Saturday night rockabilly

Sorry about the lack of posting. I've been a bit busy. But right now my boyfriend's watching a program on 50's hot rods, which made me think of posting about the 50's. Saturday nights are definitely for rockabilly, so tonight I'm going to post on Wanda Jackson. She's mostly a country music singer, but for a brief time in the 50's she turned to singing my beloved rockabilly music and she cut some of the greatest tracks in the genre. Her rowdy singing on songs like "Fujiyama Mama" and "Let's Have a Party" still sounds fresh nearly 50 years later.

Jackson didn't last as a rockabilly singer, probably for a number of reasons. A lot people, myself included, think she was probably just under too much pressure from industry types who were really nervous about having a woman sing in a genre that was considered degenerate and lascivious. (Rock music is degenerate and lascivious--that's why I like it.) Jackson didn't exactly put much effort into dialing it down either to calm the fears of people who thought that the music was ruining the morals of young people--for instance, she liked wearing bold and sexy stuff to perform in. Though I'm sure her willingness to just belt it out enthusiatically when singing about partying and whatnot probably scared people just as badly.

For whatever reason, she played rockabilly for a couple of years and then spent the rest of her career singing country and gospel. But rockabilly is what she is beloved for, and I know that in the past few years she's revived that part of her career and has been touring frequently specifically to play rockabilly. Of course, in the meantime the music has gotten to be much, much less threatening, to the point that born-again Christians cheerfully take their children to rockabilly concerts. But that shouldn't stop you from listening to old singles like "Let's Have a Party" when you're fixing to have a rowdy good time.