Wanda Jackson: There's A Riot Goin' On

"As far as I know, I was the first woman to do the growlin' and the hollerin' and stuff like that. That's what the guys were doin' and I liked it. I think the reason I didn't think about it being unladylike is because I've always been very feminine. I didn't want to look vulgar; I wanted to look sexy. I wanted to look like a lady, but I wanted to cause a little stir, too."
--Wanda Jackson, Finding Her Voice: The Illustrated History of Women in Country Music, p. 235

Wanda Jackson recently earned induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor looooong overdue. Of course, this presupposes that the RnR HoF is a meaningful institution, a debatable assertion at best. However, if you're gonna bother having a RnR HoF, folks like Wanda Jackson should be in it, even if it's only as an "early influence." She was a force of women's liberation and racial equality, a raven-haired goddess of stir-causing, girl-next-door sexuality, and most importantly, the first woman to flat-out rock 'n' roll. Wanda was a singular, spangled figure in the 1950s and early '60s, cutting a sexy swath through the worlds of country music and rock 'n' roll like her contemporaries (and tour brethren) Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and one-time boyfriend/rockabilly muse, Elvis Presley (pictured together above). She worked extensively with guitar badass, Joe Maphis, provided an early platform for future country greats and fellow Hee Hawers, Buck Owens and Roy Clark, and even employed black pianist, Big Al Downing, at a time when integrated bands, especially in country music, were met with widespread hostility. But beyond the sociopolitics and musicology know this ... Wanda Jackson liked to party.

Wanda Jackson - Let's Have A Party (1958/1960) [purchase]

Backed by Big Al Downing and Gene Vincent's Blue Caps, Wanda cuts loose on this 1958 recording that became her signature song. Ironically, the song didn't become a hit for two years. As the story goes, in 1960, a Des Moines disc jockey discovered the track on her self-titled 1958 debut LP, and he began playing it. That created a buzz, Capitol Records (Wanda's label) caught up to said buzz, and they released it as a single that summer. After six years in the business, Wanda Jackson finally had her first Top 40 single.

Wanda Jackson - I Gotta Know (1956) [purchase]

"She was an atomic bomb in lipstick. She was the queen of rockabilly. I like to think of rockabilly as country music with the beat of the big bands. Here Wanda has a foot in both worlds, switching back and forth between straight country and rockabilly, helped out more than a little by Joe Maphis, whose guitar solo sends this song into the stratosphere."
--Bob Dylan, from his Artist's Choice CD liner notes

Four years before "Party" hit, Wanda scored a country hit with "I Gotta Know," a song that, as Bob correctly notes, veers deftly between country and rockabilly. Bob is also correct in calling Wanda, "The Queen of Rockabilly." That is certainly no insult. However, I can't help but think that lumping all of her classic early work under the rockabilly umbrella also serves to ghettoize her musical contributions, encasing them in circa-1950s amber. Songs like "Let's Have A Party" and "I Gotta Know" ... let alone other tracks, like "Fujiyama Mama" and "Mean Mean Man" ... are as rock 'n' roll as anything Elvis, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis were doing at the time and should rightly be viewed in such light.

I suppose this is what irks me about the RnR HoF's backhanded induction of Wanda, not on the main stage, as it were, but on the side stage, as an "early influence." She was the first woman to legitimately play rock 'n' roll, bringing both style and a sense of anarchy to her music comparable to any contemporary male. Case in point:

Wanda Jackson - Riot In Cell Block #9 (1960) [purchase]

A recent documentary film about Wanda Jackson is called, The Sweet Lady With The Nasty Voice, and you don't get much nastier and lowdown than Wanda growling "There's a RIIIOOT goin' on!" That, my friends, is balls. Hall of Fame-sized balls. Jackson's singing obviously makes the song, but I love how the drums are doubled to give the song extra punch, the piano is being played like a drum (probably to be heard), and the backup singers do their best Raelettes impression. And as usual, there's more great guitar work. If you ever put together a prison-themed playlist, this will fit nicely between Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" and Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak." You can thank me later.

As for the doc, it doesn't seem to be available on DVD, but here's a clip from YouTube (via the Smithsonian Channel):



By 1961, Wanda was moving back toward country music. However, a track she cut the previous year is noteworthy for what it unwittingly foretold.

Wanda Jackson - It Doesn't Matter Anymore (1960) [purchase]

This Paul Anka tune was the last song Buddy Holly would see chart, released a month before his fateful plane flight in February 1959. What's interesting about Wanda's reading is that she omits the pizzicato string section that made Holly's version so revolutionary, replacing them with an arrangement that anticipates the British Invasion, still 3-4 years away. If Holly was bridging rock 'n' roll and pop, Jackson was bridging rockabilly with what would later come to be known as rock. The guitar solo in particular (1:24-1:43) sounds like it comes straight outta the Keith Richards/George Harrison playbook.

Wanda spent the next decade recording straight country music, with mere hints of her rock 'n' roll past. In the early 1970s, she and husband/manager, Wendell Goodman, converted to Christianity, with Jackson forsaking country in favor of gospel. Not surprisingly, she all but disappeared from even the fringe of the mainstream radar. Then, in the 1980s, a rockabilly revival hit Europe and Wanda was rediscovered. A similar revival hit here in the states, although it encompassed not just rockabilly, but all manner of hard, rootsy, non-Nashville country. Rosie Flores led the Wanda revival, releasing her self-titled debut in 1987 with its cover of "I Gotta Know." In 1995, Rosie cut Rockabilly Filly, an entire album of rockabilly songs, including a couple tracks with her idol, Wanda Jackson. (Flores also recorded with Wanda's contemporary, and fellow rockabilly/rock 'n' roll pioneer, Janis Martin.).

Rosie Flores & Wanda Jackson - His Rockin' Little Angel (1995) [purchase]

"I was innovative in my time. But, in retrospect, I was just bein' me. I do different interviews now and they talk about how I was quite ... what's the word for the new feminist movement? ... yeah, 'liberated.' Well, I didn't realize it at the time, but that's just it."
--Wanda Jackson, Finding Her Voice, p. 234

I think Wanda Jackson is of a piece with her immediate and equally pioneering female forebears, Rose Maddox and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, two women who more than held their own against the men of their day and presaged the emergence of rock 'n' roll. Unfortunately, this comparison is all too apt in another important respect. Neither Maddox nor Tharpe are in the RnR HoF in any capacity, let alone as "early influences," and Maddox, like Jackson, isn't in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Ridiculous. However, rather than turn this forum into a litany of complaints against institutionalized narrow-mindedness, I will simply call bullshit. So it has been done.

The bottom line is that Wanda Jackson isn't great because she's been allowed to join a "little boy's club," as Elvis Costello once referred to the RnR HoF. She's great because she combined formidable talent, with style, spirit, and sass, and did so on her terms. I leave with a clip that, for me, sums up her unique greatness. Shot at Town Hall Party in 1958, she covers Elvis' #1 hit from that year, "Hard-Headed Woman." However, her arrangement is totally unique, both musically and visually. She has the great Joe Maphis tearing up his double-necked Mosrite guitar, which was the first of its kind and had to look to the audience like some sort of Martian homing device. She has a trumpet player, somewhat in the vein of Bob Wills' old Texas Playboys, whose western swing was Wanda's first musical inspiration. There's a piano player, sort of a poor-man's Jerry Lee Lewis, pounding away. And apparently, Mamie Van Doren is playing fiddle, though she sits out this tune. Just a great, fun, feisty recording, like much of Wanda's best work.



"A hard-headed woman is a thorn in the side of a man." Ain't that the truth.

Rescued From Obscurity: Don't Be Denied

In the pantheon of Neil Young rock anthems, a number of tunes vie for that coveted #1 slot. There are Girls, of both the Cinnamon and Cowgirl In Sand varieties, as well as a Southern Man. There are Hurricanes, Powderfingers, Words, and Country Homes. You can go for My My, Hey Hey or possibly Hey Hey, My My. Oh, and there's another baker's dozen that would probably be any other band's finest moment of ragged glory. But, my favorite of all is unique in the Young pantheon because it's not even available to the average Neil fan. I'm talking about the title song of today's post, "Don't Be Denied."

Neil Young - Don't Be Denied [Album Version] [Lyrics]

If you're unfamiliar with the tune chances are it's because it's trapped on Time Fades Away, a wobbling, feisty document of the ill-fated Harvest tour, where Neil defied audience expectations by not giving them winsome tales from a content folkie. No, no, we'll have none of that, sir. What audiences got, and what that monster of an album captures wonderfully, was an exercise in nightly demon-purging. This is why Time Fades Away went out-of-print approximately 47 minutes after its release. The reception to the album was not unlike that of the tour ... a bit frosty-ish. Here's a few reviews unearthed by my crack research team:

"Where's the 'Heart Of Gold'? Where's the 'Old Man'? Doesn't Neil know he represents the folk/pop genre???"
--D Geffen, Los Angeles

"I'll wait for the CSNY reunion, thankyouverymuch. At least there I know I'll get a little honest music-making."
--Ex-girlfriend of C, S, or N, we're not sure which, East Village, NYC

"Is he drunk? Totally unprofessional. This is 1973, not, not, Woodstock!!!"
--D Geffen, Los Angeles

And so on. Just sayin' that it's probably not accidental the album is out-of-print. As proof, here's the depressing Amazon.com page.

Too bad because Time Fades Away, for all its flaws, acne scars, and tuneless tumult is about as honest a recording as you'll hear. "Don't Be Denied," in particular, is both one of folk music's most searing moments and one of rock music's most honest moments. It's a no-flinching, no-bullshit account of an innocent made cynic, the dream of becoming a rock star fulfilled and discovering precisely what that means. "A millionaire through a businessman's eyes." Fucking brilliant.

I long thought this would be the perfect song for a kickass rock band to sing at an awards show, preferably unannounced a la Elvis Costello on Saturday Night Live. Of course, that was back when people actually watched awards shows. Tell me this wouldn't have been perfect for The Replacements circa Don't Tell A Soul, about the time they were getting invited to awards shows and dealing with the trappings of (relative) fame themselves. Now, I don't know. Maybe a My Morning Jacket could do this justice, but I don't think they're really struggling with fame. They, in fact, seem to enjoy it. That's the key. The discomfiture with the public eye combined with the narrow-minded expectations of a mass audience drove Neil to write "Don't Be Denied," and that reality is what gives the song its balls.

Neil Young - Don't Be Denied [Maple Leaf Gardens Version] [Lyrics]

I'm including two versions of this song, the album version above and this one from an early performance on the Harvest tour. As Neil correctly notes, "It's a folk song. It tells a little story." It also contains the fabled "Oh Canada" verse, included on the lyric sheet that came with the album, but not actually part of that recording. One presumes that the song was a work-in-progress and that verse ended up on the cutting room floor, so it's kinda cool to compare the two versions. From a big-picture perspective, it's also cool that the "Oh Canada" verse is sung at a show in Canada, specifically in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens. I think the home crowd probably appreciated that. I also think the lo-fidelity recording plays to the strengths of the tour and album, which is to say that imperfection is good if it's honest imperfection.

For those of you interested, check out Thrasher's Wheat, a Neil Young fan site that has started a petition to release Time Fades Away on CD. Interesting that the post to which I'm linking is dated April 2009. Apparently, this petition comes to us from the future, which is both creepy and comforting. They may be spying on us, but at least there is a future. Personally, I think if Neil wants to reissue this album, he should do so on 180 gram vinyl. Remaster it a little bit, include the lyric sheet, and maybe some other LP-sized goodies. This is a recording meant for analog, so if you're gonna do it, do it right.

NOTE FROM THE MANAGEMENT

Earlier this evening, I received a call from my lawyer (pictured left) demanding that my Neil Young video be taken outside and have its kneecaps broken. I'm paraphrasing, of course. According to the email forwarded to me from said lawyer, "A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video 'Neil Fu**ing Young [BBC]'. The audio content identified in your video is 'Tonight's The Night' by Neil Young. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue." Sorry kids. It was a cool clip, but rules is rules.

Despite the legal setback, my love for Tonight's The Night remains steadfast. As noted in the earlier version of this post, I discussed this LP several months ago in Six Degrees: Headed For The Ditch. Check it, yo.