MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM SPOTLIGHT

Jo Mccaughey Wanda Jackson, Jack White WANDA JACKSON The Queen of Rockabilly proves you’re never too old to earn new Stripes

When the blues had a baby called makeover. “he said all the things you want rock ’n’ roll, Wanda Jackson was there for to hear from a producer,” Jackson says with the delivery. “back when I was touring with a laugh. “and I felt his heart was so much elvis in 1957, we didn’t even call it rock ’n’ into the project. the only surprising thing roll,” she remembers. “It was just ‘the kind was that he wanted more of the younger of songs the kids liked.’” Jackson credits her Wanda Jackson. that spirit and that growl, then-boyfriend Presley with encouraging her which I was able to do for him.” MARCH/APRIL 2011 to branch out from her country roots and that same spirit helped Jackson crash “try this new style.” a few years later, wailing the gates of the man’s world of rock ’n’ roll M MUSIC & MUSICIANS suggestively raucous hits like “Fujiyama and hold her own on tours with Presley, MAGAZINE Mama” and “Mean, Mean Man,” Jackson was Jerry lee lewis and buddy holly. “In the being hailed as the Queen of Rockabilly. 1950s a woman was either a secretary, Five decades later, the 73-year-old a nurse or a housewife,” Jackson says. legend is once again connecting with “the “but I never even prepared for any other kids” by collaborating with producer and kind of career. so I guess I had to make former White stripes frontman Jack White it, because I wasn’t qualified for anything on The Party Ain’t Over. the album wraps else. My only passion was music and singing Jackson’s sandpaper growl in wild stax- and entertaining, and I always kept my main goes-surfin’ arrangements and White’s goal in front of me.” With her husband and fuzzed-out guitar riffs. “It was a lot of fun, manager of 50 years, Wendell Goodman, but honestly, I had to be dragged kicking and by her side, Jackson has already started screaming into the studio,” Jackson says. “I spreading her new Party around the didn’t know Jack at all, and I was thinking, ‘I world. “the love I get from the audience is can’t do contemporary rock stuff, and even if what keeps me going,” she says. “I’m just I could, I’m not sure my fans would even be pleased to know that this old gal still has interested.’” White assured her that he didn’t something left to give.” want to change her sound, just give it a little –Bill DeMain

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