There was a time when female singers approaching anything like rock and roll, and certainly rockabilly, were required to wear cowboy boots, baggy, unattractive pants, a heavy-looking jacket, a cowboy hat... Basically, you had to look like Annie Oakley to be taken semi-seriously. That's assuming you were being taken seriously in the first place. The first woman to actually tour extensively as a rockabilly artist was Wanda Jackson. Wanda had already done the country thing. She happened to be good at designing clothes, and her mother happened to be good at making them. Her father just so happened to be good at looking after her on the road, and despite her age, Wanda happened to have an unusual amount of common sense. Perhaps it was because she'd already had an unusual amount of experience.

She was practically a baby when she started to be recognized as a person of talent. By the time she was in high school, she had her own radio show - something few people can say - and this led to her being discovered by country legend Hank Thompson. He invited her to record with his group, The Brazos Valley Boys, and that was the beginning. The first taste. Rock and roll was brewing up like a storm on the horizon, and Wanda would be part of it, but she would often revisit country music, and continues to do so to this day. After all, she's been to the pinnacle: the Grand Ole Opry. It may not have come out the way she'd always dreamed, but she was there.

[Wanda with Hank Thompson]

When rock and roll came calling, Wanda landed on a tour with a young man named Elvis Presley. The two instantly hit it off, and Elvis took an interest in helping Wanda learn to play rockabilly. After all, her country roots put her in the ballpark. She just needed a little coaching and attitude. During their long tours together, the two dated and exchanged rings, Wanda wearing Elvis' ring on a chain around her neck.

Much later, Wanda went into the studio to cut her first rockabilly album, simply titled Wanda Jackson. It didn't make her a star. But it did contain a song called "Let's Have A Party" that would pay unexpected dividends two years later, when a disc jockey discovered it and began playing it regularly. Other stations picked it up fast, and before she knew it, Wanda Jackson found herself in the rock and roll charts, where she had belonged from the very start.

The second album, There's a Party Goin' On, didn't fare any better, but the songs were much better, in general, most of them giving Wanda a chance to do what she did best, which was sing with the most powerful, high-voltage voice heard before or since. This album was culled from singles recorded between 1956 and 1958, so it's amusing that enthusiasts consider it Wanda's finest "moment." The songs here are monsters. "Fujiyama Mama," a post-war tune that, surprisingly, is beloved by the Japanese people despite the references to blowing up Hiroshima and Nagasaki; "Mean, Mean Man," one of Wanda's classic sides and now a standard in rockabilly play lists; "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," an early example of feminism that finds Wanda with an unusually quiet voice... We'll talk about that later. "Honey Bop," "Cool Love," "Did You Miss Me," "I Gotta Know," "Baby Loves Him" and the sexy "Rock Your Baby" are all classic Wanda Jackson songs packed onto that one LP-full of singles. Amazing.

EMI/Capitol has just re-released those first two Wanda Jackson albums, each with bonus tracks and, of course, improved sound. I had the honor of speaking with Wanda several weeks before the CDs' release. It was an early morning phone conversation, and even though she hadn't had her coffee yet, Wanda was more than polite. She was sweet, easy going, and fun to talk to. At the time of the interview, the CDs were being released as a 2-CD set called The Queen Of Rockabilly, but at the moment it seems they've been separated into individual CDs, possibly because Ace Records put out a Wanda Jackson collection called The Queen Of Rockabilly just two years ago. Please note this is just speculation. This paragraph will be revised as soon as new information is available. Now, here's what Wanda had to say about the swirl of activity in those weeks leading up to the release of the CDs, her memories of making those records, her career in general, and what it's like to finally be recognized as the queen.

---

Cosmik: I've got the advance on the two-fer reissue. I don't know if they have the finals yet.

Wanda: The advance of The Queen? I have one, too.

Cosmik: So they don't have the finals yet.

Wanda: Well my copy says "Released September 17th."

Cosmik: Right. I ask because of the cover that's with this. Have you seen what the final will look like?

Wanda: Well, the one they sent me has the cover, but I think they used the wrong cover. That's from my first album, just called Wanda Jackson.

Cosmik: Yeah, that's what I wanted to know about. It's a nice picture, though.

Wanda: Yeah, it's just that I'm thinkin' it's called The Queen Of Rockabilly. The Rockin' With Wanda cover should have been on the front, in my estimation, but what do I know? (Laughs).

Cosmik: I'm a little hazy on this, but is that the one with you in the studio with the acoustic guitar?

Wanda: No, that cover is me leanin' on the rockin' chair. It's that collector's album that's up to around $300 for the original now.

Cosmik: Isn't that kind of fun, in a way, to see how people value your records? And also how they respond to you now.

Wanda: I tell you what, DJ, I'm havin' the time of my life. I can't believe all these exciting things happenin' to me at this point in my life. It's something that I'm enjoying thoroughly. It's kind of a heady trip for me, but I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground.

Cosmik: That'd be pretty difficult. You know, the Bear Family box set came out back in 1993, so it's been a while since this material's been together all in one place. You were practically a baby when you cut these records, though one with a ton of experience. Since then you've done so much more, you know? Whole different sounds. How does this early flash of music in your life feel to you now, with all the perspective of time?

Wanda: I'll answer that in a jiffy. Rhino Records put out one in the early 90s, and it had the combination of rock and country, and then Ace Records in England has just released one they call Rockabilly Queen, and it's selling very good - in fact, I think it was the number one seller in the English market for rockabilly music. So that, along with the box set, I had a lot of material available out there. And of course, the more, the better. The way I feel about it, you asked me... Well, I've finally learned to appreciate it (Laughs). Naturally, you're very critical of your own work, but I've been listening to all these since the early 90s and thinkin' "Hey, by golly, I guess I did make some inroads and made some contributions to this field of music." What was so cute, when I began working the rock festivals - now I'm talkin' 50s rock, or rockabilly, whichever way you refer to it - I started off in Sweden in the late 80s, and then in '95, when I recorded a song with Rosie Flores for her CD, then things really exploded in America for me. So this is still kind of new for me to be getting this kind of publicity and admiration in America. And another thing that was cute: of course I've always done the main songs in my concerts. On a country concert, I still do "Fujiyama Mama" and "Let's Have A Party" and some of those, and then on a rock concert, from my roots, you know? The fans at these festivals, this new audience that's out there loving this type of music, started asking for these old things. I mean the old ones, like "Rock Your Baby," "Mean Mean Man," and "Cool Love" and all this stuff, and I had to go back - even the ones I had written - I had to get the lyrics and learn them again! (Laughs.)

Cosmik: (Laughs) What a strange feeling, like you're covering your own songs.

Wanda: Yeah. The first time that happened was in Sweden, and everyone was hollerin' "Mean Mean Man, Mean Mean Man!" I finally, just over the microphone, said "I don't even know that song anymore," even though I wrote it. So before I left the concert hall that evening, a fan went home, wrote the words down for me, brought it back, said "Here, now start doin' this." (Laughs.)

Cosmik: (Laughs) Boy, were you stuck!

Wanda: I said "Yes, sir!" And that's how it started. Then I started incorporating more and more of this material like is on the Queen Of Rockabilly CD, and I'm finding it's not only well received, it's enthusiastically received. Heck, it's fun for me.

Cosmik: I've heard of popular demand, but when a fan writes down the lyrics and says "Here, DO IT," that's something altogether new.

Wanda: Yeah, that's right.

Cosmik: And you thought they didn't remember those songs.

Wanda: When I added "I Gotta Know" into the show, they went wild, and I didn't think anybody could know that one. That was several years ago. Then this year I've put in "Funnel Of Love"...

Cosmik: ... Which happens to be my very favorite Wanda Jackson song, by the way. Hands down.

Wanda: Is it really? Now, see there? (Laughs.) Everybody's saying "Oh, thank goodness you did that song. That was my favorite." But that was originally on the back side of "Right Or Wrong."

Cosmik: You're kidding! That's something I didn't know. "Funnel Of Love" was a B-Side?

Wanda: That's why I didn't do it. But again, I was getting requests for it, especially on the west coast, so I thought, "Okay, next tour out here, I'm going to start doing it." So that's how these things come about. Now my rock show is almost all the old things. I like a lot of the new stuff, and I get to record it on some projects, but the fans still want to hear me do my stuff, so I want to give them what they want to hear.

Cosmik: Do they respond well to brand new stuff?

Wanda: Well, they did at one period, before I started doing my original things again. I don't they'd be as enthusiastic with me singing a Garth Brooks-type rock song, you know, as they would hearing "Rock Your Baby."

Cosmik: In your style, with that voice, I dunno...

[Wanda with Gene Vincent]

Wanda: Yeah, well, I've recorded quite a few Tanya Tucker songs. I think she's got some great 90s rockabilly songs. That was only released in Europe, you know, because I wouldn't do a cover song of hers over here, but it never made any noise so I figured, "Okay, let's make it easy and do my stuff."

Cosmik: You never know what's going to do what.

Wanda: Oh, yeah, you can't figure the public. I guess that's what makes it interesting and frustrating at the same time.

Cosmik: And gives you the big surprise once in a while.

Wanda: Ab-so-lutely. That's what's great about show business. You know, I was just reading this article the other day... Of course I knew about the song, but I didn't know who'd written it. I'm speaking of the song "Man Of Constant Sorrow," song of the year, from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. Well, that was I think written by and originally sung by Ralph Stanley, who is now about, I don't know, 72, I think the article said. I heard his version of it - someone sent it to me - and they'd changed it a little bit, but not a whole lot. This article was telling how excited he was. He was saying "I can't believe this!" He's got money coming in. You just never know in show business, you know?

Cosmik: And he never expected it. How nice is that?

Wanda: Yeah, really!

Cosmik: Reminds me a little bit of the blues guys who were destitute, some of them, and then bands like The Yardbirds, Cream, Zeppelin, the Stones and all those guys did their songs and suddenly they're living in fancy hotels and driving Caddies.

Wanda: Yeah, kind of hard to deal with, for some people, probably. Of course I'm still not in that category, but mine was very gradual, so I'm just grateful for everything that comes in. Like on this new project, I have six songs on this one that I've written, so if it sells good there's some residuals coming in for me, and it keeps trickling in from all over the world. And I have some songs that have been used in movies, and that's always a nice surprise when you get a nice check for that.

Cosmik: Yeah, I'd assume you did pretty well from Dead Poet's Society. That was a big hit.

Wanda: Right, that was nice. Of course I was just paid a flat fee, and I didn't even know anything about it. My sister-in-law said "Have you seen this movie? They're using your song." Of course, they just have to deal with Capitol Records, then Capitol deals with the publisher, then they decide what I get as the singer. But it was a few thousand dollars, so it was nice.

Cosmik: Uh oh, then it wasn't one you'd written.

Wanda: No. Too bad. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: If only you could have been in on the meetings and said "Here, use this one instead."

Wanda: Yeah. See, "Right or Wrong" was used in... oh... I don't know if it was a movie in the theaters or if it was made for TV, but it was called Bastard Out Of Carolina. [Ed. Note: It was a theatrical release starring Jena Malone and Jennifer Jason Leigh.] It plays pretty frequently on TV. They used "Right or Wrong" and played it almost all the way through one time. I don't remember how I was paid on that. My husband [Wendell Goodman] handles all that. Just as long as I've got money to spend, I don't care.

Cosmik: You're fine with it, huh?

Wanda: Yes, I just hold my hand out and say "I need some money." (Laughs.) I'm a real 50s lady in that respect. I let him do all that.

Cosmik: When you went into the studio to do that first album, you weren't anything like a rookie, I know, because you'd done the country things.

Wanda: I'd only recorded with Decca two years, which... I guess I'd done about four sessions in Nashville.

Cosmik: But you knew your way around in the studio a little bit, but they call these your first two albums...

Wanda: Well, it was, DJ. Decca didn't ever record an album on me. They just put one out later with my stuff on it. A compilation album. Capitol was the first one I went in and recorded an album for.

Cosmik: So that was a different thing completely. Bigger production and all.

Wanda: In those days you didn't usually do albums until you'd had a hit, and then you'd pick up some of your B-Sides and other songs, and you'd do cover songs, and that's the way we did it. Our singles were the mainstay. We had to get the singles, where nowadays they concentrate on the album, and it takes them two years to cut it. I'm thinkin', "Gosh, that boggles my mind." I used to go in and do twelve songs in two days, two sessions. Sometimes maybe three sessions. It's totally different.

Cosmik: Everything's different now. They do it on a computer, and if you mess up the vocal, they just fix it later without you even needing to be there.

Wanda: I know it, that's kind of nice. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: Kind of nice for convenience, but kind of not. There's something about it that bugs me. It's not about anything.

Wanda: Yeah, a lot of fans of the older things, they say it just doesn't come across. And everybody's playing in a different room. That really threw me when I first started recording that way. The first time I did that was a long time before they started doing it here, and that was in Germany, and I was doing a session in the German language. Well, when I got there, I said "where's the band." "Well, all that's already recorded," they said. I said "You've got to be kiddin' me. You don't know the tempo I wanted, and you don't know the key I sing it in." "Oh, yeah," they said, "we had special writers for you. They knew your bottom and top notes and the songs were written within that range." And then I had to record in that big old studio with just a little monitor sittin' in my face, and you know, that really threw me.

Cosmik: Can you hear a difference between that session and later sessions when you'd gotten used to it?

Wanda: Well, not really, I don't think. It's kind of hard for me to judge that.

Cosmik: Going back to the Capitol sessions, what are some of your clearest memories?

Wanda: First of all, they brought in Joe Maphis, who I was familiar with, and I was so glad to have him on my session... Are you familiar with Joe Maphis?

Cosmik: Are you kidding? (Laughs)

Wanda: (Laughs) Oh good. I didn't know how much of a fan of his you were.

Cosmik: Huge. I live and breathe guitar, so Joe Maphis is revered.

[Joe Maphis]

Wanda: He just put everybody at ease, he was so laid back. Sometimes it almost looked like he was asleep, but come time for him to pick and he'd let you know he was awake, you know? So that was exciting for me. One little funny thing I remember that happened either my first or second session. I was getting ready to do "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," and we took a break. We all went back in the refreshment area, and my producer, Ken Nelson saw me and came running in yelling "WANDA, PUT THAT DOWN!" I was drinking milk. (Laughs.) I said "Why!?" He said "You can't drink milk and then go sing!" And sure enough, he was right. Because on "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," when I listen to it, the words "Hot Dog" are not the way I was trying to do it.

Cosmik: Hold the phone here... No way! That was perfect!

Wanda: No, I was trying to do it in kind of a growl, but it came out as kind of a raspy.

Cosmik: You know, it's funny, because I've always pictured you smiling kind of whimsically, looking up in the air and saying "Hot DOG!"

Wanda: "Hot DOG!" Well, see, it probably worked out good, but it taught me a lesson: don't drink milk.

Cosmik: That's hilarious. That's milk. I've gotta tell you something funny. Since I've been researching for this interview, I've been playing your music non-stop, so my daughters, who are 12 and 15, have discovered your music and really love it. Now, Karlie, the 12 year old, was listening the other day and "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad" totally got her. It appealed to her sense of humor.

Wanda: Now isn't that somethin'? If the younger generation could be exposed to more than their rap and hard rock and all that... I have a lot of teenage and younger fans out to concerts, and they've been introduced through their parents and become fans. But that's interesting.

Cosmik: My socially conscious 15 year old daughter has her favorites, too, but she really wants to know why the Japanese people love "Fujiyama Mama" so much. (Laughs.) She asks me "Didn't they know what it was saying?"

Wanda: (Laughs.) That's what I say on the stage all the time. You'll have to tell her for me. I'll say "Why this was number one in Japan, I'll never know." Except when I went over there to tour I realized they didn't understand English. (Laughs.) They just liked the sound of my voice, I guess.

Cosmik: But you'd think that somebody would have explained it to them and it would have gotten in the newspapers over there.

Wanda: I know it. It really does seem that way. I went back in '91 for a great big country festival in Southern Japan, and that song is almost like an anthem, you know? They all stood and they were singing it with me. The governor had told me they had a surprise for me when I sang "Fujiyama Mama," but I didn't know what, and all of a sudden all of these firecrackers go off up on the ridge, and it was so neat I couldn't believe it.

Cosmik: The funny thing is you could have made a career out of Japanese and German songs. Actually, you kind of did, for a while there.

Wanda: I have eighteen titles, now, in the German language, but the first one they released went to number one. They only had one chart in those days, just "music." It wasn't country, one for blues, one for soul and all this breakdown like we have. So when they sent me their version of Billboard or whatever, they said "You'll be happy to see where your song is." Well, I started at 100 (laughs), and I started climbing up and kept going. I thought "They must have the wrong person!" I kept going up, and pretty soon there's Petula Clark, then there's Brenda Lee, there's The Beatles, and there's Wanda Jackson. I just couldn't believe it. "Santa Domingo" is a standard song over there now. They call it an "evergreen song," and every generation knows the words and sings right along with me.

Cosmik: I've got your rock music memorized inside and out, but I've heard very little of the German music, I'm sorry to say. What I heard was really different.

Wanda: Well, not too many have heard it here, and there's some beautiful... The German songs are so melodic, and they sound a little more pop to me, but it's kind of what they call country, I guess. "Santa Domingo" was strictly pop. It had a great big orchestra, and they brought in a choir that consisted of about 12 members, and one lady that does the very high part was from their Metropolitan Opera.

Cosmik: Wow, quite a change from the early days.

Wanda: Yes.

Cosmik: A lot had happened by then. I've always wondered what it was like from your perspective when you were coming up. By the time these two records came out, Elvis had gone into the army, an obvious effort was being made by the establishment to cool down the music and the way the artists acted, and here comes Wanda. And you're breaking down barriers like dress codes and song topics left and right.

Wanda: Right. Of course, I got no recognition for it. I didn't have a hit in rock until I'd gone back to country, because they wouldn't play me, I couldn't get any gigs to do that type of music, you know? I loved it and I knew this was my groove, but I also knew if I was going to stay in the business, I had to go back to country. Which I did. Then here comes "Let's Have A Party."

Cosmik: Right, that's the song a disc jockey heard years later and realized somebody screwed up somewhere. So this guy starts playing the record and you finally got recognition for what you really loved to do in the first place. That was... '59 or '60?

Wanda: I guess it was in 1960. I'd recorded that thing in '57, and all that other stuff, "Fujiyama Mama" and "Hot Dog," all that stuff was done between '57 and '60, and then it started getting popular. Even at that, I still never got another rock hit. "Right or Wrong" was the next one, and it was just a crossover country-pop.

Cosmik: I heard that you were writing directly from the heart on that song, that you were so lonely at that point because of the way life was on the road.

Wanda: Well... I just wrote. Actually, I wrote that song for Brenda Lee (Laughs).

Cosmik: Did you really?!

Wanda: And [producer] Ken Nelson said "No, you'll do that one yourself." (Laughs.) That's the way a lot of my songs came about. Like "I'd Be Ashamed;" I wrote that for Ricky Nelson. I'd end up doing them myself.

Cosmik: I was just remembering where I heard that... I was listening to an NPR feature about you, and I seem to remember you saying "Right Or Wrong" was a reaction to you missing the whole idea of settling down and having a family life.

Wanda: Oh, yeah! I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant how I was feeling about the business. Yeah, I was enjoying my career. It wasn't that I wanted to get married, I mean I still wanted my career, but I didn't even have the opportunity to date, or hardly to meet anyone. I was always the only one on the shows, and all the men were musicians who were married, most of them, and I never was interested in any of those, and I just didn't have a chance to meet anybody. Then, when I formed my own band and went to Vegas - I carried my own band, The Party-Timers, for about 12 years - we were working a lot of night clubs and dances, that sort of thing, and that's not a sort of place to meet anyone, either. I was always working, I couldn't dance with anyone, we had to leave the next morning so I couldn't go out with someone afterwards, you know? So yeah, I was feeling kind of left out of things. All my girlfriends were getting married and having babies and everything. I wasn't ready for all that, but I did want a boyfriend.

Cosmik: Sounds like it could get very, very lonely.

Wanda: Yeah, it did. My dad traveled with me, and we had a great relationship, but...

Cosmik: Not the same.

Wanda: In '55, when I started working with Elvis, it was so nice because, you know, he had the whole package. (Laughs.) As performers we had so much in common, and he was excited about what was happening to him, I was excited about what was happening to me, and we got to go out together. He took me to his home and we played records and sang, and he tried to show me how I could do this rockabilly stuff - I'm sure you've read about that. And you know what? You know this, DJ, but I got to go back to Memphis in the early part of June, because this is the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death, and there's a very popular young man in Belgium who is a big Elvis fan, and he brought a whole crew over to Memphis to interview anybody who knew or worked with Elvis, and different influences in his life and all. So they asked me to come to Memphis to be part of it, which I did. For my part of it, they took me back to this original little house of his he had right before he bought Graceland. That house has been preserved exactly the way it was. When I was there, it didn't have this one large den that he added on, and it didn't have a swimming pool, but I still knew my way around that house. I said "this is his bedroom where we sang, and his mother came in and said 'I'm going to the store, what do you want for supper?' and Elvis said 'Weenies and sauerkraut.' She said okay, whatever he wanted. (Laughs.) But I did get to date him, and he gave me his ring. My dad just loved him. Of course, our dating consisted of if we got to a town early and got our interviews done and everything, and could get to a matinee movie, we'd do that, then we'd go out afterwards and drive around and have cokes and hamburgers or somethin'. That was special.

Cosmik: It was nice that you were on the road together, so at least you got to be around each other a lot.

Wanda: Right. At least every day and night. My dad would never let me ride in his car with him, but... That was my daddy was preserving my reputation. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: (Laughs.) "Daaaaaad, knock it off, will ya?" Easy to get rebellious.

Wanda: It was best. That was very important in those days.

Cosmik: Well even if you hadn't made any of those killer records, there'd be your claim to fame right there.

Wanda: Well yeah! Sometimes I think it's my only claim, though. (laughs.)

Cosmik: Oh, come on. Right.

Wanda: Naw, I know better.

Cosmik: I'm sitting here hyped because I'm talking to THE Wanda Jackson. For me, having learned about you later and then not knowing for a long time that people didn't know about you and freak out over you at the time this stuff was recorded, the whole thing seems hard to believe, you know? And I see the pictures that go along with the music and I think you must have scared the hell out of censors. They can take it from a male like Elvis, but girls don't do that.

Wanda: They'd hardly received Elvis. It was just that the young people made them. They didn't have a choice because finally they were railroaded by the young people. Of course, I was young at the time and that was my generation's music, so I wanted to sing it.

Cosmik: You were the first female to really sing rockabilly. You can get nit picky about some country songs before you being close, but nothing like what you did. So you were first. So there's a barrier you broke down. Really, you broke down a lot of them.

Wanda: My dress. The dress code. I had to put on the jacket to go on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry, and that broke my heart. I was showing too much. Elvis had the same experience. He played the Opry one time, and he was excited to do it, naturally, and the audience looked at him like "Who is THIS?" And just a smattering of applause. He walked off and said "I'll never do this again," and that's exactly what I said, too. I came off the stage and told my daddy, I said "Well okay, I've done the Opry, but I'll never do it again."

Cosmik: Everything I've read about the Opry makes me think it was all about music biz politics and audience intolerance, so a lot of people got terrible treatment on that stage.

Wanda: Well it was just old fashioned, and it still is. I didn't like a couple things about it, but I'd grown up with it and I was really excited about getting to do it. Being invited. I'd designed a new dress and my mother made it. I designed them and she made them. It had spaghetti straps and a little sweetheart neck. It certainly wasn't vulgar by any means, but Earnest Tubbs said "No, you can't show your shoulders," so I had to go put a coat on.

Cosmik: I'd think you'd get pretty mad.

Wanda: Well, yeah, and I'm the type - I hate it - but when I get mad, I start cryin', and I could hardly sing.

Cosmik: Oh no! Sounds awful.

Wanda: It was.

Cosmik: Another barrier you broke down, something I think is really admirable, is that later on, when your piano player was Big Al Downing, a black man who was not welcome in a lot of places you played, you stood by him and refused to back down. It's the right thing to do but it could have been dangerous to you, too.

[Big Al with the Rhythm Rockers]

Wanda: And you know it's something I didn't even think about at the time? I was never brought up with that kind of prejudice. Of course, in Oklahoma, my school might have had two black people in it. There just weren't that many, so it wasn't an issue, with my folks or with me. I couldn't believe it when people said "That black man comes down off the stage or you don't play." I'd say "Okay, we'll pack up and go then."

Cosmik: Probably shocked the hell out of them.

Wanda: Last year at my birthday bash - Oklahoma City threw their first birthday bash for me, Austin, Texas has been doing it for about four years now around my birthday in October - they brought in Vernon Sandusky, my original guitar player, and Big Al Downing on piano to play with me. And what fun that was.

Cosmik: I'll bet! How did it sound after all those years?

Wanda: Oh it sounded good. Heck, it was just like we'd worked together all along. They're both just so excellent. I'd worked with Vernon a few times, because he was on Hee Haw, he was in Roy Clark's band for years, you know, and Roy, of course, was my protege, so I had worked with Vernon through the years, but not Al.

Cosmik: How long was Roy in your band?

[Roy Clark]

Wanda: Only about nine months, really. He took off because Ken Nelson came up to our opening at The Nugget, and I had Roy helping me front, you know, sing and entertain, and they were so impressed with him that we used him at my next session. I had a little time at the end of the session, and Ken said "Roy, why don't just lay something down and see what happens?" So he did. It was "Under The Double Eagle." About two months later, they released the single, he signed with Capitol and he was off on his own. He's fantastic.

Cosmik: That's pretty cool that they give you birthday bashes. After all that time of feeling like nobody was noticing what you were doing, at least in the states. They know now.

Wanda: It's gratifying.

Cosmik: So many performers owe you a lot.

Wanda: Well, they're speaking out about it. It makes me feel fortunate that I know about it, and I've lived to see it.

Cosmik: When you listen to music today, then listen to your own music now, do you realize how fresh your music sounds in comparison with everything else?

Wanda: Yes, I'll have to admit, I do. I'm beginning to see what this generation's group of fans of the older things... I see now why they like it and why it is fresh. I think a lot of that might have to do with the lifestyle. I think our young people today are so bombarded with stuff, you know, and their lives are so cluttered up with so many things, and when they look back to the 50s, our lives were so simple. There weren't all these problems in the world and we were just happy-go-lucky kids, and I think so many of them just long for those days and wish that they had lived then, and they're trying to live vicariously through us. So many of my fans, I mean, they wear vintage clothes, they drive classic cars, and this is all over the world. They come out to my concert, the girls in the little ponytails and half-hats, you know, and gloves, and skirts... Makes me feel like a teenager again, so naturally I love it (Laughs).

(C) 2002 - DJ Johnson