Lieber & Stoller’s frantic Riot In Cell Block
No.9 as a single release b/w Funnel Of Love.
The latter song echoed Wanda’s lonesome
love situation as her dad drove her on “city
to city days and no chance of romance”.
Today, the much covered song’s credited as
an inspiration by artists from Adele to Cyndi
Lauper. With Capitol now keen for her to
pursue crossover songs, she was on a roll
with Right Or Wrong – originally intended
for Brenda Lee but becoming Wanda’s fi rst
US Top 10 – before her highest US charting
single ever: In The Middle Of A Heartache.
Her personal life bloomed too.Wanda JacksonAhead. A&R man Ken Nelson at Capitol told
Wanda at 16 that “girls don’t sell records”.
(In retrospect, she thinks that he was not far
wrong at the time). She would later return to
Nelson and sing his praises as a producer for
allowing her considerable artistic freedom.
Meanwhile, she signed with Decca, her fi rst
single a hit duet with Billy Gray: If You Don’t
Somebody Else Will.
A year later in 1955, Wanda hit the road
on her fi rst package tour, headlined by
hotshot performer The Memphis Flash.
Elvis was in the building. When they played
venues such as the Overton Park Shell in
Memphis, crowds would erupt at Presley’s
mere presence. “It’s funny now to think
we’d drove hundreds and hundreds of miles
on those old two-state highways to earn
$50 for sharing the bill with a singer with
a funny name we’d never heard of,” Wanda
later recalled. “But Daddy and I felt like we
were living our musical dream.” Witnessing
the rave response Elvis received and guided
by him to embrace rock’n’roll, signifi cantly
affected Wanda’s subsequent style.
Other up and coming acts on the bill
included Charlie Feathers, Johnny Cash,
Sonny James, Carl Perkins, and in Texas,
shy new boy Buddy Holly. Wanda rejoined
them there for a week, then for a third time
in Denver, Colorado, playing 12 cities in
13 nights. She rocked audiences of 5,000-
10,000 per show, twice a day.
On tour, Elvis’ single Heartbreak Hotel
had turned million-seller. Follow-up
chart success eluded Wanda, though her
songwriting paid off a few months later
when her composition Without Your Love,
scored a Top 10 country hit for her friend
Bobby Lord. Again through her mentor
Hank Thompson, in 1956, she returned to
Ken Nelson at Capitol. Ironically, as she
expanded into rockabilly, the teen romance
she’d shared with her rock’n’roll advisor
Elvis, gently fi zzled out.
Wanda began releasing discs with
cracking country on one side, unbridled
rock’n’roll on the other; singles such as
No Wedding Bells For Joe backed with her
atomic cult classic Fujiyama Mama. Capitol
didn’t quite know what to make of her.
Neither did the US charts. Although her
Billboard debut I Gotta Know reached No.15,
for the rest of the 50s, she failed to achieve
a hit. Refl ecting on this to biographer Scott
B. Bomar, Wanda said, “I would however
cut some of my most enduring records and
unwittingly create a legacy that though not
commercially successful at the time, would
earn me generations of fans, and plenty of
accolades decades after the fact.”FOR WANDA, INTERNATIONAL
success came knocking instead: in Japan,
Fujiyama Mama became her fi rst No.1. She
went to Osaka for a seven-week tour, and
felt amazed to be feted as a big star. Back in
the States, as 1960 approached, Wanda was
forced to choose between rock’n’roll and
country by Capitol. For commercial reasons,
country won out. Yet Let’s Have A Party, a
last-minute cut released two years earlier on
her eponymous debut album, suddenly made
the Top 40 and led to rockabilly compilation,
Rockin’ With Wanda. Long Tall Sally also
became a hit in Italy. She then appeared on
Dick Clark’s TV show, and graced Vegas with
her renamed band, The Party Timers.
In 1961, thanks to success in both country
and rock, Wanda at last hit her commercial
peak. With Roy Clark on guitar, she released
the sparky LP There’s A Party Goin’ On – a
fi stful of classics like Hard Headed Woman,
Tongue Tied, Man We Had a Party – plus“WE’D DROVE HUNDREDS AND
HUNDREDS OF MILES ON THOSE OLDTWO-STATE HIGHWAYS TO EARN $50”