As both a smouldering pop starlet and one of the first successful female songwriters of the 1960s, Jackie DeShannon scored the timeless hits 'What the World Needs Now Is Love' and 'Put a Little Love in Your Heart' as well as touring with The Beatles and dating Elvis Presley.

Growing up on a farm in Kentucky, DeShannon was singing country songs on local radio at just six-years-old, and made her first recordings at 16 under the name Jackie Dee in the late 1950s. Early rock and roll hero Eddie Cochran helped her form a songwriting partnership with his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley which produced hits for Brenda Lee, but she came to prominence as a performer with the single 'Needles and Pins' in 1963 which was written by Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche and topped the Canadian charts. Her track 'When You Walk in the Room' was also seen as pushing the boundaries between folk and soul music and was later turned into a hit for The Searchers and she starred in the movie 'Surf's Up' before turning Burt Bacharach and Hal David's song 'What the World Needs Now Now Is Love' into an instantly-recognisable pop classic in 1964.

She also worked with Jimmy Page and Randy Newman and wrote songs for Marianne Faithful, Irma Thomas and The Byrds but it was her 1969 hit 'Put a Little Love in Your Heart' that became her signature anthem and was subsequently covered by over 60 different artists. Although her profile as a solo star dwindled slightly as the years went by, she sang on Van Morrison's album 'Hard Nose The Highway' in 1973 and co-wrote the huge hit 'Bette Davis Eyes' for Kim Carnes in 1981, which reached number one in the US charts and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. Her songs have continued to be recorded by acts such as Al Green and Annie Lennox, Dolly Parton, Ella Fitzgerald and Cher and in 2010 DeShannon was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Jackie DeShannon

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