She is strong, and she knows who she is.” And yet Wanda endured and had a career that lasted decades and influenced so many that came after her. Even the boys, then, were meeting resistance from the mainstream. Her sound was raw and incredibly soulful. “I know how hard it was for me to negotiate the waters, as a woman in a male-dominated world, so I was in awe, imagining the hurdles that Wanda must have encountered doing her music at the very beginning of rock ‘n’ roll. “Wanda is a unique and original pioneer,” says Jett. If Wanda didn’t call herself a maverick, Joan Jett certainly would. That me, especially on self-penned songs of the late ’50s such as “Mean Mean Man,” “Baby Loves Him” and “Cool Love,” found a far-ahead-of-her-time Jackson ripe with rude innuendo and aggressive sexuality, to say nothing of her frisky vocals’ rasp.Īt a time in post-WWII America when country and pop were filled with men commanding women to be demure and sing sexlessly - and when the Grand Ole Opry was a model of purity - Wanda Jackson was unceasing in her command of primal rock ‘n’ roll with hyper-passionate sensuality attached (and a band that dared to feature a Black pianist, Big Al Downing, in the segregated South). But that’s what made me me… I was a maverick in that sense.” I crossed the line, and they didn’t know what to do with me. “That’s how I got to rockabilly in the first place, when everyone thought I would exclusively be a country artist – which I was, too. “There was a time when you had managers, assistants, stylists telling you what to wear and how to wear it, but musically, I had final say,” says Jackson, in a gravelly voice ever-so-slightly roughed-up by Oklahoma City’s allergy season. Make no mistake, however: Wanda Jackson is the boss – soft spoken at 83, yet commanding – and has been since her major label start, making singles for Decca in 1954, then albums for Capitol beginning in 1958, always blending country sides with rockabilly tracks.
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