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Wanda Jackson, Rockabilly Queen Redux
Decades After Peak, Roots Rocker Has New Generation of Fans
 Listen to Neda Ulaby's profile of Wanda Jackson.
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Wanda Jackson in the studio, circa mid-1950s.
Photo courtesy Ace Records
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March 18, 2002 -- Wanda Jackson has always been just one of the boys. Back in the early days of Rock 'n' Roll, when most white female pop singers sounded like Doris Day, Jackson was storming stages with attitude, aggressive guitar, and belting vocals.
Today, at age 64, Jackson is enjoying resurgence in popularity. She's touring again, and a new generation of musicians has recorded some of her signature tunes for a tribute album. Jackson is one of four rockabilly women featured in Welcome to the Club, a PBS documentary that debuts Monday, March 18.
NPR's Neda Ulaby reports that the time may yet come for a woman who considered herself ahead of her time, in a 1950s era where women just didn't do that sort of thing.
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"Big black hair -- she was quite a striking figure. She was singing her own material. She was up there, kicking ass."
Producer Rob Miller, who's putting together a Wanda Jackson tribute album for Bloodshot Records
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"Just like they were supposed to look pretty on stage, (women singers) were supposed to sound pretty," Jackson tells Ulaby. "One of the first things that I did for girls in country music, I got them out of cowboy boots and cowboy hats and full skirts and all of that stuff. I never was comfortable in that, and I knew I didn't look good in it, and I didn't like that image."
Instead, Wanda Jackson wore tight skirts, spaghetti straps, red lipstick and dangling earrings. And her moves onstage were more wicked than her look. Jackson's music simmered with sex. She mixed the sounds of country, honky tonk, and R & B.
As a teenager she had her own radio show in Oklahoma City, and was signed to her second record contract by the time she graduated from high school. At the time, she was opening for rockabilly's biggest names -- and dating Elvis Presley. "We were good friends, we dated.... He's just the one that encouraged me to try, because we could all see -- it was fresh and new and it was my generation's music."
Rob Miller, who's putting together a Wanda Jackson tribute album for Bloodshot Records, says Jackson was a "knockout."
"Big black hair -- she was quite a striking figure," he says. "She was singing her own material. She was up there, kicking ass."
But by the early 1960s, the allure of the road was wearing off. Jackson says her friends were all married and had homes, and seemed to be happy -- and she wasn't in one place long enough to meet anyone special. And then she met Wendell Goodman. Six months later, they were married, and they've been married for 40 years.
Things weren't easy -- the couple went through a decade they call deeply difficult. Reportedly, there were problems with alcohol. They emerged as born-again Christians, and Jackson confined her singing to church -- for a while. Then she teamed up singer Rosie Flores on the album Rockabilly Filly, and the duo went on tour together in 1996. Flores is credited with "rediscovering" Jackson, who has a new generation of fans -- alternative country cowboys, underground hipsters and riot grrls.
Other Resources
• The official Wanda Jackson Web site has an up-to-date touring schedule, discography, biography and much more.
• Wanda Jackson's bio in the online Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
• Jackson's biggest hits of the 1950s and early 60s have been collected on one CD, Wanda Jackson, Queen of Rockabilly, published by Ace Records in the United Kingdom.
• Bloodshot Records.
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