“He said, ‘You’ve got the voice and you’ve got the spirit.’ He cared enough to take me to his house. He played records and he said, ‘See, you can kind of do it like this,’” she recalls of her time with Elvis. “I learned a lot from him about having fun on stage.”
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For Jackson, Elvis is still a pure symbol of that boyish America, untarnished by his later image. “Elvis was just like any 21-year-old guy except he was so happy he was making some money and got to buy Graceland for his mom.”
It was Wanda Jackson’s father, Tom, not Elvis or her producer Ken Nelson at Capitol Records, who eventually helped her cross over fully into rock music.
In 1956, she was trying to cut “Fujiyama Mama,” the song that eventually turned her into an international star, and things just weren’t clicking, and Nelson was confusing her.
“It was new to all of us,” Wanda recalls. “My dad was there and he played a very important role in my type of singing. He came out and pulled me aside, and I thought, ‘Uh oh, Daddy’s here. I’m in trouble.’ He said, ‘Wanda, you know how you want to sing that song, don’t pay any attention to what Ken’s saying, you just rear back and sing that song.”
She did, and it was a breakthrough moment. When she sings, “I’m a Fujiyama mama and I’m just about to blow my top,” it was the sound every female singer would have to follow.
It’s the sound Jack White heard in the early ‘90s in Detroit, albeit through the translation of an all-girl Japanese garage rock band called the 5.6.7.8.s, whose version of Jackson’s “Let’s Have A Party” was later featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. White didn’t realize who originated the song until he heard it again in Dead Poet’s Society, and discovered Wanda Jackson. He was bowled over by her music. “You can go back and listen to her early records and listen to her finding her voice,” he says, still amazed, about her transition into rock music.
After a string of rockabilly hits, though, Jackson moved back to the country format in the ‘60s and then found Christianity in the ‘70s. She’s performed mostly in the gospel genre throughout the last few decades.
Jackson admits she was ready to come back to rock and roll, though, and also ready for the opportunity to work with Jack White. After a White-produced 45rpm single – a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” backed with “Shakin’ All Over” – earlier this year, Jackson and White decided to turn the success into an LP’s worth of songs.
Winehouse’s retro soul even serves as a blueprint for The Party Ain’t Over. “I wanted Wanda to sing one of her songs because I think Amy’s the best singer going round now in the soul world,” White says. For Jackson, though, tackling a song about infidelity wasn’t an easy call. “I knew her name,” Jackson says about Winehouse. “I knew she was always in trouble.”
White’s vision for the album was to showcase all the eras and styles that Jackson’s career had touched. “This album has every genre,” White says, tacking off a list of styles: “‘40s calypso, balladry, yodeling, rockabilly, Christian funk. It takes her voice in fifteen different directions.”
There’s a Stones-y feel to Little Richard’s “Rip It Up” (the song that inspired the Stone’s own “Rip This Joint”). White also knew he wanted to do a Bob Dylan song and when he asked the songwriter what song he’d want Wanda Jackson to cut, Dylan said without a moment’s thought: “Thunder on the Mountain.”
There’s also “Teach Me Tonight,” a classic ‘50s song and Elvis’ “Like A Baby,” two songs Jackson had always wanted to record. Meanwhile, White and the band turn the gospel of “Dust On The Bible” into a funky strut.
Jackson came into the project with openness, trusting the instincts, taste and track record of her producer. It worked. “I love doing that song now,” Jackson muses, thinking back to her initial reservations about singing “You Know I’m No Good.”
“She put in that energy to take it someplace totally new,” White says proudly about his collaboration with Jackson and the range of styles they tackled. “It’s a testament to how much someone can fall in love with music.”
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