photos: Alan Mercer assisted by: Eric Venturo
Wanda Jackson signed her first contract with Decca Records when she was 16 years old. By the time she graduated from High School in 1955 she had two country songs on the Billboard charts. Then Elvis Presley convinced her to sing a new kind of music, eventually called rock-a-billy, and changed the course of her destiny and our cultural appreciation of music.
In April of 2009 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her fans today include another Elvis, this one Costello, and Bruce Springsteen. She continues to pick up new fans every day. A Wanda Jackson concert is not an ‘Oldies show’ in any way. Her audience is largely under thirty with tattoos and creative haircuts. Her songs are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago.
I looked forward to this day for about a month before it happened so I was ready to make the most of my time with the beautiful Miss Jackson. Like all exceptional people…there is something so unique about her. I fell in love with her vivacious energy and her up front approach to living. Along with Husband/Manager Wendell Goodman, she travels the world performing and making personal appearances. Wanda Jackson is a National Treasure and I will always be grateful we had the chance to work together.
AM: I think of you as two different artists. Do you know what I’m talking about?
WJ: Yes I am two different artists, Country and Rock-a-billy.
AM: Are you comfortable with the legend title?
WJ: Oh I LOVE it! I’d like to wear it on the side of my back. (Laughing)
AM: Do you feel like the mother of it all?
WJ: Of the rock scene? Yes and some of the kids have gone bad! (Laughing) I have to round them up and do something with them! I hadn’t thought of it in that terminology but sure. I was the first one to try it at Elvis’s insistence and challenge. It was my music because I was a teenager when I started doing all this. I was seventeen so I wanted to do it. I didn’t think I could but he said, ‘Certainly you can. You have the voice for it.’ So I decided to take him at his word.
AM: That is amazing. I’m glad you did!
WJ: Yes me too. I found out things about my voice that I didn’t know anything about. When I had the right lyric and a gutsy song then the growly part came out.
AM: Do you understand or recognize the drive that set you apart?
WJ: My livelihood.
AM: Do you mean money?
WJ: No not money, it is my job. I didn’t ever plan for anything else. I didn’t take any courses in school for any back up. I’ve never done anything in my life to make a penny except sing. The drive was definitely there. I just had to make it. I had so much help it made it easy for me. If I hadn’t had the help and I had to work in the daytime and play clubs at night I am not so sure I would have made it. I see why so many of them don’t. My parents helped me in every way. It was a family business. Hank Thompson was a big help and of course Elvis was.
AM: So people liked you aside from your talent?
WJ: Yes, I’m easy to get along with.
AM: Were or are you anything like the songs about partying? Were you a wild child?
WJ: No I really wasn’t. My image is more of an alter ego type of thing. I could be the girl in the song. I liked parties and dancing and having fun. I wouldn’t have been considered wild I don’t think.
AM: What made the Opry a bad experience? Were you too wild at that time?
WJ: (Laughing) I wasn’t wild. I had already changed my way of dressing. I wanted to be glamorous like Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, and Elizabeth Taylor and it didn’t fit well with country music but I changed it anyway. At the Opry I was ready to go on and had my guitar and Ernest Tubb came back and said, ‘Are you Wanda Jackson?’ and I said, ‘Yes sir.’ Then he said, ‘Well you are up in five minutes.’ I said, ’I’m ready, I got my guitar.’ And he then said, ‘Honey you can’t go out there like that.’ And I thought, like what? He continued, “You can’t show your shoulders. You will have to cover up.’ I was just starting to wear these dresses with spaghetti straps so I was in tears.
AM: What did you do?
WJ: I went back to my dressing room and put my jacket on, which was white with long fringe, so I probably looked fine but it broke my heart to cover up my new dress. Then when I got out on stage and tried to sing my serious song, my brand new record, everybody behind me was cutting up and upstaging me something terrible. I turned my eyes around and Minnie Pearl would be doing something funny and the dancers would be doing something else. I couldn’t stand it. I learned stage manners the first thing. So when I got off stage I grabbed my Daddy by the hand and said, ‘Let’s get out of here. I am never coming back.’ Elvis said the same thing happened to him but they booed him. They didn’t boo me.
AM: Do you know the vastness of your influence?
WJ: I’m beginning too, most definitely. It’s very thrilling. My greatest accomplishment is to inspire other artists. Now they are saying that I have inspired strong women. I’ll take some credit for it but I don’t know.
AM: Was becoming a musical legend your goal?
WJ: No I just wanted a hit record. I wanted to travel the world and make my living singing.
AM: Did you think you would sing for a while and then become a housewife?
WJ: Yes, that was the mindset, so I thought I want to do all I can now before all that happens and I get married and have to stay home. I thought maybe I would play locally.
At this point Wanda’s husband and manager Wendell Goodman steps in and says, ‘I want you to know that Wanda gave me the choice when we were married to either continue working or to quit.’
AM: You have been good for her. Everyone thinks of you as a team. You are almost as well known as she is.
WJ: I know it! You really are honey.
Wendell now says he going to run for governor and we are all laughing.
WJ: He has kept me laughing for forty-seven years.
AM: What makes this team work so successfully?
WJ: Mutual respect and the fact that he takes care of the business. He directs my career, always with my approval of course. He always allows that. I take care of the performing but he even helps me with that. We just do it all together because we both work for the same boss! Another factor is we both became Christians. We are together twenty-four hours a day so you have to like that person as well as be in love with them. When we both gave our hearts and lives to Christ we realized that before we were like two entities. Who is going to get their way in this matter? Once we got saved we bowed to Christ. He is the one that gets the final say and how we feel in our hearts about the final decision. It made all the difference. Our priorities got lined up. Jealousy blew out the window.
AM: So you both noticed a dramatic shift?
WJ: Wendell was a bit jealous and I sure couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t in show business. He was not used to sharing his girl with everybody else. He grew up in West Texas. Now he had to share me with the whole world, my time, my energy, everything was about this other Wanda, not his wife. It caused a few problems here and there. It was our lifestyle of one-nighters and clubs with a band. We carried a lot of stress. Our children were being reared by nannies and our parents. They were well taken care of. We had our share of problems but once we gave our hearts to Christ all of a sudden the jealousy that he had was gone. It was a shock to me so I noticed it right away.
AM: It sounds like you lost your fears.
WJ: I had a confidence I had never had before in anything I did. It changes your heart. I realized how wrong I was in so much of my thinking.
AM: What is an average non touring day like?
WJ: I don’t do anything. For one thing I relax and I really look forward to that part. I sleep in, run errands, go to appointments, doctors, dentists, get my hair and nails done. I usually have a ten day period to get all this done.
AM: Do you run into fans on the street in Oklahoma or is everybody used to seeing you?
WJ: I can tell when they are noticing me. I made a pledge that I would not go out into public anymore with my make-up and without looking decent. I’m all over the paper and the internet not to look as good as I can.
AM: Do you listen to contemporary artists?
WJ: I pretty much just listen to my music collection at home. If something is real popular I will try to listen to see what the talk is about. I listen to MY music at home too because then I know it’s a song I like! (Laughing) If I recorded it I liked it. I do like Pink. She is pretty cute. She is different but she isn’t in-your-face different.
AM: Did you enjoy working with Ruth Brown?
WJ: I was very thrilled to be on the same stage as Ruth Brown.
AM: Do you think the internet revitalized your cultural relevance?
WJ: Absolutely. I’m picking up new fans as we speak because of it. I get letters now from everywhere. It’s amazing to be this far along in my career and still be getting fan mail. I come home from a tour and I have all these letters and emails that I like to answer. A lot of times I will send along a little drawing. That’s something I used to do a lot of was painting.
AM: Do you have any of your paintings?
WJ: Yes I have them. They are not all that great but it was a good diversion.
AM: You should put them on your website so we can all see them.
WJ: I love being with young people for their ideas and energy.
AM: What is at the center of Wanda Jackson?
WJ: Wendell Goodman and Jesus Christ, but not in that order.
AM: Did you think you would turn into an icon?
WJ: Heavens no. I never even thought about getting older. As a kid you don’t think that way. So all of a sudden I wake up one morning and I didn’t know who was looking back at me in the mirror. I just try to keep going. I think it’s so great that the kids still want to come out and see me. To be seventy-one and still have all these people of all ages enjoy my music.
AM: That is the power of the music. I want to say you are ageless.
WJ: In that sense I am. The music has proven it hasn’t it? If you get together with another person that likes the same music as you do, you have a friend and you can listen to music and talk all night.
In April of 2009 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her fans today include another Elvis, this one Costello, and Bruce Springsteen. She continues to pick up new fans every day. A Wanda Jackson concert is not an ‘Oldies show’ in any way. Her audience is largely under thirty with tattoos and creative haircuts. Her songs are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago.
I looked forward to this day for about a month before it happened so I was ready to make the most of my time with the beautiful Miss Jackson. Like all exceptional people…there is something so unique about her. I fell in love with her vivacious energy and her up front approach to living. Along with Husband/Manager Wendell Goodman, she travels the world performing and making personal appearances. Wanda Jackson is a National Treasure and I will always be grateful we had the chance to work together.
AM: I think of you as two different artists. Do you know what I’m talking about?
WJ: Yes I am two different artists, Country and Rock-a-billy.
AM: Are you comfortable with the legend title?
WJ: Oh I LOVE it! I’d like to wear it on the side of my back. (Laughing)
AM: Do you feel like the mother of it all?
WJ: Of the rock scene? Yes and some of the kids have gone bad! (Laughing) I have to round them up and do something with them! I hadn’t thought of it in that terminology but sure. I was the first one to try it at Elvis’s insistence and challenge. It was my music because I was a teenager when I started doing all this. I was seventeen so I wanted to do it. I didn’t think I could but he said, ‘Certainly you can. You have the voice for it.’ So I decided to take him at his word.
AM: That is amazing. I’m glad you did!
WJ: Yes me too. I found out things about my voice that I didn’t know anything about. When I had the right lyric and a gutsy song then the growly part came out.
AM: Do you understand or recognize the drive that set you apart?
WJ: My livelihood.
AM: Do you mean money?
WJ: No not money, it is my job. I didn’t ever plan for anything else. I didn’t take any courses in school for any back up. I’ve never done anything in my life to make a penny except sing. The drive was definitely there. I just had to make it. I had so much help it made it easy for me. If I hadn’t had the help and I had to work in the daytime and play clubs at night I am not so sure I would have made it. I see why so many of them don’t. My parents helped me in every way. It was a family business. Hank Thompson was a big help and of course Elvis was.
AM: So people liked you aside from your talent?
WJ: Yes, I’m easy to get along with.
AM: Were or are you anything like the songs about partying? Were you a wild child?
WJ: No I really wasn’t. My image is more of an alter ego type of thing. I could be the girl in the song. I liked parties and dancing and having fun. I wouldn’t have been considered wild I don’t think.
AM: What made the Opry a bad experience? Were you too wild at that time?
WJ: (Laughing) I wasn’t wild. I had already changed my way of dressing. I wanted to be glamorous like Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, and Elizabeth Taylor and it didn’t fit well with country music but I changed it anyway. At the Opry I was ready to go on and had my guitar and Ernest Tubb came back and said, ‘Are you Wanda Jackson?’ and I said, ‘Yes sir.’ Then he said, ‘Well you are up in five minutes.’ I said, ’I’m ready, I got my guitar.’ And he then said, ‘Honey you can’t go out there like that.’ And I thought, like what? He continued, “You can’t show your shoulders. You will have to cover up.’ I was just starting to wear these dresses with spaghetti straps so I was in tears.
AM: What did you do?
WJ: I went back to my dressing room and put my jacket on, which was white with long fringe, so I probably looked fine but it broke my heart to cover up my new dress. Then when I got out on stage and tried to sing my serious song, my brand new record, everybody behind me was cutting up and upstaging me something terrible. I turned my eyes around and Minnie Pearl would be doing something funny and the dancers would be doing something else. I couldn’t stand it. I learned stage manners the first thing. So when I got off stage I grabbed my Daddy by the hand and said, ‘Let’s get out of here. I am never coming back.’ Elvis said the same thing happened to him but they booed him. They didn’t boo me.
AM: Do you know the vastness of your influence?
WJ: I’m beginning too, most definitely. It’s very thrilling. My greatest accomplishment is to inspire other artists. Now they are saying that I have inspired strong women. I’ll take some credit for it but I don’t know.
AM: Was becoming a musical legend your goal?
WJ: No I just wanted a hit record. I wanted to travel the world and make my living singing.
AM: Did you think you would sing for a while and then become a housewife?
WJ: Yes, that was the mindset, so I thought I want to do all I can now before all that happens and I get married and have to stay home. I thought maybe I would play locally.
At this point Wanda’s husband and manager Wendell Goodman steps in and says, ‘I want you to know that Wanda gave me the choice when we were married to either continue working or to quit.’
AM: You have been good for her. Everyone thinks of you as a team. You are almost as well known as she is.
WJ: I know it! You really are honey.
Wendell now says he going to run for governor and we are all laughing.
WJ: He has kept me laughing for forty-seven years.
AM: What makes this team work so successfully?
WJ: Mutual respect and the fact that he takes care of the business. He directs my career, always with my approval of course. He always allows that. I take care of the performing but he even helps me with that. We just do it all together because we both work for the same boss! Another factor is we both became Christians. We are together twenty-four hours a day so you have to like that person as well as be in love with them. When we both gave our hearts and lives to Christ we realized that before we were like two entities. Who is going to get their way in this matter? Once we got saved we bowed to Christ. He is the one that gets the final say and how we feel in our hearts about the final decision. It made all the difference. Our priorities got lined up. Jealousy blew out the window.
AM: So you both noticed a dramatic shift?
WJ: Wendell was a bit jealous and I sure couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t in show business. He was not used to sharing his girl with everybody else. He grew up in West Texas. Now he had to share me with the whole world, my time, my energy, everything was about this other Wanda, not his wife. It caused a few problems here and there. It was our lifestyle of one-nighters and clubs with a band. We carried a lot of stress. Our children were being reared by nannies and our parents. They were well taken care of. We had our share of problems but once we gave our hearts to Christ all of a sudden the jealousy that he had was gone. It was a shock to me so I noticed it right away.
AM: It sounds like you lost your fears.
WJ: I had a confidence I had never had before in anything I did. It changes your heart. I realized how wrong I was in so much of my thinking.
AM: What is an average non touring day like?
WJ: I don’t do anything. For one thing I relax and I really look forward to that part. I sleep in, run errands, go to appointments, doctors, dentists, get my hair and nails done. I usually have a ten day period to get all this done.
AM: Do you run into fans on the street in Oklahoma or is everybody used to seeing you?
WJ: I can tell when they are noticing me. I made a pledge that I would not go out into public anymore with my make-up and without looking decent. I’m all over the paper and the internet not to look as good as I can.
AM: Do you listen to contemporary artists?
WJ: I pretty much just listen to my music collection at home. If something is real popular I will try to listen to see what the talk is about. I listen to MY music at home too because then I know it’s a song I like! (Laughing) If I recorded it I liked it. I do like Pink. She is pretty cute. She is different but she isn’t in-your-face different.
AM: Did you enjoy working with Ruth Brown?
WJ: I was very thrilled to be on the same stage as Ruth Brown.
AM: Do you think the internet revitalized your cultural relevance?
WJ: Absolutely. I’m picking up new fans as we speak because of it. I get letters now from everywhere. It’s amazing to be this far along in my career and still be getting fan mail. I come home from a tour and I have all these letters and emails that I like to answer. A lot of times I will send along a little drawing. That’s something I used to do a lot of was painting.
AM: Do you have any of your paintings?
WJ: Yes I have them. They are not all that great but it was a good diversion.
AM: You should put them on your website so we can all see them.
WJ: I love being with young people for their ideas and energy.
AM: What is at the center of Wanda Jackson?
WJ: Wendell Goodman and Jesus Christ, but not in that order.
AM: Did you think you would turn into an icon?
WJ: Heavens no. I never even thought about getting older. As a kid you don’t think that way. So all of a sudden I wake up one morning and I didn’t know who was looking back at me in the mirror. I just try to keep going. I think it’s so great that the kids still want to come out and see me. To be seventy-one and still have all these people of all ages enjoy my music.
AM: That is the power of the music. I want to say you are ageless.
WJ: In that sense I am. The music has proven it hasn’t it? If you get together with another person that likes the same music as you do, you have a friend and you can listen to music and talk all night.
Eric Venturo with Wanda JacksonTo learn more about Wanda Jackson visit her web site http://www.wandajackson.com/main.html
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