Video: Wanda Jackson and Imelda May sing “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” in New York’s Central Park
Oklahoma’s own Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson performed for a crowd of thousand’s Wednesday night in New York’s Central Park.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t there, but this had to be a highlight of the night: Irish singer Imelda May joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer for a fun rendition of the Jerry Lee Lewis classic “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” that led into Jackson’s own signature hit “Let’s Have a Party.”
If this doesn’t get your blood pumping, I regret to inform you that you passed on sometime during the day and your body just doesn’t know it yet!
-BAM
Video: RIP Amy Winehouse
Troubled singer Amy Winehouse was found dead Saturday by ambulance crews called to her home in north London’s Camden area. She was 27.
The singer, best known for her telling hit “Rehab,” was as famous for her alcohol and drug addictions and troubled relationships as she was for her Grammy-winning, chart-storming, retro-inspired music. “They tried to make me go to rehab,” according to the now-haunting lyrics on her global smash 2006 single, “Rehab.” “I said ‘No, no no.’”
The British hitmaker made an auspicious debut with her jazz-influenced 2003 album “Frank.” She shot to worldwide fame with the 2006 follow-up “Back to Black,” with its blend of jazz, soul, rock and classic pop. It won five Grammys and made Winehouse — with her black beehive hairdo and old-fashioned sailor tattoos — one of music’s most recognizable stars, according to the AP.
But her music was ultimately overshadowed by her demons, particularly her struggles with substance abuse.
Last month, Winehouse canceled her European comeback tour after she swayed and slurred her way through barely recognizable songs in her first show in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Booed and jeered off stage, she flew home and her management said she would take time off to recover, reported the AP.
To read the full obituary from the AP, click here.
An autopsy today failed to determine what killed the 27-year-old star, leaving fans and family with a weeks-long wait for the results of toxicology tests, the AP reported. A family spokesman told the wire service that a private funeral “for family and close friends” is set for Tuesday at an undisclosed time and place.
Oklahoma rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson recorded Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” as the first single for her Jack White-produced album “The Party Ain’t Over.” Check out video of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer performing the cover live, along with Winehouse’s official video for “Rehab,” both posted below.
Our thoughts are with Winehouse’s family, friends and fans.
-BAM
Bonnaroo begins today; Wanda Jackson to play the festival Friday
Wanda Jackson (AP file)
The celebrated Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival begins this afternoon in Manchester, Tenn., with Oklahoma music icon Wanda Jackson due to perform Friday afternoon.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, 73, is part of a prestigious and eclectic lineup that includes Eminem, Arcade Fire, Robert Plant and Band of Joy, Lil Wayne, The Black Keys and Loretta Lynn.
The Strokes, Big Boi, Gregg Allman, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Florence + The Machine, Hayes Carll, Justin Townes Earle, The Del McCoury Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Iron & Wine and Mavis Staples will perform at the massive event, too.
The 10th annual Bonnaroo is set for today-Sunday in Manchester, Tenn., on the 700-acre farm it has called home since its 2002 debut. The festival continues to favor groups with jam-band tendencies: This year’s slate features String Cheese Incident, Primus and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, with Widespread Panic headlining the final day of the 2011 event.
In addition, Bonnaroo 2011 will be the only festival date for a reunited Buffalo Springfield, according to the Associated Press.
Original Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay played in public for the first time since 1968 last October at Young’s annual Bridge School charity concert. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers were a short-lived act, but were pioneers in the country- and folk-rock movements of the late 1960s.
The group’s lingering influence can be found in the music of fellow Bonnaroo 2011 acts Ray Lamontagne, My Morning Jacket, Mumford & Sons, The Decemberists and Ryan Bingham.
To celebrate Bonnaroo’s 10th anniversary, Dr. John and The Original Meters will make a rare joint appearance to recreate their 1974 album “Desitively Bonnaroo,” the source of the festival’s name. According to the AP, Bonnaroo long ago shed its jam-band label and has become one of the most diverse festivals of its kind, annually drawing tens of thousands of music fans to central Tennessee.
A Maud native and longtime Oklahoma City resident, Jackson has been celebrating a career revival since she partnered with rocker Jack White, who produced her new album “The Party Ain’t Over.” “The Queen of Rockabilly” and White promoted the January album release with performances on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “Conan,” and Jackson and Weatherford band Green Corn Revival ripped through a packed hometown show at the ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Bricktown.
In May, Jackson and Cyndi Lauper played show launching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s “Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power,” the world’s first exhibit devoted to rock’s most influential female artists, including Jackson.
-BAM
Adele cancels North American tour dates due to illness; shows were to feature Wanda Jackson
Adele (AP file)
Wanda Jackson (AP file)
British singer-songwriter Adele has been forced to cancel the rest of her sold-out North American tour due to her ongoing struggles with laryngitis.
This message was posted on her website Friday:
Adele has been forced to cancel the remaining 9 dates of her sold-out North American tour due to ongoing illness. Adele recently postponed 5 shows under doctor’s orders when she was diagnosed with laryngitis. While resting in Los Angeles, Adele met with an Otolaryngology specialist who determined it was imperative that she take the next few weeks to recover with absolute voice rest.
Adele, renowned for her powerful live vocal performances, was intent on resuming her tour on June 4th in San Francisco, CA before learning of her advanced condition.
“I’m really frustrated. I was hoping with a weeks rest I’d be better to sing again straight away. However there is absolutely nothing I can do but take the doctors advice and rest some more. I’m so sorry. See you soon, love Adele”
Plans to reschedule these cancelled tour dates are being investigated; more information will be provided when available.
Oklahoma’s own “Queen of Rockabilly” Wanda Jackson was set to open for Adele for nine of the sold-out shows starting May 31 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and ending June 20 at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn.
In an interview last month before her performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jackson told me she was looking forward to meeting Adele for the first time on the tour. Adele invited Jackson to join her tour after recently discovering the Maud native’s music when the blue-eyed soul singer’s tour bus driver was playing a CD that included the Oklahoman’s 1960 signature hit “Let’s Have a Party.”
“She recently had the cover of Rolling Stone, and I read that article. I was astounded with her language, of course, but maybe I can help her there, too,” said Jackson, a stalwart Christian with a laugh. “But (she has) a fabulous voice and writes all the songs and she’s a musician, too.”
Jackson apparently hopes to get another chance to tour with Adele. This message was posted Friday on Jackson’s Facebook page:
All of Wanda’s concert dates for the month of June appearing alongside Adele have been postponed due to Adele’s laryngitis. More details and the re-scheduled dates will be released soon.
Jackson will next perform Friday, June 10 at the massive Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn.
Adele’s sophomore album, “21,” is the best-selling album of the year. It has sold close to two million units in America, according to the Associated Press.
The 23-year-old Grammy winner’s single, “Rolling In the Deep,” is currently No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts.
- BAM
Wanda Jackson featured in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s new “Women Who Rock” exhibit
Wanda Jackson
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman
BAM column: Wanda Jackson featured in rock hall’s “Women Who Rock” exhibit
Billed as “the world’s first museum exhibit dedicated to the most influential female artists,” it will open Friday at the Cleveland, Ohio, institution.
Starting this weekend, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is paying homage to “Women Who Rock,” and appropriately enough, Oklahoma’s own Queen of Rockabilly will be smack in the middle of the festivities.
The Cleveland, Ohio, institution is opening to the public Friday the vast new showcase “Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power,” billed as “the world’s first museum exhibit dedicated to the most influential female artists.” The rock hall is promising a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the vital roles women have played throughout the history of rock ‘n’ roll, from the genre’s inception to today.
Longtime Oklahoma City resident and 2009 rock hall inductee Wanda Jackson, 73, not only will be featured in the exhibit, she also will be part of the star-studded lineup Saturday at the museum’s annual “It’s Only Rock and Roll Spring Benefit Concert.” which will tie into “Women Who Rock” theme.
“I supposed that after they inducted me, they decided they’d better do this,” quipped Jackson, who is widely regarded as the first woman to record rock ‘n’ roll music. “It’s exciting certainly. … I know if they do it, it’ll be done right.”
Oklahoma native Wanda Jackson?s 1958 Martin D-18 acoustic guitar will be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's new exhibit "Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power," which opens Friday.
The interactive exhibition will spotlight more than 70 female artists and span two full floors of the museum. Along with video and listening stations, it will feature an array of artifacts, from a Mahalia Jackson concert poster and The Runaways’ handwritten lyrics to “Cherry Bomb” to Madonna’s golden “Blond Ambition Tour” bustier and Lady Gaga’s alien-esque 2010 Grammys performance outfit. It also will include Jackson’s 1958 Martin D-18 acoustic guitar.
“It was my first real guitar, with the blood, sweat and tears in it,” she said. “I had my named painted on it on out at (Oklahoma City’s) WKY Television … and then I stuck rhinestones on there.”
The exhibit will move through the various eras of rock ‘n’ roll history, from early 20th-century foremothers like blueswoman Bessie Smith, country artist Mother Maybelle Carter and jazz crooner Billie Holiday to modern-day stars like Meg White, Taylor Swift and Alicia Keys. Along the way, it will honor “Women Who Rock” as divergent as the Ronettes, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Tina Turner, Heart, Chrissie Hynde, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears, to name a few.
In the portion of the exhibit titled “Get Outta that Kitchen, Rattle Those Pots and Pans: Rock and Roll Emerges,” Jackson and the late R&B singer Ruth Brown will be the predominant voices. Although both recorded frequently in the 1950s, Jackson recalled they only worked together once, at a 1995 show in New York. Brown died in 2006.
The Maud native also will lend her distinctive growling voice to Saturday’s benefit concert, which will feature fellow rock hall members Mavis Staples and Darlene Love along with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” singer Cyndi Lauper.
“I haven’t seen them perform, so I’ll get to see a good show myself,” she said.
She is particularly looking forward to hearing newly inducted songstress Love, who at 72 is “still perking, too.”
“It’s wonderful to be honored by your peers,” Jackson said. “But we were the ones that broke down the doors for all of these girls who nowadays, they still don’t think they have it very easy, but so much easier than we have it. And yet we just hung in there and made it happen for ourselves. For the younger ones now to recognize that we did that for them, that’s what’s nice.”
Along those lines, British singer-songwriter Adele, 22, has invited Jackson to open for her at a series of
British singer-songwriter Adele has invited Wanda Jackson to open for her on tour this summer. (AP file)
sold-out shows this summer. The two performers haven’t met in person yet, but Jackson heard that Adele recently discovered her music when the blue-eyed soul singer’s tour bus driver was playing a CD that included the Oklahoman’s 1960 signature hit “Let’s Have a Party.”
“She recently had the cover of Rolling Stone, and I read that article. I was astounded with her language, of course, but maybe I can help her there, too,” said the stalwart Christian with a laugh. “But (she has) a fabulous voice and writes all the songs and she’s a musician, too.”
Although her music career spans six decades, Jackson has been experiencing a resurgence since January, when she released her new album “The Party Ain’t Over,” produced by rocker Jack White of The White Stripes. Along with performing on “Conan” and “The Late Show With David Letterman,” she has since been booked on prestigious music festivals like Stagecoach, Bonnaroo and Newport Folk Festival.
“This new album of mine and working with Jack White has given me like a whole new career that’s just been put in my lap for me,” she said.
-BAM
Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Wanda Jackson, Leon Russell to play Stagecoach Music Festival
Carrie Underwood (AP file)
Rascal Flatts (AP file)
Four music stars with Oklahoma ties will be playing the big Stagecoach Music Festival Saturday-Sunday in Indio, Calif., near Palm Springs.
Checotah native Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts, which includes Joe Don Rooney of Picher, will headline Sunday night’s lineup. Lawton native Leon Russell and Oklahoma City resident Wanda Jackson also will play the festival Sunday.
Other performers set for Sunday include Josh Turner, Easton Corbin, the Gatlin Brothers and Ricky Skaggs
Kenny Chesney will headline Saturday night, following appearances by Darius Rucker, Chris Young, Steel Magnolia, Kris Kristofferson and Mel Tillis.
-BAM
Wanda Jackson to tour with Adele this summer
Wanda Jackson
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and longtime Oklahoma City resident Wanda Jackson will hit the road this summer for her second nationwide tour in support of her Nonesuch/Third Man debut album “The Party Ain’t Over.”
The Maud native, 73, will open for British singer-songwriter Adele, 22, for nine sold-out performances in May and June, according to the tour announcement.
Adele (AP file)
“I was thrilled to learn that my music has been an influence on such a talent as Adele. I am looking forward to the concert tour with her. We’re gonna have a party!” Jackson said in the announcement.
Jackson also will join Irish singer Imelda May for three shows in July and American singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle for one show in August.
Bad news for Oklahoma fans: At this point, the tour doesn’t include any home-state dates for Jackson.
On May 14, Jackson and Cyndi Lauper will play a benefit show at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to celebrate the opening of the exhibit “Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power,” which the Cleveland, Ohio, museum is touting as the world’s first exhibit devoted to rock’s most influential female artists.
Jackson is credited with being the first woman to ever record a rock and roll song, ”Let’s Have a Party,” in 1958, after her then-boyfriend and tourmate Elvis Presley convinced her to cross over from country to rock and rockabilly music.
In January, Jackson released “The Party Ain’t Over,” which was produced by rocker Jack White and recorded at his Third Man Studio in Nashville, Tenn.
See the list of Jackson’s summer tour dates after the break.
Wanda Jackson to play Bonnaroo Music Festival
The career resurgence continues for Oklahoma’s Queen of Rockabilly.
Wanda Jackson, 73, has been tapped to play the celebrated Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival this summer in Manchester, Tenn.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is part of a prestigious and eclectic lineup that includes Eminem, Arcade Fire, Robert Plant and Band of Joy, Lil Wayne, The Black Keys and Loretta Lynn.
The Strokes, Big Boi, Gregg Allman, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Florence + The Machine, Hayes Carll, Justin Townes Earle, The Del McCoury Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Iron & Wine and Mavis Staples will perform at the massive event, too. The Walkmen, who were Monday announced as the headliners for the 2011 Norman Music Festival, made the Bonnaroo lineup as well.
The 10th annual Bonnaroo is set for June 9-12 in Manchester, Tenn., on the 700-acre farm it has called home since its 2002 debut. The festival continues to favor groups with jam-band tendencies: This year’s slate features String Cheese Incident, Primus and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, with Widespread Panic headlining the final day of the 2011 event.
In addition, Bonnaroo 2011 will be the only festival date for a reunited Buffalo Springfield, according to the Associated Press.
Original Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay played in public for the first time since 1968 last October at Young’s annual Bridge School charity concert. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers were a short-lived act, but were pioneers in the country- and folk-rock movements of the late 1960s.
The group’s lingering influence can be found in the music of fellow Bonnaroo 2011 acts Ray Lamontagne, My Morning Jacket, Mumford & Sons, The Decemberists and Ryan Bingham.
To celebrate Bonnaroo’s 10th anniversary, Dr. John and The Original Meters will make a rare joint appearance to recreate their 1974 album “Desitively Bonnaroo,” the source of the festival’s name. According to the AP, Bonnaroo long ago shed its jam-band label and has become one of the most diverse festivals of its kind, annually drawing tens of thousands of music fans to central Tennessee.
A Maud native and longtime Oklahoma City resident, Jackson has been celebrating a career revival since she partnered with rocker Jack White, who produced her new album “The Party Ain’t Over.” She and White promoted the January album release with performances on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “Conan,” and Jackson and Weatherford band Green Corn Revival ripped through a packed hometown show at the ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Bricktown.
In May, Jackson and Cyndi Lauper will play a show launching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s “Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power,” the world’s first exhibit devoted to rock’s most influential female artists.
-BAM
CD review: Wanda Jackson “The Party Ain’t Over”
A version of this review appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Rock
Wanda Jackson “The Party Ain’t Over” (Nonesuch/Third Man Records)
Oklahoma’s own Queen of Rockabilly gets suitably royal treatment from producer Jack White on her rollicking new album “The Party Ain’t Over.”
Wanda Jackson, 73, proves she’s still the “sweet lady with the nasty voice” on her follow-up to 2005’s “I Remember Elvis,” her tribute to the King who urged her to become the first woman to sing rock ‘n’ roll back in 1956. It’s hard to believe that 55 years have passed when Jackson belts rock classics like “Rip It Up” and “Nervous Breakdown” with the same half-kittenish purr, half-wildcat snarl that made her old hits “Let’s Have a Party” and “Mean, Mean Man” so memorable.
And if the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s singular voice has lost just a bit of its considerable power, White isn’t going to let anyone know it. As he did with country great Loretta Lynn on her Grammy-winning 2004 album “Van Lear Rose,” the rocker best known for fronting The White Stripes again demonstrates his masterful knack for celebrating a veteran performer’s storied past while still pushing her out of her comfort zone. Jackson even mentions those pushes as she launches into a smoldering rendition of Amy Winehouse’s creepy bad-girl theme “You Know I’m No Good.”
Jackson’s steamy growl, White’s blistering guitar and a scorching horn section blast off the album with a cover of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over” that’s even more explosive than the live version that rendered David Letterman nearly speechless when they played it on his show. The opener confirms that “The Party Ain’t Over” is really a duet album, even if White doesn’t sing a note. White brings to “The Party” a fired-up retro style and incendiary guitar work distinctly his but deftly designed to match Jackson’s still-smoking vocals.
The album pays homage to Jackson’s rock ‘n’ roll trailblazing with a bubbly cover of the Andrew Sisters’ “Drinking Rum and Coca Cola,” a calypso cousin to her own rockabilly classic “Fujiyama Mama,” and a jumping rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Thunder on the Mountain” that references her pal Jerry Lee Lewis, her Sooner State ties and her hit “Funnel of Love.”
But “The Party” also recalls the Oklahoma City resident’s forays into country and gospel, getting shockingly funky on the old chestnut “Dust on the Bible” before closing in surprisingly stripped-down fashion with Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel #6.”
With the new album, Jackson affirms that “The Party Ain’t Over,” and thanks to White, it is a musical celebration fit for such a queen.
— BAM
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame planning women in rock exhibit; Wanda Jackson to help launch it
Wanda Jackson
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum plans to open the world’s first exhibit devoted to rock’s most influential female artists, according to the Associated Press. Appropriately, Wanda Jackson, Oklahoma’s own Queen of Rockabilly, will be involved in launching the exhibit.
The show opening May 13 at the museum in Cleveland will feature women ranging from Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin to Melissa Etheridge and Lady Gaga.
The exhibit will be kicked off with a May 14 benefit concert. Performers will include Cyndi Lauper and Jackson, who is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power” will spotlight more than 50 female artists and fill two floors of the hall with artifacts and video telling the story of how women have shaped the history of popular music. Throughout the year, the museum will offer educational programming on the role women have played in rock and roll.
Look for my review of Wanda Jackson’s new album “The Party Ain’t Over,” produced by Jack White, in the coming days.
-BAM
