WANDA JACKSON

The Queen of Rockabilly proves you’re never too old to earn new Stripes

When the blues had a baby called rock ’n’ roll, Wanda Jackson was there for the delivery. “Back when I was touring with Elvis in 1957, we didn’t even call it rock ’n’ roll,” she remembers. “It was just ‘the kind of songs the kids liked.’” Jackson credits her then-boyfriend Presley with encouraging her to branch out from her country roots and “try this new style.” A few years later, wailing suggestively raucous hits like “Fujiyama Mama” and “Mean, Mean Man,” Jackson was being hailed as the Queen of Rockabilly.

Five decades later, the 73-year-old legend is once again connecting with “the kids” by collaborating with producer and former White Stripes frontman Jack White on The Party Ain’t Over. The album wraps Jackson’s sandpaper growl in wild Stax-goes-surfin’ arrangements and White’s fuzzed-out guitar riffs. “It was a lot of fun, but honestly, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the studio,” Jackson says. “I didn’t know Jack at all, and I was thinking, ‘I can’t do contemporary rock stuff, and even if I could, I’m not sure my fans would even be interested.’” White assured her that he didn’t want to change her sound, just give it a little makeover. “He said all the things you want to hear from a producer,” Jackson says with a laugh. “And I felt his heart was so much into the project. The only surprising thing was that he wanted more of the younger Wanda Jackson. That spirit and that growl, which I was able to do for him.”

That same spirit helped Jackson crash the gates of the man’s world of rock ’n’ roll and hold her own on tours with Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. “In the 1950s a woman was either a secretary, a nurse or a housewife,” Jackson says. “But I never even prepared for any other kind of career. So I guess I had to make it, because I wasn’t qualified for anything else. My only passion was music and singing and entertaining, and I always kept my main goal in front of me.” With her husband and manager of 50 years, Wendell Goodman, by her side, Jackson has already started spreading her new Party around the world. “The love I get from the audience is what keeps me going,” she says. “I’m just pleased to know that this old gal still has

something left to give.”

–Bill DeMain

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