Tag Archives: Wanda Jackson

Americana and Roots Music Videos: RPM 4

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An occasional series of Americana and roots music videos. Sharing new discoveries, and revisiting old friends.

Those of you who have been reading my weekly No Depression columns over the years or following my daily Facebook posts at The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily hopefully view me as an observant musical news aggregator and occasional agitator. I usually spend an hour or so each day on the hunt for interesting articles, news stories, photography, art, and video clips that are hiding in plain sight but require a bit of sleuthing to assemble in one place. It’s done only out of curiosity, and to expand my own musical knowledge while staying on top of the new and discovering the unique. The act of sharing it with y’all is simply my hobby; no different than assembling little boats inside a bottle or building birdhouses in the workshop. So instead of picking one topic for this particular Broadside, here are a few things I hope you find of interest.

The Queen of Rockabilly Partners with a Runaway

Wanda Jackson, the 80-year-old singer-songwriter and guitarist who began performing back in 1955 and often toured with (and briefly dated) her friend Elvis Presley, is not quite ready to retire. In a 20-year period, she hit the charts with 30 singles and to date has released over 40 albums. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 and two years later released a collaboration with Jack White titled The Party Ain’t Over, and followed that up a year later with Unfinished Business, produced by Justin Townes Earle.

The new project will be released in 2019, and Joan Jett will be producing a set of new songs co-written by Wanda along with some Nashville-based folks including Angaleena Presley of the Pistol Annies and “Ex’s and Oh’s” singer Elle King.”The songs on this project are very dear to my heart, as a lot of them are based on my own life experiences,” said Jackson. “I’m really looking forward to sharing what Joan and I have been working on.”

The Elmore James Tribute Album

To celebrate the 100th birthday of Delta blues master Elmore James, last January Sylvan Songs Records released a tribute titled Strange Angels: In Flight With Elmore James that features Tom Jones, Bettye LaVette, Keb’ Mo’, Warren Haynes, Billy Gibbons, Shelby Lynne and others with all profits going to charity. Since it came out just after the holiday season, it’s possible you may have missed this gem, although it was written up in Rolling Stone (who reads that anymore?) and posted on the NPR website.

Music Radar has recently published an excellent biography of Elmore that I highly recommend, and it includes interviews with a number of the tribute’s participants.

The Sweetheart of the Rodeo Tour

You may have heard by now that Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman are teaming up with Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives for a number of concerts to celebrate the release of The Byrds’ 1968 classic album (McGuinn and Hillman are unable to use the band’s name — it’s owned by David Crosby but you never know, he might pop up as a surprise guest along the way). Tickets went on sale recently here in NYC for a September show at Town Hall.

Although I went to buy mine the day they were released to the public, it was already sold out to folks who had Ticketmaster’s “platinum” access and could snatch them up in a presale two days earlier. Now they’re being scalped at $350 each, so unless someone out there wants to help me out, I’ll be home alone that night watching Netflix. It’s interesting to note that the show in Nashville at the Ryman had (as of this writing) quite a few seats available at $35 face value. Check out this Brooklyn Vegan article to see if the show is coming to your town.

John Coltrane Goes Top 40

John Coltrane’s posthumously released Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, with songs recorded back in 1963, was just released debuted at #21 on Billboard’s Top 200 chart. In an article published on Forbes‘ website, tenor saxophonist and one-time Coltrane collaborator Sonny Rollins likened The Lost Album‘s discovery to “finding a new room in the Great Pyramid.”

Coltrane’s legend as one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time sadly didn’t blossom until after his death in 1967 at 40 years old. While Giant Steps and A Love Supreme would each offer excellent entry ramps to his music for the new listener, this new album also offers a fresh insight into what made Coltrane so unique.

An Albert Lee Interview

Australia’s wonderful Beat Magazine recently reported on Albert Lee’s current tour with Peter Asher that is taking him throughout the world. At age 74 the versatile guitarist, known for his super-fast guitar picking based on the styles of Chet Atkins and James Burton, is doing a set with Asher that is acoustic and focused on both stories and songs.

“There are a lot of good players out there,” Lee says. “I started out loving country music, but country has changed a lot and I can’t say that I really like a lot of the stuff coming out of Nashville now — they’re good players, good singers — but the kind of music I like is called Americana. It was always country music until about 20 years ago when it became more pop. You don’t seem to hear a clean guitar on those Nashville records any more, it’s more of a rock and roll guitar.”

Keith Richards

Every night at The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily I post a video to close out the day. I like to mix up the old and new, and try to find things lost or forgotten. One night it could be Jackie Wilson on The Ed Sullivan Show, and on another maybe June Carter and Don Gibson doing a duet of “Oh Lonesome Me.” This one is likely something you’ve seen before, but I just came across it recently and it’s one of my favorites. Let’s go with Keith down to South Carolina, where I hear there are many tall pines.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, here at therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com

Hillbilly Music That Was Straight Outta Compton

I would imagine most people know Compton as the epicenter of late ‘80s hip-hop and a city dominated by crime and gang violence. Smack in the middle between Long Beach and Los Angeles, just south of Watts, back in the ‘50s and ‘60s it became a suburban destination for middle class blacks attracted to both its location and the affordable single-family homes that were available after a Supreme Court case knocked out segregation laws. But with a small commercial area, a shrinking tax base, and a corrupt government, by 1969 Compton held the distinction of having the highest crime rate in California.

There’s another side of musical history from Compton that pre-dates local gansta rap and g-funk. Town Hall Party began in 1951 as a radio broadcast and eventually became a television show that lasted for almost ten years before going off the air. The old Town Hall building at 400 South Long Beach Boulevard was being booked occasionally for country-and-western “barn dances” when it was taken over by promoter William B. Wagnon Jr. It was his idea to get the dances broadcast live on local radio, and the success soon led to a television show concept that started and stopped, but didn’t really become cohesive until August 29, 1953.

The website Hillbilly-Music Dawt Com has done a great job in researching the history of Town Hall Party, which I would encourage you to check out, but here’s an excerpt:

“The lineup on that first show was to be Tex Ritter, Les (Carrot Top) Anderson, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle, Jack Lloyd, Joe Maphis, Rose Lee Maphis and Texas Tiny (a disc jockey at KFOX who had a three hour a day show). Tex Williams and his band were to provide the musical backing for performers. Jay Stewart was to be the announcer.”

There were a number of country stars that either joined the cast for short periods or were simply guests, including Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Sons of the Pioneers, Smiley Burnette, Patsy Cline, Eddie Cochran, George Jones, Wanda Jackson, Carl Perkins and Gene Autry. The Collins Kids, Larry and Lorrie, became show regulars with their rockabilly beat and harmonies. Just two years apart, by age ten Larry was a guitar whiz, playing a double-neck Mosrite guitar like his mentor, Joe Maphis.

According to Country Song Round-Up in August 1954, “the 10-piece Town Hall Party band featured Joe Maphis, Merle Travis, superb steel guitarist Marian Hall, Billy Hill and Fiddlin’ Kate on violins, PeeWee Adams on drums, Jimmy Pruitt on piano, and other excellent musicians who created a Town Hall Party sound also heard on many country sessions produced by Columbia Records in Hollywood in the 1950s.”

In 1957 Screen Gems filmed a series of 39 half-hour shows that they syndicated and re-named the Ranch Party. The Collins Kids were given co-star billing with host Tex Ritter. In his book Reflections, country performer Johnny Bond, who was also involved in the program, wrote that “traditional country entertainers, singing cowboys and rock singers never shared the spotlight in a more harmonious manner than on the Town Hall Party and syndicated Ranch Party shows.”

Columbia Records released a Town Hall Party album in 1958 that included many of the regular cast members who soon departed the show because NBC decided to discontinue the Saturday night radio broadcasts. In late December 1958, the newly opened Showboat Hotel in Las Vegas began to put on Town Hall Party shows featuring Tex Ritter, The Collins Kids, and Town Hall regulars, thus drawing them away from the Saturday night telecasts on Los Angeles station KTTV. In December 1960 they were dropped from the lineup, and the final performance at the old Compton Town Hall was on Jan. 14, 1961.

Beginning in 2002, the Germany-based Bear Family Records began to release a series of Town Hall Party DVDs that now includes 25 titles. Most feature various artists, but they’ve also brought out an artist spotlight series that includes Joe Maphis, The Collins Kids, Johnny Cash, Eddie Cochran, Merle Travis, and others. There are a few dozen clips and also complete shows available to view on YouTube, with some posted from Bear Family and others from private collectors. It was a great time period for country music in California, and it came straight outta Compton.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

When Lemmy Kilmister Met Wanda Jackson

The last time I saw Lemmy Kilmister, we were sitting in a small room just off the side of the stage at Amoeba Records on Sunset Boulevard. He was holding a bottle of Jack Daniels with one hand while a too-young blonde, who was trying awfully hard to look older, sat on his lap. He was dressed as he usually dressed — black denim and a cowboy hat. Across from us on the couch was Wanda Jackson and her husband, Wendell.

It was January 2006 I think, and Jackson had just released I Remember Elvis. She was known back in the late 1950s as the Queen of Rockabilly, and had toured with — and briefly dated — Presley. He encouraged her to add a rock beat to her traditional country repertoire, and for the next 10 years she scored with a number of hit singles. By 1965, Jackson had transitioned back to country music, toured all over the world, had a TV show, did the Vegas thing, and eventually began to release gospel albums. By the ’80s, she’d returned to rockabilly once again, and toured extensively in England and throughout Europe, including Scandinavia.

On this particular day at Amoeba I was there representing the label and Wanda was going to perform a few songs and sign some albums. Danny B. Harvey (on the right) produced the album, and put together a backing band for her. He and Slim Jim Phantom, along with Lemmy, also had a rockabilly band called Head Cat.

I admit I initially felt a bit protective of Wanda and Wendell, who looked and talked like they stepped out of central casting in the role of Everybody’s Grandparents. I’d first met Lemmy a dozen years earlier and knew he could be a bit rough around the edges, but he spoke softly and clearly had respect and a deep knowledge of Jackson’s work. She seemed utterly charmed and fascinated by him as well, although she admitted to never having heard of Motörhead.

It was a very gentle conversation, and during her set she got cheers and laughter from the audience when she mentioned meeting “Mr. Lemmy,” noting what a lovely young man he was. I remember looking over and seeing him laugh as well and while he was still holding onto the blonde, the bottle was nowhere in sight. Just another day in Hollywood.

Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister died on December 28, 2015, in Los Angeles at age 70.

Wanda Jackson turned 78 last October and resides in Oklahoma City with Wendell. She continues to tour.

Photo Above: Uncredited. Lemmy Kilmister, Wanda Jackson and Danny B. Harvey. Amoeba Records. 2003.

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.