Wanda Jackson
By Ken Paulson
Americana Music Conference attendees had a rare treat when rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson popped up in the hotel bar to play a spirited set.
“What’s with the blue hair?,” the feisty Jackson shouted out to an audience member. “You must be a rebel.”
She surely was. She embraced rock ‘n’ roll when it was still the exclusive turf of young men.
In her performance on Friday, Jackson reached back to 1959 to do what she called her “first #1 record,” “Fujiyama Mama.” Unfortunately, it was number 1 in Japan and not here, she noted, smiling.
She drew two songs from her last album,The Party Ain’t Over, produced by Jack White, who she described as a “velvet-covered brick.”
She’s turned to Justin Townes Earle to produce her next album Unfinished Business, due this fall on Sugar Hill Records.
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