Rockabilly Queen Wanda Jackson Converts A New Generation
Fifty-eight-year-old rockabilly music pioneer Wanda Jackson, a dynamo who went through the country music scene like a hurricane in the 1950s before being banished to the Christian market, is back.
Now winding down an extended concert tour with roots revivalist Rosie Flores, the once-controversial Jackson - an Oklahoman who wore daring clothes and had a smash hit about partying during a straight-laced era when country girls were expected to be demure and subservient - lately has found herself worshipped by U.S. fans like she has been loved in Europe for decades.
“They just scream when she comes on stage,” reports Flores, 45, who is just concluding her shepherding of the Rosie & Wanda Rockabilly Tour ‘95. “She really has a lot of fans out there, and it’s a charge to watch her be appreciated. At first she really wasn’t sure people would remember her songs.”
“I’m having fun discovering all the rockabilly fans in America,” Jackson says. “I didn’t realize how many true rockabilly fans there are here, (among) the younger generation.”
It all began when Flores, a Texan by way of California, whose initial female musical inspirations included Jackson, invited her idol to do a couple of duets with her on her new Hightone Records album, “Rockabilly Filly.” It was Flores’ booking agent who suggested Jackson be invited to join the tour.
The enthusiastic crowds the two women have been drawing aren’t exactly typical ones, Flores indicates. Significant numbers have shown up in the distinctive garb of the ‘50s.
“The style of dress was really pretty sharp,” says Flores, adding that it includes “nice neat haircuts for the guys” and generally “clean and spiffy” clothes that counterpoint today’s “sort of sloppy grunge look.”
Both Flores and Jackson say the willingness to adopt this sartorial style seems to signify a longing for what is romanticized now as the ‘50s mindset - “when,” explains Flores, “we (in the United States) had stronger family values and things were just a lot simpler.”
Fascination with the ‘50s isn’t just about clothes and hairstyles and philosophical outlooks, of course. It’s also very much about music, a distinctive sound that Flores worked hard to capture on “Rockabilly Filly.”
Jackson’s records had a raw rootsy sound. Her biggest in the United States was the primitive country-rock song “Let’s Have a Party,” but she had others overseas. “Fujiyama Mama” was No. 1 in Japan, she says, while “Mean, Mean Man” was big in Scandinavia. She recalls that she has recorded in three foreign languages, including a No. 1 hit in Germany titled “Santo Domingo.”
Asked if she ever considers what her career might have been like had she been less aggressive in her image, she says she doesn’t “spend too much time thinking about hypothetical things” because she has “had a wonderful career.” She prefers to think about what she accomplished. For instance:
“I changed the whole image of the (female) country singer, probably from the influence of the rock and roll that I did. I never did like the cowboy boots, the full shirts and cowboy hats. I just wasn’t comfortable with that. So I started designing my own clothes, and my mother, a professional seamstress, made them.
“I started wearing the silk fringe-type skirts and low-cut tops and long earrings and high heels. I wanted to give a little glamor to country music. I didn’t think the girls should look so much like the guys.”
Her explosive rockishness was followed by a religious conversion that resulted in a wish to do several gospel albums. Capitol thought one was enough, she recalls, and she moved on, first to a Christian record company and then to her present one, little Amethyst Records in Oklahoma City, her hometown.
Except for a “couple of years” when her two children were in their early teens, she has “been working straight through,” she says, but “most of our work since 1972 or ‘73 has been gospel” - primarily because gospel music is “what they want from me.”
Rider in Sky special on TNN
Check out “Riders Radio Theater: The Christmas Show” Tuesday on The Nashville Network (8 p.m. and midnight each day) if you’re looking for an off-the-wall western alternative to the stereotypical holiday mood.
For example, here you’ll get a look at not only the oddball cowboys Riders in the Sky but (a) a bungee jumping banjo choir, (b) two-time Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year Kathy Mattea adventuring not always successfully on roller blades, (c) such younger and older guests as the young sibling trio The Moffatts and venerable Grand Ole Opry star Little Jimmy Dickens, and (d) a special holiday segment of the ongoing Riders in the Sky melodrama, this time subtitled “Treasure of the Sierra Mattea.”
Mavericks showcased on CMT
The Country Music Association’s reigning Group of the Year, The Mavericks, will be CMT’s showcase artists for January.
Faith Hill occupies that slot this month.