THE best piece of advice Elvis Presley gave Wanda Jackson was that if she wanted to sell records, she should be a rockabilly singer.
She listened, and now not only is Jackson hailed as “the Queen of Rockabilly”, but she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, after calls for her membership from greats like Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.
“That meant a great deal to me,” says 72-year-old Jackson in her Southern twang, from Nashville. “I’d never put a lot of emphasis on [the awards] because I didn’t have a dream of number one hits or being a superstar, but the category they put me in was Early Influence. I felt comfortable with that, because even now I have so many young girls coming up to me and telling me ‘had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have got into music’. It’s lovely.”
In a couple of weeks, Jackson is coming to blow a Wellington audience away with her highly impressive voice. It will be the second time she’s visited – the first was in 1972.
Born in 1937 in Oklahoma, a place she still calls home, Jackson was encouraged to play music by her father Tom, a country musician himself.
“Since I was six I wanted to be a singer, and I didn’t plan for anything else. I took typing and shorthand at school, but I got a lead in the school play, so I dropped it,” she laughs. “My daddy had quite a collection of Jimmie Rodgers – The Blue Yodeler. The first songs I learnt were Jimmie’s. My dad used to get in trouble with his parents, because they’d play Jimmie Rodgers out of loud speakers in the town centre, and my dad would slip off to listen when he was meant to be working in the fields.”
Jackson won a local talent show when she was 15, and came to the attention of Hank Thompson, who invited her to perform with his band the Brazos Valley Boys.
She recorded a few songs with the band, including You Can’t Have My Love with bandleader Billy Gray, which soon became a hit on the country music charts.
After finishing high school, Jackson shared a bill with a certain Mr Elvis Presley, and the pair dated for a time.
“I was 17. He was a very impressive guy, and he was very good looking,” she laughs. “He dressed differently from everyone else, and he drove a pink Cadillac, which I’d never seen before. He told me to stretch myself in music. He was getting very popular with the young people, and said it was them who were buying [rockabilly]. He said, ‘if you want to sell records, you have to play this kind of music’. It was wise advice, because before that I’d just done country,” she says.
In a salute to Presley, Jackson’s first Cadillac was also pink. She loves everything about dressing the part, and is acknowledged for putting the “glam” into rockabilly and country.
“Tight skirts with silk fringe, rhinestone spaghetti straps, high heels, long earrings and big hair – I still like that,” she laughs. “Time has changed the placement of the fringe though… I’ve had to move it up a bit.”
Time hasn’t changed Jackson’s voice however, and she has just recorded an album with long-time fan, and modern rock star, Jack White, of The White Stripes fame.
She’s coy about what we should expect, but reveals she has covered a song by another of her big fans.
“I recorded a Bob Dylan song. He’s an acquaintance of Jack’s, so Jack called him and said, ‘which one of any of your songs would you like Wanda to do?’ and Bob said, ‘Thunder on The Mountain’. It’s the only song I can talk about though – I’ve been sworn to secrecy.
Wanda Jackson, San Francisco Bathhouse, June 21.