad [Jackie], who were all influential figures in my life. And I didn't see the book as being so autobiographical. I just saw it as the kind of book that was very much influenced by them. And I was very fortunate to have all those people in my life at that time in my life, when I was forming those connections with them and they were in their later years and were a bit more generous with their time. I think that is what I learned most from the whole experience, in terms of seeing the connection between the visual work that I do and the music that I hear. The people who have passed are all from the musical work that I've done, and I wanted to make sure that they were recognized for it. I think you'll see that there are many people who you'll recognize from _Soul Survivors_ who have passed, and that's a tribute to the artists who have passed, like Jackie and Aretha. "As for how I work, I know that I would never have the time to do the amount of work that I do as a commercial photographer and editor if I didn't have the connection to the music. It's a very symbiotic relationship. It's very much an all-encompassing experience for me. _The Soul Man_ is _the_ definitive book about Jackie Jackson. It was originally published in 1990, and it was reissued in 2006 with some of his most intimate photos. # **JACKIE JACKSON: THE COMPLETE PORTRAIT** by W. David Marx **JACKIE JACKSON: THE COMPLETE PORTRAIT** is the first to publish many never-before-published photographs that reveal the personal and professional life of a man whose name is synonymous with R&B, who inspired a generation and opened up the music business to a vast new market. **By W. David Marx** The 1960s and 1970s saw an explosion of black talent in America. Before the passing of Lena Horne and the retirement of Shirley Caesar, Shirley Verrett, Al Hibbler and Pearl Bailey in the 1980s, there were greats such as Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, the Count Basie Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughn and even the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Lillian McAlister, who wrote _Shirley Graham and the Harlem Aces_ , one of the best books on the history of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, also wrote _Shirley Caesar, Black Venus: A Biography_. Both Lillian McAlister and Alma Reed, Shirley Caesar's sister and manager, made certain that Shirley Caesar had a voice in the songs she sang and that her artistry and beauty was always on display. Shirley Caesar went on to become one of the most sought-after cabaret singers in the country and later one of the top-selling black recording artists. She was truly a "chameleon," changing with the times. When a record company discovered that they could make more money by marketing her as the Queen of the Blues, Caesar was soon off to the races, and she never looked back. She recorded with everyone from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald to Ray Charles and B.B. King, singing their songs, just as she'd been singing Duke Ellington's songs in one of the Harlem bands for over twenty years. From the Harlem to the Apollo Theater, Shirley Caesar had such a strong presence that people wanted to hear her songs. She was constantly on tour, and on the road she became friends with people such as Jackie Jackson, whom she knew through Ella Fitzgerald. So many people wanted to perform with Shirley Caesar that she had to constantly be traveling, so she wasn't able to spend the time she needed to record. Caesar was like a bird with feathers that she could take with her, wherever she went and whenever she sang—which she was constantly doing. She'd go back to the studio, and they'd create a studio arrangement, leaving just enough space for her to fill in with her voice. She was always in demand as a singer, but she only released one record in her life as a singer. Shirley Caesar was born in Kansas City and grew up in the heart of Harlem, where her father was a physician. When she was a girl, Shirley Caesar, the child of an affluent family, lived in a three-story brownstone in Harlem, where she was known as the "princess." From her earliest days, Shirley Caesar knew she wanted to be a singer, and she practiced her art