MR/MS: JACKSON

Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of this site will appreciate that there is likely little hip hop demographic within the reading or the writing. By way neither of apology or excuse, I guess this is a an age and colour thing, old white guys seldom experts outside their narrow zones of comfort. If I were younger, maybe a bit more: my son was a huge fan of the genre twenty odd years ago and certainly gave me limitless opportunity to absorb, wanted or not. And, I admit, largely not. But, as I peruse my i-tunes, I have rather more than I realised, and have no little grudging respect for certain artists, tending to prefer the melodic to the militant, the abstract to the angry. Like this, the contrast between the staccato delivery of the verses and the dreamy chorus grabbing my ears back then, even as I was scrubbing the graffiti off my son's bedroom walls.

Now, I guess I could now make this a hastily regurgitated precis of the life and times of the band, OutKast, or the duo, as they were, but I fear my sources would be obvious. Plus, we can all read wikipedia for ourselves, but I hadn't realise that the song relates to the relationship of Andre 3000, one of the pair, with singer Erykah Badu, or more specifically with her mother, the Ms "Jackson" the lyrics are addressed to. Whilst not necessarily a fan of the individual, she apparently loved the song, a fair bit more, in fact, than her daughter, who found it a little close to the bone. So, nearly avoiding also any clumsy link to the other OutKast song in my collection, lets celebrate a couple or so other Ms Jacksons...

Wanda Jackson isn't either actually quite my demographic, this little ditty hailing from the year of my birth, and comes from days when cultural sensitivities were, shall we say, less well honed. But, as a piece of rough hewn rockabilly, it certainly has some pizazz and she has continued ploughing that field right up until, astonishingly, as recently as 2012, that being when her last record was released. Little had changed.

So which one's Luscious, you ask? And given the Lucious, no s, Jackson was a male basketball player, and after whom this all-girl band named themselves, does this fit the strict criterion I apply to all my nonsense. Hell, no, but it's my post, and I like the band, as much for being there as for the music they produced.

Jade Jackson is/was 'One of 10 New Country Artists You Should Know", according to Rolling Stone in 2017, and has a bit more balls than many of the winsome souls who that sort of category might have you bringing to mind. In fact, she has me thinking more of a modern day Wanda. I know little of her beyond this song, but I like it. In fact, I may go check out some of her other work.

From the present back to the past I tread, desperately trying to bypass the Ms Jackson that is Janet, Mahalia being one I cannot possible exclude, a truly majestic vocal presence that lingers to this day. Whether gospel is or not your thing, I defy you to ignore the power and presence displayed. No wonder that Sinead O'Connor chose to revisit just this song for her latest come-back.

Who's your favourite Ms Jackson?

OVER: SHAKIN' ALL OVER

Can there be a more evocative intro to a song? The pizzicato guitar plucks, with then the rolling riff of the lead guitar, sounding exactly how a shiver feels, creeping up your back(bone), standing all the hairs up on end. It's glorious. But the version you know is possibly not the version I know, the original failing to cross the atlantic at the time. Which is a pity, as it that rarity, a song of the early pre-Beatle 60s that can still hold its head up, undrenched in the syrupy strings that would spoil most of the UK's rock'n'roll output, often a tawdry and anodyne bowdlerisation of the real thing.

Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were huge during that short period of homegrown rockers, their calling card being their appearance, always in pirate costume, Kidd sporting an eyepatch and a cutlass. With the line up including the now legendary session man on drums, Clem Cattini, the guitar motif, both bits, was provided by one Joe Moretti, a Scot who also played on Vince Taylor's Brand New Cadillac. Number one in 1960, Kidd and his band couldn't hold on to that momentum, each further follow-up bringing diminishing returns, the line-up frequently changing until Kidd was killed, in a car accident, in 1966. For trivia lovers, also injured in that same crash was then Pirate, Nick Simper, later to be a founder member of Deep Purple. The Pirates weren't finished though, and I saw a revived version perform at the famous London pub venue, The Hope and Anchor, in the late 70s. A trio including the dynamic guitarmanship of Mick Green, he was one of the first players to play in a hybrid lead/rhythm style. Somehow, despite their age and portliness, they were lumped into the punk movement, mainly due the speed and precision of their sonic assault. Green was a key influence on Wilko Johnson, who picked up and ran with that style in first Dr Feelgood and then is his own band and with Ian Dury. I remember they did play Shakin' All Over that night, and I was bemused, knowing the song but not why they were playing it, other than the fact it was fast and ferocious. Green later became an integral part of Van Morrison's band, in the days when fellow 60's survivor, Georgie Fame was musical director and organist supreme. He died in 2010.

Wilko Johnson is then a link to the next version, courtesy his still fairly recent album with Roger Daltrey, the excellent Going Back Home, from 2014. Daltrey, of course, the then, the very much earlier and the still vocalist of the Who. Often cited as one of the best live albums of all time, their Live At Leeds, their version is a little slower and has a harder rock sound, with less roll. Legend has it that the only reason they played the song, was to get over the sometime confusion between themselves and Canadian band, the Guess Who, who had had a big North American hit with the song, in 1965. If a confused section of the audience were to muddle them up, and to call out for the song, it was easier to just play it, rather than have to explain. 

(By coincidence, and possibly for the same reason, guess what song the Guess Who played on their possibly less well remembered 1967 Live in Winnipeg opus? Good stuttering practice for a  later collaboration, too.)

Another noteworthy version was by from veteran rockabilly shouter, Wanda Jackson, who possibly shared a stage with Kidd at some time in the late 50s or early 60s. Better perhaps known for another song about shaking, she gave it a delightfully retro twang, including it on her 2011 collaboration with Jack White, The Party Ain't Over.

Quite why the emerging country and blues singer Eilen Jewell included it in her repertoire, on Sea of Tears, I do not know, other than that the idea was to reproduce the twangy tone of that time period, it suiting well her own material, if written nearly a half century later. But I'm glad she did. Still then an avid mix-tape maker, quirky covers were always a welcome discovery to slip alongside other songs I was trying to impress upon friends and family. It meant, in her case, I got to hear more of her own work, liking them and keeping up with her continuing career. Again, her cover is not a radical rewrite, but offered a little more of a western swing to it, with a decidedly more touchy vocal.

Johnny, Rog, Wanda, Eilen.

Elvis Covers Part I: Hard-Headed Woman

Wanda Jackson: Hard-Headed Woman
[purchase]

 King of Rock 'n' Roll, eh?  Well, I guess we get the King we deserve.  As a society we surge purposefully toward the middle of the road, never truly comfortable with the truly sexy or dangerous, preferring instead the chintzy allure of the ersatz.  Don't get me wrong: Elvis was really something for a while, but John Lennon's estimation of his date of death, or at least the death of his relevance was pretty-well on the money.  It's telling that the first image that comes to mind when his name comes up is that of the tragic, jump-suited fat man, not the lithe, prowling young rebel who made our grandmothers come over all unnecessary.  It's more telling still that the booming trade in Elvis impersonators home in on that era - it's a lazy shorthand, of course, but one that drunk people will understand while they're committing to something regrettable with someone they barely know in a chintzy chapel somewhere in Reno tonight.

It could have been so different, of course.  Rock 'n' Roll is, in its purest form, a spicy gumbo of sex, rebellion and attitude, and as such far more primal and important than we probably deserve.  But if we did deserve it, our King may well have been a Queen.  Wanda Jackson had - hell, still has - the looks, the sass and the howl, and unlike Mr Presley, she never let the army or Colonel Tom Parker knock the attitude out of her.  Elvis cover?  No.  This is way more than that.  If the seldom-achieved point of a cover version is to surpass the original then Ms Jackson delivers where few others have managed.  She's the original, you see.    

Oh Mama: Fujiyama Mama

Wanda Jackson: Fujiyama Mama

[purchase]

If I were a lawyer making the case for Wanda Jackson's place in the pantheon of great rockers, this song would be my closing argument.

It's powerful enough in 2009. Just imagine how it must have sounded to the kiddos back in the staid 1950's. This lady is a powerhouse.

I drink a quart of sake
Smoke dynamite
I chase it with tobaccy
And then shoot out the light

The Moon: Blue Moon Of Kentucky

From Wikipedia.


"Blue Moon of Kentucky" is a waltz written in 1947 by bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and recorded by his band, The Blue Grass Boys. The song has since been recorded by Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Ronnie Hawkins, Wanda Jackson, LeAnn Rimes, The Beatles, Boxcar Willie, Ray Charles and others.

Bill Monroe: Blue Moon Of Kentucky     [purchase]

Bill Monroe wrote the song in 1947, but didn't record it until three years later. Carl Perkins played an uptempo version of this song in his early live performances. When the just starting out Elvis Presley, along with Bill Black and Scotty Moore, completed a take of the song in July 1954, Sun Records owner Sam Phillips exclaimed, "Boy, that's fine, that's fine. That's a POP song now!" Presley responded, "That sounds like Carl Perkins!"

Elvis Presley's version went to number one on the country charts across the American South in 1954. This song was the second recorded by Presley, and released by Sun Records. According to guitarist Scotty Moore, it was bassist Bill Black who began playing an irreverent version of the song during an up until then unproductive recording session to produce a second side for the previously recorded "That's Alright Mama". Presley and Moore then joined in.


Elvis Presley: Blue Moon Of Kentucky     [purchase]

In 1995, the remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr performed an impromptu 4/4 version of the song that was eventually released on the Bonus DVD of The Beatles Anthology video release.


The Beatles: Blue Moon Of Kentucky     [purchase]

On her 2006 Elvis tribute album, I Remember Elvis, Rockabilly Queen Wanda Jackson shows she can still bring it. Providing the big beat behind her is Blondie drummer Clem Burke.


Wanda Jackson: Blue Moon Of Kentucky     [purchase]

"Blue Moon of Kentucky" is the official bluegrass song of Kentucky. In 2002, Monroe's version was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2003, CMT ranked "Blue Moon of Kentucky" #11 on its 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music.