Wanda Jackson & Elvis

Interview with Wanda Jackson by Scott Jenkins

SJ Wanda, thankyou for speaking with us. Welcome to Australia.

Is this your first time here?

WJ No, I was here in 1972 with a large package tour from America for a benefit show for UNICEF. So I've been here before, it's just been a long time.

SJ For our readers that may not know much about you, can you tell us about your early life and how you got into music?

WJ My dad was a musician. He played guitar and fiddle. I was quite young. I loved it (music) and it was the only thing I ever wanted to do. When I was about 12 or 13, I played guitar with my friends at parties. I went to a radio station to try out for a show, and they let me go on. Through that, I won a contest I think it was. That and the radio show gave me a lot of very good experience. From the show, Hank Thompson - he had the number one Western swing band in the nation at the time. He was my favourite singer and he heard me. He helped me get my first recording contract with Decca Records. I was junior in high school. Two years later, I moved to Capitol Records and I was recording straight country music. I had some pretty good success with a couple of songs. So I graduated high school in the summer of '55, and I was ready to go on tour. And as it's turned out, I've been on tour ever since. Fifty odd years. But it's something I loved then, and I still love it. I've travelled around the world singing my songs, and I've got a lot of wonderful friends.

SJ So did you hear Elvis' music first or did you meet him first?

WJ I had met him first. I hadn't heard any of his songs being played on the radio in Oklahoma City where I lived, so I had no idea who I was working with at the time.

Wanda Jackson & Elvis

WJ As I said, I was ready to go on tour, and we went with the Bob Neal agency. He was booking Elvis at the time. Bob wanted a girl on the bill and he decided to book me. So that's how I began working with Elvis for a couple of years and several extended tours. So we became good friends.

SJ What was being on tour with Elvis and the others like?

WJ Well, at that time it was pretty exciting. Elvis' career was really taking off, you know - '55',56',57 - so we were able to enjoy that success. It was exciting times. I was working with people like Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins. People like that on the bill. They were with Elvis and they were with me. They weren't superstars at that time, but they were on their way up.

SJ What were your first impressions of Elvis? Obviously it was before the big stardom came into his life, so what was he like before the whole thing exploded?

WJ I was very impressed with him. My father was too - he travelled with me in those days. He was the perfect gentleman, very quiet and reserved sort of fellow. We liked him very much.

SJ So did you se much of Elvis after the fifties?

WJ Not really. The last time I saw him was in '64 in Las Vegas. He came to my room to say hello to me and to meet my husband. We had about 10 or 15 minutes with him. But that was the last time.

SJ Did you follow his career during the sixties and seventies?

WJ Yes, of course I did.

Wanda Jackson

WJ Well, he turned out to be the great performer that he always was. Just a little more - oh, I'm not sure what the word is - polished?

SJ And he never lost that good, well-mannered Southern boy thing.

WJ I don't think so, no. I think to anyone who ever knew him, in the latter years even, he remained kind of a private person. But a very nice gentleman.

SJ Where were you when you heard that he had passed away?

WJ I was with my husband and our two children, and we were coming back from a weekend on the lake. And we had the radio on. And it was ... you know, I felt that there must have been some mistake. This can't be the singer Elvis Presley, it had to be someone else. Of course, we all know it was. It's very hard to accept, even now.

SJ So what do you think it is about Elvis Presley that, 30 years after his death, we're still talking about him? He's making more money than a lot of living celebrities and he's more popular than ever today.

WJ The quality of his voice, the performing. He was just one of a kind. I don't think that anyone has come up in the ranks since him to equal him. He changed music, he changed that way teenagers dressed, he gave identity. He just changed a lot of things. He turned the music industry upside down, and all of that was going on in his wake. He didn't realise, I'm sure, all that he was doing. But it's just a fact that he's even more popular, I guess, now. Of course with our computers and all the media that we have today - and a lot more people in the world - everyone just continues to love his music.

SJ What do you think was the ultimate cause of Elvis' demise? Was fame just too much for him?

WJ No, I don't think that. But I do think that, because of his fame, he lived such an unusual life. It was beginning even on the last few tours that I worked with him. He couldn't go out among people, and he was a people person. So to have to live such an isolated life probably caused him to do the things he did. He made bad choices and ruined his health, but I certainly don't think it was done just to be 'doing it'. I don't know. Never having lived through it myself, I just don't know. I can only imagine. Unhappiness probably. It's too bad. He made a - he was a monster, and he had to live with that then. It's sad.

SJ Indeed. So tell us about your new album, I Remember Elvis.

WJ Well, I'm happy to have made it, finally; I'd been looking to do it for quite a few years, and finally the right record company came along, and I felt like it was time. Because, as we're doing here on this interview, every interview that I've done in the last 20 years, I've mentioned or talked about Elvis. So it seemed like the right thing to do, and my way of saying thankyou to him.

SJ So what about the selection of tracks for the album. What were the reasons behind your choices?

WJ It's just the songs that he was doing when I was working with him.

SJ What's your favourite Elvis track of all time?

WJ (long pause) Well, it's a bit hard to say.

But I do like the early Sun and the early RCA songs that he did. Maybe it's because that's the way I knew him, singing like that. He went on to show that world that he did have a great voice. No doubt about that.

SJ Yeah, he got better as he got older, I always thought.

Even towards the end, he had a magnificent vocal range.

WJ Yeah. It didn't matter what he was doing to his body, it never affected his voice.

SJ And I presume you liked his version of your hit song, (Let's Have A) Party?

WJ Yeah, I do. I didn't know his version very well when he sang it. He did it before me for one if his movies, Loving You. I'm not sure if it was released on a single or not.

SJ So, after this tour of Australia, what's next for you?

WJ From here, we're going to Paris, France. It's kind of unusual, but a special occasion. It's for the Cartier jewellery people. They have an exhibit hall, and the latest exhibit they're opening is called The Roots of Rock'n'Roll. And they're having Little Richard and myself. Little Richard's the only one performing. I might do one song with him, I don't know.

SJ Are there any thoughts of retiring, or is music still too much of a great love for you?

You're sounding better than ever, I think.

WJ Well, I don't know about that. It's still my passion. People say I still sound like I did then. You mentioned earlier, as we age our voices mellow. So I don't have quite as wild a sound now, I'm sure, as when I was 18. But I still sing in exactly the way I recorded my songs.

SJ Finally, Wanda, is there any message you'd like to give the Elvis fans who'll be reading this interview?

WJ The only thing I would say to them is that I'm doing my part; I want them to do their part, to keep Elvis' music alive.

SJ Beautiful. Well said. Thankyou so much, Wanda, for speaking with us, we really appreciate it.

WJ Thankyou, Scott, I really enjoyed talking with you.

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