We talk to biographer Scott B. Bomar, co-author of Every
Night Is Saturday Night: A Country Girl’s Journey To
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, about what makes
Wanda Jackson such a giant of the rockabilly scene
TELLING
STORIES
WORDS BY JULIE BURNS
H
ow do you view Wanda’s place in
the pantheon of rocking greats?
Successful female singers who
could both rock and sing country were
admittedly rare in her day but they did exist
(notably Janis Martin from ’56, to Brenda
Lee slightly later).How do you think Wanda’s unique
in comparison?
I view Wanda as a pioneer, but that’s
something she never actually consciously
set out to be. It was while touring with
Elvis that he encouraged her to try
recording “his” kind of music, as opposed
to the strictly country fare she’d recorded
up to that point. What’s unique about
Wanda’s story is that, once she signed with
Capitol Records, she did the bulk of her
recording on the West Coast, rather than in
Nashville or Memphis. California’s brand of
country music had always been a bit more
adventurous thanks to acts like The Maddox
Brothers and Rose. As the rest of the country
began to draw sharper distinctions between
“country” and “rock” it was never that big
of a deal for Capitol Records’ legendary
A&R man Ken Nelson. That meant Wanda
pretty much had the freedom to record
what she wanted to record, and the studio
musicians backing her (Buck Owens among
them) had the chops and the fl exibility to
follow her instincts. Wanda always recorded
country music, even as she was recordingrock material, so I don’t think she was really
trying to either set or follow any trends. She
was just doing what came naturally to her,
and it’s only in retrospect that we realise it
was groundbreaking.Wanda’s records were not played on air
by 1958; do you agree with her view that
DJs appeared not to understand her
‘hybridising’ of country and rock’n’roll –
that she wasn’t seen as one or the other –
and that it still wasn’t seen as seemly for
a girl to sing ‘nasty’ music?It’s hard to guess why certain records get
played or why some music catches on
with the public when other music doesn’t.
Ironically, Wanda had far more commercial
success on the country charts, even though
she’s mostly known as a rock pioneer today.
She’s right in that the music industry has
a tendency to categorise, and that was
especially true in the era when country radio
was a bit preoccupied with identifying “us”
(country artists) versus “them” (rockers).
Country was not viewed as cool in the 50s.
With that advent of rock and roll thereWanda JacksonWith Cyndi Lauper at the America
Salutes You concert, 12 November, 2016Scott B. BomarDaniel^ Boczarski/Ge
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