Release Date: 1/01/2002
Recording Date: 1/1958
Tracks: 18
Length: 00:46:18 Hrs
Label: Collectables
Type: CD
- Genre/Styles
- Traditional Country, Rockabilly, Honky Tonk
Album Tracks (18)
Currently 0.0 / 5.0 Stars
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What the Critics Say
Like many other young recording artists of the late 1950s, especially those on major labels, Wanda Jackson was encouraged to straddle musical genres as a hedge against changing trends. She was an accomplished rockabilly singer, but Capitol Records must have worried how long rockabilly was going to stay popular, so the singer cut tracks in several other styles, most frequently country. Her rockabilly fans may have been surprised to hear her first full-length album, Wanda Jackson, which leaned more toward country and also showed off her affinity for straight pop. True, she did cover "Long Tall Sally" and "Money, Honey," and she did a particularly raucous version of "Let's Have a Party" (which surprisingly took off for the pop Top 40 two years after the album's release). But more typical of the sound of the album overall were her versions of Kitty Wells' "Making Believe" and Don Everly's "Here We Are Again," traditional country material, and she even tried her hand at Patti Page's 1954 hit "Let Me Go, Lover!," a pop ballad. Add it all up, and you had one versatile singer, able to sing convincingly anything that was thrown at her. The variety made sense at the time, even if subsequent fans may wish Jackson had rocked out a bit more. The 2002 CD reissue adds six tracks to the original 12, all of them drawn from singles Jackson released between 1956 and 1958. Like the material on the original album, the bonus tracks tend more toward the country side of Jackson's persona. Particularly notable is an early, country version of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles," which went on to become a hit for the Springfields (and to launch the career of Dusty Springfield) six years after Jackson first released it. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
