Susan Jacks obit

Susan Jacks of the Poppy Family has died at 73

 

She was not on the list.

Susan Jacks was born to a family of eight children in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her family moved to British Columbia when she was nine, settling in the Fraser valley community of Haney. Jacks began her professional career at 15 when she was asked to be a regular performer on the national Canadian television show, Music Hop. She also appeared on several other national television shows and regularly did live performances in the British Columbia and Alberta areas. She recorded her first singles with two other well known Vancouver performers, Howie Vickers and Tom Northcott, under the name of “The Eternal Triangle”.

In 1966, 18-year-old Susan Pesklevits asked Terry Jacks to accompany her on guitar for an upcoming appearance. Susan performed a small number of dates with Terry accompanying her on guitar. They decided to add Craig McCaw on lead guitar and, although she continued to make various solo television appearances, Susan made the decision to stop performing live as a solo artist, left the “Eternal Triangle” and dedicated her time to the newly formed trio. The trio used the name “Powerline” for a number of months before settling on the name “The Poppy Family”. Susan and Terry married in 1967. Craig McCaw introduced Satwant Singh to the group and he soon joined the trio on tablas.

Susan Jacks was one of Vancouver’s first stars of the 1960s, blessed with a golden voice that could sing just about anything.

“It had that unique quality, that once you heard it, you knew it right away that it was Susan singing,” said her former cohort in the band Poppy Family, Craig McCaw.

Her voice remained pure and clear right into her 70s. But in recent years, she suffered from kidney problems, and Monday she passed away at Surrey Memorial Hospital. She was 73.

She was born Susan Elizabeth Pesklevits in Saskatoon on Aug. 19, 1948, and she grew up in a large family of six brothers and one sister in Haney and New Westminster.

She was a natural singer, with a cool, clear voice that fell somewhere between Karen Carpenter and Tammy Wynette. Her first brush with fame was when she joined the CBC-TV shows Let’s Go and Music Hop in the mid-’60s.

In 1966, she hooked up with guitarist Terry Jacks, who became her husband a year later. Initially, she hired Terry to play guitar in her band, but it evolved into the Poppy Family.

“Somebody said, ‘Terry Jacks’ band just broke up, why don’t you ask him, maybe he’ll be available,'” Susan recounted in 2014. “And he was, so he played guitar for me on a gig. And we both knew Craig McCaw (so we asked him to join). It evolved into the group, and became more cool and more cool.”

After adding tabla player Satwant Singh, the folk-rock group flirted with psychedelia and country before topping the charts around the world with the soft-pop classic Which Way You Goin’ Billy in 1969. It was the first million-selling record by a Vancouver act.