Jack White is to be much commended for his distinguished services in returning the grand old dames of country, roots and rock’n’roll to centre stage. If you think post-menopause is hard on actresses, try scoring a record deal once you’ve gotten over the hill of fifty.
Wanda Jackson is of course the undisputed first lady of rockabilly, equipped with a cute but carnal kitten growl that makes the young Lulu sound like Sarah Brightman. Miss Jackson could have made a handsome living touring the chicken-in-a basket-heritage circuit in perpetuity, but she deserved to make a record with a bitchin’ band.
That unmistakeable voice is still intact on The Party Ain’t Over, and coming from a lady of a certain age (okay, 73) it imbues the material with an almost Lynchian weirdness. When Miss Jackson tears into an old staple like Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ ‘Shakin’ All Over’ in the year of 2011, the effect is not so much anomalous as UFO-landing-in-Alabama wacko.
Unfortunately the arrangements and production sometimes stray into luxury liner cabaret territory. The calypso jam of ‘Rum and Coca Cola’ sounds a bit like Wanda backed by Jools’ Big Band (although in truth packs more punch than her actual performance on last month’s Hootenanny).
And to be honest, there’s not much left to do with chestnuts like ‘Rip It Up’ aside from giving them a new coat of paint. Amy Winehouse’s ‘You Know That I’m No Good’, on the other hand, is a more inspired A&R choice, but seems content to xerox the original.
Far better are the tunes with dirt on their shoes: the rambunctious slide-trombone Depression honk of ‘Busted’; the country funk of ‘Dust On the Bible’; the fuzzy-sweatered teen-dream doo-wop of ‘Teach Me Tonight’. Best of all is a bare bones take on Jimmie Rodgers ‘Blue Yodel No. 6’.
It gives us no pleasure to say it, but The Party Ain’t Over is nowhere near the unqualified triumph that Van Lear Rose was for Loretta Lynn. Dammit.