She dated Elvis – then made him look tame with her growling, high-energy rock’n’roll. And at 83 years old, she still can’t quite embrace retirement

In 2019, Wanda Jackson announced her retirement from performing. She had been on the road for 65 years, during which time she had variously been a country star, a rock’n’roll pioneer, a gospel singer and a grande dame hailed as either the Queen of Rockabilly, or its First Lady. It was a career that had taken her from touring with Elvis Presley just as his career took off to collaborating with Jack White, but she was ready to stop travelling: she had suffered a stroke, “problems with my knees and such”, and Wendell Goodman, her husband and manager of 55 years, had died in 2017. She was, she says, “glad of the rest”.

And yet, here we are, two and a half years on. Jackson is peering out of my laptop screen from her home in Oklahoma: 83, sharp as a tack, fully madeup, elaborately coiffured and brushing aside queries about what happened to her retirement with a chuckle of “it’s hard to get a good girl down”.

Continue reading…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like

Ministers ‘lost control of universal credit fraud in Covid crisis’

MPs say £8.3bn overpaid in 2020-21 due to fraud and errors, nearly…

Martin Tyler steps down as Sky Sports football commentator after 33 years

‘The Voice’ of Premier League coverage joined Sky in 1990 77-year-old not…

The Nan Movie review – brutally unfunny outing for Catherine Tate’s sweary old lady

Belated cinema adventure for Tate’s sketch-show character and her grandson Matthew Horne…

Two Americans kidnapped in Mexico found dead, officials say

Two killed, third person injured and fourth unharmed after quartet traveling for…