Wanda Jackson is 80 years old and still rockin'.
The Oklahoma-born rockabilly and country music pioneer, whose career started when she was a teenager, maintains a busy touring schedule and continues to write songs.
Fans will get two chances to see Jackson in Little Rock this week. She will perform at Central Arkansas Library System's Ron Robinson Theater on Thursday as part of the Arkansas Sounds Concert Series and on Friday will give an intimate talk, moderated by Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis, about her life and her autobiography, Every Night Is a Saturday Night: A Country Girl's Journey to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, at the Main Library's Darragh Center during the 15th annual Arkansas Literary Festival.
Jackson's singing career took off under the tutelage of Texas swing band leader Hank Thompson.
"Hank became my mentor," Jackson says from her home in Oklahoma City. "I was able to learn a lot from him about entertaining. He was the one that got my record contracts for me, also."
She signed with Decca Records and scored her first hit in 1954 with "You Can't Have My Love," a duet with Billy Gray. She would later record for Capitol Records.
After becoming friends with Elvis Presley on a 1955 tour, Jackson added an edge to her music and really cut loose, proving that women could be just as incendiary as the fellas when it came to rock 'n' roll.
A grainy black-and-white video clip from a 1958 TV broadcast shows her coyly introducing "one of the most beautiful love songs that's ever been written," before ripping into a growling version of the rocking "Hard Headed Woman." Jackson shimmies in high heels and a fringed, knee-length dress, strumming her guitar and sneering through her vocals in complete control of the stage.
Though she continued to record country tracks, her rockabilly workouts on songs like "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," "Rock Your Baby," "Honey Bop" and "Mean Mean Man" are "among the greatest ever made, regardless of gender," according to her biography at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, into which Jackson was inducted in 2009.
Other standouts from her '50s recordings include a cover of an R&B track called "Fujiyama Mama" and "Let's Have a Party."
Her style would influence generations of performers including Cyndi Lauper, guitarist Poison Ivy of The Cramps, Joan Jett, Dave Alvin, Elvis Costello and others.
"It was quite different, of course," she says when asked about those early days of package tours with Presley and other groups. "We still drove a lot. Daddy never allowed me to travel with someone else. They could ride with us, but I couldn't ride with them. When we started working with Elvis, Daddy really liked him. He was so unusual and different from anything anybody had seen at that time. I was happy Daddy got along with him real well."
So, um, what were her impressions of the combos on some of those bills?
"Elvis was No. 1," she says. "But Hank Thompson's band was wonderful. Buddy Holly had a very good sound. Carl Perkins had a three-piece group and sounded great. Johnny Cash had a two-piece, like Elvis. There weren't a lot of big bands. There were smaller groups."
She also tips her hat to her own group, The Party Timers, which featured pianist Big Al Downing and a young guitarist named Roy Clark.
Touring is much different now, she says. She flies to her dates and the hotels are nicer. She also has bands stashed around the country that she uses for shows, depending on the location of the gig.
"I have groups across the United States that I bring in with me."
For her Thursday night set at Ron Robinson she will use her Kentucky-based band.
"They're about my favorite," she adds.
Jackson's discography spans rockabilly, country and gospel and includes more than 40 studio albums, various live records, compilation records and a pair of boxed sets.
Her 2011 release, The Party Ain't Over, was produced by Jack White; Justin Townes Earle was behind the board for 2013's Unfinished Business.
And she's not done in the studio.
"I've been working on it for three years," she says of the possibility of a new album. "I began writing again with some very well-known writers in Nashville. I have the songs."
Recording sessions with a popular, New York-based female singer-songwriter that Jackson would rather not name were put on hold after a series of health problems.
"We never could get together, but hopefully I can get a recording released before the year is over."
Style on 04/22/2018