The 1960s File Feature
Love Takes A Long Time Growing
Love Takes A Long Time Growing: Deon Jackson and the RB Charts in 1966 Deon Jackson was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and developed his musical skills in the …
01 The Story
Love Takes A Long Time Growing: Deon Jackson and the R&B Charts in 1966
Deon Jackson was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and developed his musical skills in the fertile Midwestern R&B scene that produced numerous artists who found their way into the national recording industry during the 1960s. Jackson was a singer and songwriter with a natural facility for rhythm-and-blues material that blended romantic balladry with the more contemporary soul sound that was reshaping American popular music in the mid-1960s. He signed with Carla Records, a small Detroit-area independent label, which secured distribution that enabled his recordings to reach national radio programmers and chart compilers.
Jackson's most successful recording was "Love Makes the World Go Round," released in early 1966, which reached the upper reaches of the Hot 100 and established him as a genuine commercial presence. That record's success created immediate demand for follow-up material, and Jackson's label moved quickly to capitalize on his chart momentum by releasing additional singles. "Love Takes A Long Time Growing" was among the recordings released in the wake of that initial success, arriving on the chart in spring 1966 while Jackson's profile was still elevated from his breakthrough.
Production and Sound
"Love Takes A Long Time Growing" was produced in the soul-pop idiom that characterized Carla Records' output during this period. The recording featured Jackson's clear, warm tenor voice supported by an arrangement that drew on the rhythm-and-blues tradition while incorporating the pop production values that had proven effective for crossover success on the Hot 100. The song's lyrical theme, patience in romantic development, suited Jackson's interpretive style and allowed him to demonstrate the emotional sensitivity that had distinguished his breakthrough single.
The production reflects the resources available to an independent label operating in the Detroit-area recording ecosystem during the mid-1960s. While it lacked the financial scale of Motown's productions, Carla Records was capable of delivering commercially competitive recordings, and Jackson's natural talent ensured that the material was served effectively regardless of budget constraints. The arrangement was functional and well-matched to Jackson's vocal strengths.
Billboard Hot 100 Performance
"Love Takes A Long Time Growing" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 30, 1966, entering at position 90. The record climbed over the following weeks, peaking at number 77 during the week of May 21, 1966, and spending 5 weeks on the chart in total. The record held its peak position for two consecutive weeks before beginning its chart decline. The peak of 77 was a more modest result than Jackson's breakthrough single had achieved, but represented meaningful chart activity for a follow-up release from an independent label artist.
Spring 1966 was a competitive chart period, and placing any record in the Hot 100's top 100 required radio airplay and consumer purchasing activity sufficient to register in the chart's monitoring systems. Jackson's established name recognition from his breakthrough single contributed to the record's ability to chart at all, and the 5-week chart run confirmed that his audience remained engaged with his new material.
Industry and Career Context
Jackson's career trajectory following his initial success illustrates the challenges facing independent label artists during the mid-1960s. Without the promotional infrastructure of a major label or the concentrated resources of Motown, Carla Records could achieve individual chart placements but had difficulty sustaining the consistent commercial momentum that turned brief chart success into long-term stardom. "Love Takes A Long Time Growing" performed adequately without replicating the breakthrough success of Jackson's debut hit.
Jackson continued recording through the late 1960s, but never regained the chart heights of his initial success. His case was representative of a common pattern in mid-1960s R&B: talented artists recording for small independent labels who could reach the Hot 100 but lacked the support structures to convert chart presence into sustained careers. The peak of number 77 for "Love Takes A Long Time Growing" stands as documentation of a genuine commercial moment in the career of an artist whose broader story followed a trajectory familiar in the history of American soul music.
The Carla Records catalog from this period has attracted attention from soul music collectors and historians who have worked to document the full range of 1960s R&B activity beyond the dominant labels. Jackson's recordings, including "Love Takes A Long Time Growing," have been included in various archival and compilation contexts that have helped preserve their place in the historical record of American popular music.
02 Song Meaning
Patience and Emotional Maturity in "Love Takes A Long Time Growing"
"Love Takes A Long Time Growing" occupies a specific thematic niche within the 1960s soul and R&B songbook. Where many romantic songs of the period were preoccupied with immediate desire, sudden connection, or the acute pain of loss, Jackson's lyric focused on the slower, more patient dimension of romantic development. The title itself articulates an understanding of love as a process rather than an event, a perspective that carried emotional wisdom and offered listeners an alternative to the instantaneous romantic frameworks that dominated much of the era's pop output.
The lyric's central metaphor of growth captures something true about how romantic attachment typically develops. The implicit argument is that durable love requires time, attention, and the willingness to stay present through the gradual deepening of connection rather than expecting immediate intensity. This was a relatively sophisticated emotional position for a mid-1960s pop single, and it gave the record a reflective quality that distinguished it from more immediate romantic statements.
Jackson's Interpretive Approach
Deon Jackson's vocal style was well-suited to material that required patience and emotional warmth rather than intensity or drama. His clear, gentle tenor communicated sincerity without strain, and on "Love Takes A Long Time Growing" that quality served the lyric's thematic content effectively. A singer with a more forceful or extroverted approach might have undercut the song's patient quality; Jackson's restraint matched the material's emotional register.
The production choices on the record reinforced the lyric's message. The arrangement was unhurried and warm, avoiding the aggressive rhythmic drive that characterized many competing soul records of the period. This was appropriate to the song's argument: a record about patience should itself feel patient, unhurried in its sonic presentation as in its romantic philosophy. The Carla Records production achieved this tonal alignment effectively within the constraints of a small independent label's budget.
Place in the R&B Tradition
The broader tradition of soul balladry within which Jackson worked placed high value on sincerity and emotional accessibility. Songs about romantic maturity, the willingness to invest time and energy in developing a relationship rather than pursuing immediate gratification, were a recognized subgenre of 1960s soul, and artists from Sam Cooke to Marvin Gaye had contributed to it. Jackson's record fit within this tradition and offered a similar emotional reassurance: love is worth waiting for, and the patience it requires is itself a form of devotion.
The song's peak of number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 in spring 1966 placed it in the commercial record as a modest but genuine chart entry, documented evidence that a significant number of listeners responded to its emotional content. The record's chart performance also reflects the broader functioning of the Hot 100 as a document of American musical taste, capturing the full range of what radio audiences were purchasing rather than only the dominant commercial narratives.
For students of 1960s soul and R&B, "Love Takes A Long Time Growing" represents the kind of mid-chart entry that collectively constitutes the texture of the era's musical landscape. The hits that dominated the top 10 are well-documented, but the records that reached positions like number 77 reveal the full breadth of what audiences were engaging with, the smaller-scale commercial successes that shaped the lived musical experience of ordinary listeners in ways that the canonical hits alone cannot fully represent.
→ More from the 1960s File
View all 1960s hits →
Keep digging