Wanda Jackson Quotations

Yeah, they let me do whatever I wanted to.

It seems like the good things that have happened in my career are things that you don't try to plan and push, and make it happen, it just seems to happen.

As I go back and listen, the other girls weren't singing quite like I was.

I didn't realize how many true Rockabilly fans there were here in America.

None of the other guys in the band really sang, so that's when I brought Roy Clark in.

They're dressing like in the 50's when they come out to the shows, and many of them have vintage cars.

I'm still learnin'. I pick up something from every performer I watch.

Right, different generations come along, and discover the music, I think.

You could have a hit in California that no one had heard of in Oklahoma.

It really is, to see that this kind of music is still so popular.

There wasn't so many ISSUES like there are today. It was a simpler time.

And it wasn't until '84 when I was first asked to come to Sweden and do an album and concert tour.

I enjoyed listening to it, but I didn't think I could do it.

I have eighteen titles in the German language. I had a number one song in 1965.

I learned so much about recording and about singing on records from Ken Nelson.

I loved Carl Perkins, Jerry lee Lewis... not only were they personal friends.

If I needed to record, I'd head to the coast or Nashville, one or the other.

If something pops in my mind and it's easy, I write it.

On that show, I did country and some rock, too, whatever record I had out at the time, I'd sing that.

So, it's nice to know that you've inspired someone to do their life's work.

Well, I didn't really have a plan. I just wanted a hit.

But, we didn't have all the media that we do today.

I have some of the old videos of my performances on it.

I really appreciate people like Rosie coming out and saying I've inspired them.

You know, no one steered people's careers in those days, I don't think, like they do today.

Getting comments like that from even the young people at the shows who probably aren't singers, the girls who just tell me that I'm an inspiration to them, for one reason or another.

So, it happened pretty fast, but, it is causing a lot of stir, which thrills me that people still remember the songs.

Right, I was a teenager then, this was my generation's music, it was what I danced to on dates.

I'd been working with Elvis, but I just recorded Country, so he, definitely, like you said, encouraged me to try it, but I didn't, right then.

But, it was a popular show, and I knew everyone on it, so it was always fun to do.

I thought it was a very cute song. I just picked them out because I liked them. I wasn't trying to make any statements.

We had to work five back-to-back shows, forty-five minutes on, fifteen minutes off. That's just an awful lot of singing.

We have two photos that we're selling, we have a vintage 1956 and we have a current one, and the vintage ones outsell the current ones ten to one!

Yeah, but I have the box set out now.

Well, I didn't learn them I had to do them phonetically. But I've recorded in Dutch and Japanese, too.

It would be nice to say that I planned all of this, that this was exactly what I'd planned, but it was just one of those things that happened.

It would take them three days to tape a thirty minute show, and you just got so worn out, you did it however they wanted, just to get it over with.

The young people at the shows are all singing them right along with me, so I know that they have the records, they're bringing 'em out for me to sign.

They don't like their generation's music, so they find some that they do like!

They didn't really check it . . . It was just purposeless.

It's not available in America, we don't have a distribution company or a label yet, but in Denmark, at the first of the year, I recorded with a group called the Alligators.

I knew it was very big in Europe, I've been working over there for twelve years.

I'd sing and shake my leg a bit, and it looked like I was doing something.

You could hear a song, and if you didn't like it, well, you didn't listen to it.

I never kissed a bear, I've never kissed a goon, but I can shake a chicken in the middle of a room.

He's a mean, mean man, but I love him all I can.