Jackie DeShannon shares stories from her pioneering songwriting career as part of the Museum’s Poets and Prophets interview series, which highlights legendary songwriters. This live interview and performance was recorded on April 6, 2024.

During the interview with the Museum’s Michael Gray, DeShannon talks about her country roots, what led her to begin writing her own songs, and her move to Los Angeles. They discuss her songwriting hits, including Brenda Lee’s “Dum Dum”; “When You Walk in the Room,” which was a success for the Searchers in the 1960s and decades later for Pam Tillis on the country charts; the 1969 anthem “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” which DeShannon recorded herself and co-wrote with her brother, Randy Myers; and “Bette Davis Eyes,” which was a hit for Kim Carnes and won DeShannon the Grammy for Song of the Year in 1982. The program also includes video clips of DeShannon performing with Country Music Hall of Fame members Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, the Everly Brothers, and Willie Nelson.

DeShannon was born in Hazel, Kentucky, and was a country radio performer in Kentucky and Illinois as a child. In her teens, she began a long recording career that would embrace country, rockabilly, folk, pop, gospel, and R&B. “Buddy,” a Buddy Holly tribute DeShannon wrote and then recorded in Nashville in 1958, was a regional rockabilly hit. DeShannon moved to Los Angeles in 1960 and debuted on the national charts with her cover of the Bob Wills country standard “Faded Love” in 1963. She scored her first major pop hit in 1965 with a soulful rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”

One of the first singer-songwriters of the rock & roll era, DeShannon was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame for penning hits for herself and others. DeShannon’s other credits include “Breakaway” (Irma Thomas), “Come and Stay with Me” (Marianne Faithfull), and “(He’s) The Great Imposter” (the Fleetwoods). Her songs have also been performed by the Byrds, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Green, Annie Lennox, Van Morrison, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen, and dozens of other artists.

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