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ACL Fest review: Wanda Jackson
((Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
You think you’ve got it going on? Wanda Jackson, 73 years young, just happened to mention during her ACL set on Saturday that she used to date Elvis. A story which has the added advantage of being true.
Then she happened to let drop that she’d just finished a ten-day tour with Adele. And, oh yeah, Jack White called her up one day to ask if he could produce her latest album. “I’m a lucky Okie,” she said with admirable understatement.
Jackson, rock and roll’s original “bad girl”—long before Ronnie Spector and eons before Amy Winehouse—is still going strong, taking to the Austin Ventures stage in a black pantsuit with a hot pink fringed jacket and an awe-inspiring head of lacquered black hair (“The bigger the hair, the closer to God,” as Ann Richards used to say).
Backed up by a crackerjack rockabilly ensemble from Nashville, Jackson moved through her set with a vigor her grandchildren might envy. She’s still a sassy thing, with more attitude in one cocked eyebrow or sly smile than most punk rockers. How many septugenarians can you name that would take the stage to the majestic chords of Link Wray’s “Rumble” and then belt out “Riot In Cell Block #9”?
Jackson devoted the mid part of her set to tracks from the Jack White-produced “The Party Ain’t Over,” including “Shakin’ All Over,” Elvis’ “Like A Baby” and, poignantly, her take on the late Winehouse’s “You Know That I’m No Good.”
“She fought her demons,” said Jackson in an aside. “I was so looking forward to meeting her one day.”
Jackson has hits of her own, of course. She had to write them, being that no one was writing rock and roll songs for women in the Fifties. There was the campy “Fujiyama Mama” (they don’t make titles like that any more!), and the so-simple-it’s-brilliant “Mean Mean Man,” and her enduring theme song, “Let’s Have A Party.”
Towards the end of her set, Jackson’s voice grew raspy with allergies; the price of singing in Austin. Her husband of nearly 50 years brought her out a glass of something to soothe her throat. She nodded towards him and said, “That’s the guy who kissed better than Elvis. So I married him.”
Even bad girls have sweet spots.
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