Wanda Jackson
The Original Riot Girl


Wanda Jackson is a true rock 'n' roll pioneer—and an original riot girl! When it comes to girl-powered rockabilly, Wanda did it first, she did it right, and she did it with style. She was belting out kick-ass rockabilly stomps like "Hard-Headed Woman," and "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," touring the deeply segregated South with a mixed-race band, and bagging the reigning king of cool—none other than Elvis Aron Presley—when nice girls were expected to sit still, speak softly, look pretty (but not sexy!), and most importantly, not raise any kind of ruckus. Well, Wanda shimmied, sang with a growl, looked hot, and raised the roof—nearly causing a "Riot In Cell Block #9" in the process. And 50 years later…she's still doing it!

The future queen of rockabilly spent much of her early youth growing up in the warm California sun, but her family relocated to Oklahoma City just in time for her teenage years. Growing up in the '40s and early '50s, like her parents, she was a big fan of country music, particularly the popular western swing bands of the era.

"My mother and dad were beautiful dancers. They loved to dance and would take me with them. We'd go out to hear Bob Wills, Hank Thompson, Tex Williams, Spade Cooley—the big bands. The Maddox Brothers & Rose were also popular at that time, and I thought this was wonderful—this woman up there in these flashy clothes, just feisty and just having the best time with these guys."

And this set a young girl to thinkin'…

"Every one of those Western swing bands had a girl singer. The girls always wore pretty clothes and yodeled. So you know how they ask kids, 'What are you going to be when you grow up?' Well I'd say, 'I’m going to be a girl singer!' I didn't want to be a guy singer, 'cause the girls were prettier!"

Wanda's music-loving parents didn't waste any time encouraging the budding performer in their midst. She began taking piano lessons, and her father started teaching her how to play the guitar. Then her first big break came in the form of a local radio show.

"In Oklahoma City, there was a radio station that had a country music show that devoted the last 15 minutes to local talent. My friends at church kind of dared me actually to try to sing for the show. So I did. I was scared to death, but I actually wanted to do it.

But anyway, I wound up getting my own show and singing when I was about 14."

It wasn't long before Western swing bandleader and country music impresario Hank Thompson (best known for songs like "The Wild Side of Life" and "A Six Pack To Go") stumbled upon the young Wanda on the Oklahoma City airwaves—and Hank liked what he heard!

"So he called and invited me to come and sing with him one Saturday night. I said, 'I'd love to, Mr. Thompson, but I'll have to ask my mother.' I was in school, so I couldn't go out on the road. But if he played in Oklahoma City, I'd sing. Then he had a TV show that I could do, a regular TV show. Then after I graduated, I worked with him. He became my mentor and good friend, and we're still friends today."

Thompson hoped to get Wanda signed to his own label, the powerhouse Capitol Records, but the brainiacs in charge at Capitol felt the Oklahoma teen was just too young. Fortunately, Decca Records had no compunction about signing the youngster. And by the time she'd graduated from high school in 1955, whereas most of her peers had nothing but acne and bad haircuts to show for themselves, she'd already notched a couple of minor hits on the country charts with Decca.

And it was just a few months after graduating, while heading out on tour with the Ozark Jubilee across the south, that a certain young hillbilly cat with cool sideburns first strolled into her life—that's right, Elvis! The future King hadn't become a national sensation yet. But the two young singers seemed to strike up a certain chemistry right off the bat.

"I was a teenage girl…do I need to say more? I was 17. It was in Cape Girardieu, Missouri—the first day of the first show. I'd never heard of him. I just thought he had a funny name. But I just thought, 'Wow, he's a good-looking guy—kind of strange, but such charisma!'"

The two started dating and toured together through 1955 and 1956, right when the young Mr. Presley was in the process of transmogrifying into the first messiah of rock 'n' roll.

"'55-'56, I was there when all of it happened. He changed [from Sun Records] to RCA Victor, and he got with Colonel Tom [Parker]. But we just had a wonderful relationship. My dad loved him, and he liked my dad. We had a lot in common. I'd never gone steady with a guy, so when I came back into the city wearing this guy's ring around my neck, all my girlfriends wanted to know, 'Whose is that?' And when he did 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' it was fun for me. I was still wearing his ring, and my girlfriends are saying, 'Is that this guy? Is that the one?' And I said, 'Yeah!' So I became famous at home!"

But Elvis didn't just have an effect on young Wanda's libido, he also had an equally powerful effect on her music. You see, up till now, Wanda was still behaving herself like she should and crooning those nice little country tunes. But now, the boys from Capitol who'd passed on her a couple of years earlier saw the error of their ways and came calling again, and Wanda was getting a fresh start with a whole new label.

"I really didn't start recording rockabilly until '56 when I went with Capitol, but it was thanks to Elvis's encouragement. He really encouraged me. He took me to his home when we would play Memphis, and this one time when we went to his house, he played records for me, he played the guitar, and he was trying to show me the feel for this stuff. And I just said, 'Elvis, I don't think I can do this.' And he said, 'I know you can; I know you can!'"

"My dad loved it too. He was an unusual guy. He just said, 'If you're going to make it in this business, you better be different.' And there wasn't any girls out there—I had no competition, so he had the right idea. So I started changing my clothes—my mother began making my dresses more glamorous, more sexy. So I kind of started getting my identity and confidence up."

But those sexy outfits led her to have something else in common with Elvis—a less than stellar experience with the high church of country music, the Grand Ole Opry!

"I was just getting ready to go on in one of my new sexy little white and red fringe outfits, and Ernest Tubb said, 'Are you Wanda Jackson? You're on next, hun'.' I said, 'OK, I'm ready.' He said, 'Well, you can't go on the stage at the Opry like that. You can't show your shoulders!' So I went back and I happened to have a pretty decent white leather fringe jacket that I put on, but I was near tears. Oh boy, I came out of there and I said, 'Daddy, I'll never come back to this place again!' And I found out later, that's exactly what Elvis said."

So with Elvis's encouragement and a brand new record contract with Capitol, Wanda started swingin' down the rockabilly lane. And over the next few years, while working with producer Ken Nelson, Wanda would unleash a string of full-throttle rockabilly classics like "Rock Your Baby," "Let's Have A Party," "Fujiyama Mama," "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," "Hard Headed Woman," "Mean Mean Man," and "Riot in Cell Block #9" that would earn her the reputation as the "Queen of Rockabilly" and cause many to think of her as "the female Elvis."

These songs all came from the point of view of a strong woman who knew what she wanted—usually, a good time—and wasn't about to let any man stand in her way. But Wanda shook things up in other ways too—like touring the deep South with a mixed-race band at a time when most nice white southern girls wouldn't be caught dead associating with colored folks.

"Well, I had a black piano player, Al Downing. One time, a club operator came to me and said, 'You'll have to get him off the stage.' But I said, 'What do you mean? He's my piano player.' He said, 'Yeah, but we don't allow black people.' I said, 'Oh OK, well then I guess we'll have to go.' He said, 'No, just send him off and we're fine.' But I said, 'No, he's in my band. If he goes, I go—whichever way you wanna do it.' But it was hard for him. He couldn't use the restrooms. He couldn't drink out of the fountains. But he was good, and people loved him. He couldn't go out off the stage to the people, but the people would go onstage and talk to him. So that said a lot."

Once the original spark of rockabilly began to fade and the British Invasion consumed the American music scene in the '60s, Wanda eventually turned her attention to country and gospel music and also built up quite a loyal following for herself touring and recording in Europe, where the virtues of vintage Americana have always been well-appreciated.

"They just appreciate original artists. They're not so quick to change like Americans. We've got 'what's the next big thing' here, but they just kind of hang in there a lot longer."

But in the past few years, with a renewed interest from younger audiences, Wanda's climbed back on board the rockabilly bandwagon with a vengeance! She regularly plays to enthusiastic audiences around the country, and her sizzling 2003 release, "Heart Trouble," featured contributions from modern-day Wanda acolytes like Rosie Flores, Dave Alvin, Elvis Costello and The Cramps, and was actually named one of the Top 10 albums of the year by the Associated Press—along with offerings by Outkast, Beyonce and R. Kelly!

"It was a neat experience. It really was. Rosie, of course, is very dear to me and she's been a big help to me. And Elvis Costello was a big fan of mine I found out. I was flattered! But I'm glad that now there's such a revival of this kind of music. And it's young adults that are loving this. Our friends will come out and they'll say, 'I can't believe how young your audiences are.' And I'm very humbled by that. I really am!"

So fifty years after helping to light the rockabilly flame, what are Miss Wanda's plans for the future? The reigning Queen of Rockabilly likes to keep it simple…

"I just plan to keep on breathin'!"

Well, that's good enough for us! Good luck, God bless…and long live the Queen!