GROOVES: Wanda Jackson, the queen of Rockabilly, talks about performing with Elvis and Johnny Cash, and an unlikely meeting with Jack White
Wanda Jackson's album The Party Ain’t Over was produced by Jack White
Published: 21 June, 2012
by ROISIN GADELRAB
SHE's the queen of Rockabilly, with a career that has included touring with a young Elvis Presley and releasing an album produced by Jack White last year.
But when Wanda Jackson first hit the road in the 1950s – fresh out of high school, with her dad along as chaperone – music legend status was a long way down the road.
The 17-year-old singer shared bills with Elvis and Johnny Cash as rock and roll was unleashed on the unsuspecting, conservative post-war US.
“In that time everything was a man’s world,” says Wanda, speaking from her Oklahoma City home ahead of an intimate show at Islington Assembly Hall on July 19.
“Corporations, whatever it might be, it was men doing it. I knew that I was in new territory but I was treated well, and with respect. My father travelled with me and kept my reputation intact.
“If there was a show in town, if there was five men on it, there might be one girl in there, and usually just for window dressing. But I finally got to the point where I could hold my own and drawing people. I could do it just as well as they did.”
Her trademark sassy growl was new and explosive, and years later Bob Dylan said “she was like an atomic bomb in lipstick”. But the self-confidence on stage and on records hid a shy side.
“I’m not really a wild child,” says Wanda. “I was brought up to be a lady above all things. I was different and I was sexy and feisty. But I was always lady-like.
“A lot of people as entertainers are basically pretty shy people, with not a lot of self-confidence. That was kind of me. When I get on stage that barrier just breaks down. You can be whatever you want to be. People draw their own conclusions.
“Elvis was quite shy and so was Johnny Cash. I don’t think Jerry Lee (Lewis) ever was. I think he was his own person from the very beginning.”
Elvis, who she briefly dated, helped persuade Wanda to sing “the new music” – Rockabilly.
“He was very generous with his encouragement and advice, and telling me he thought I should do it,” she says.
“I said that I didn’t know that I can. He said, ‘I know that you can, you have the spirit for it and you have the voice’. Sure enough, I found out I loved singing it.”
But despite turning heads and making hits, Wanda struggled to hit the really big time – not helped by the reluctance of DJs to play her songs.
“These (the DJs) were adult men, they were having problems with rock and roll, period,” she says.
“Elvis and Johnny Cash were wild people. They were bringing their kids’ music out of hell, and dragging their kids to hell.
“They were saying, ‘we’re having to play the guys because there is so much demand, but we are not going to help the girl’.”
By 1960, Rockabilly was drifting out of fashion. Wanda found success with country and gospel, and was still revered by Rockabilly devotees, but her role as one of the first female rock and roll pioneers was often forgotten.
Then finally, things began to change. In 2009, she was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And then White Stripes superstar Jack White offered to produce her next album.
The Party Ain’t Over, showcasing Wanda singing hits by Amy Winehouse as well as songs from Dylan and Cash, was critically acclaimed and charted well.
At first she wasn’t sure what “this young rock star, younger than my son” wanted her to do – but White won her over.
“He said, ‘I have been a fan of yours since I was 15. I just want to give you some fresh material to sing’,” she says.
“And it’s been the most successful thing I’ve ever done. It just finally became my time, I guess.”
More than 50 years after first hitting the road, Wanda Jackson is just where she wants to be.