Jackie Brenston

[Robertjack]

Jackie Brenston (August 24, 1928 – December 15, 1979) was an American singer and saxophonist who, with Ike Turner's band, recorded the first version of "Rocket 88" in 1951. It was noted in a subsequent interview that Brenston stated "I had a hit record and no sense".

Jack Brenston was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Brenston's birth date has long been the source of speculation. The birth date on his headstone, August 24, 1928, is the same date on his army enlistment records. However, in 1974, Brenston stated that he was born on August 24, 1927. His obituary in the Clarksdale Press Register gave his birth date as August 15, 1930, a date endorsed by researchers Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc. Brenston had a troubled youth and often ran away from home. It has been theorized that his mother, Ethel Brenston, falsified his age so that he could join the army. Brenston claimed he served more than three years in the 82nd Airborne, but records show that he enlisted on January 19, 1946, and was released on December 18, 1946.

Returning to Clarksdale from army service, Brenston learned to play the saxophone in 1947 from a local character named Jesse Flowers. "I had this $30 horn with a hole in it. I plugged the hole up with chewing gum", Brenston told writer Jim O'Neal in 1978. Before long he linked up with Ike Turner in 1950 as a tenor sax player and occasional singer in Turner's band, the Kings of Rhythm. B.B. King was impressed when he saw the group perform in Chambers, Mississippi, in early 1951 and directed them to Sam Phillips's Memphis Recording Service, where King was recording at the time. Phillips had not yet begun his Sun Records Company ; another year would pass before the first Sun record was made. But he had been operating a recording studio, making and leasing recordings, for almost a year. It was at that studio, at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, that "Rocket 88" was recorded, on March 3, 1951.