Rock and soul stations disc jockies may not play the risque recordings of Thomson, Ga., native Millie Jackson but the record-buying public sure does.

Many of her more than 25 albums --- recorded in such diverse locations as London, New York and Nashville --- have gone gold (sales of 250,000 copies or more), and she has recorded soulful duets with the likes of Elton John and Isaac Hayes.

Her 1973 single, It Hurts So Good, was heard in the movie Cleopatra Jones.

Those who know of her bawdy recordings --- as well as her more conservative albums --- may be surprised to learn her grandfather was a preacher and that she spent six nights a week in a Thomson church growing up. She went to gospel concerts and Monday night wrestling matches in Bell Auditorium and was more into Augusta's Swanee Quintet in the '50s than James Brown.

Her mother died when she was 2, and she was reared by her father and stepmothers. Her second stepmother, Hariett Vidrine of Augusta, was one of the main reasons she moved back to Georgia from New Jersey.

At 15, she moved to Newark, N.J., where her father was living. She was dared by a group of friends in 1964 to get up on stage in a Harlem, N.Y., nightclub and sing.

That was the beginning to her international show business career.