Jackie Deshannon Turns 85 as Fans Celebrate the Singer-Songwriter Behind What the World Needs Now Is Love and Put a Little Love in Your Heart
NEW YORK, NY — Jackie DeShannon is marking her 85th birthday today, and the milestone puts a spotlight back on one of the most durable voices to emerge from the 1960s. The singer-songwriter is best known for the hopeful anthems “What the World Needs Now Is Love” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.”
Born in Hazel, Kentucky, DeShannon began singing at an unusually young age and later performed gospel music on a radio program tied to her parents’ friends. After her family moved to Illinois, she even hosted her own show, setting the stage for a career that would move from regional roots to national recognition.
From gospel radio to the Beatles tour
DeShannon’s early recording work mixed country and rockabilly, including the Buddy Holly tribute “Buddy,” which became a regional hit. She later relocated to Los Angeles and signed with Liberty Records, where her output stretched across rock, pop, folk, country, gospel and R&B.
In the early 1960s, she wrote closely with Sharon Sheeley, and the partnership produced songs recorded by Brenda Lee and Irma Thomas. DeShannon also wrote “When You Walk in the Room” and “Come and Stay with Me,” which became hits for the Searchers and Marianne Faithfull, helping establish her reputation far beyond her own records.
Her profile rose even more in 1964, when she opened for the Beatles on their first American tour. A year later, she had her first major pop hit with “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” written with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, a song that matched the era’s turbulence with a direct message of compassion.
A songwriter whose catalog kept spreading
DeShannon followed that breakthrough with “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” a million-selling single she co-wrote with Randy Myers and Jimmy Holiday. Her songs also moved easily through other artists’ catalogs, with the Byrds, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen and the Temptations all recording her material.
One of her biggest later successes came in 1982, when “Bette Davis Eyes,” written with Donna Weiss and recorded by Kim Carnes, won the Grammy for Song of the Year. That gave DeShannon a rare kind of reach: a pop identity tied both to her own performances and to songs that became even bigger in other hands.
She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010, cementing that legacy in industry terms as well as fan memory. And in June 2026, listeners got another look at her early work with the release of Girl of Yesterday (Acoustic Folk Demos), a collection of previously unreleased recordings.
Why her 85th birthday still resonates with listeners
DeShannon’s career now reads like a map of American popular music in motion: gospel roots, rockabilly beginnings, folk and pop crossover, and songs that kept reappearing in different voices across generations. That range is part of why her name still matters to listeners who know her both as a performer and as a writer.
At 85, she remains a significant figure from rock’s formative era, with a catalog that continues to travel well beyond its original moment. For fans, the birthday is less a nostalgic footnote than a reminder that some of the most recognizable songs from the 1960s were built to outlast the decade that first made them famous.
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