Wanda Jackson Sings the Greatest Bob Dylan Cover Ever

Wanda Jackson... Michael Jackson's kid sister? No. That very funny comic? No, that's Wanda Sykes. If you do not know who should-be superstar Wanda Jackson is, then you do know how unfair the popular musical-industrial complex is.

Wanda Jackson discovered

Wanda Jackson's career began about the time her sometime boy friend Elvis Presley began his. It was a match of royals, the King, Elvis Presley, and the Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. Rockabilly, by the way, is music that draws on rock and country (hillbilly) music, but it is so much more, since rockabilly draws on all the musical traditions that feed country and rock - gospel (of course), blues, jazz, and the good Lord alone knows what else, although some folks say that rockabilly came from the other direction.

Wanda Jackson was born in and has lived most of her life in Oklahoma. Before her high school graduation (which her father insisted on), she had her own radio program and was recording professionally. She grew to be a quadruple threat: singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist.

As rockabilly fell from favor in the early 1960s, she moved more toward country and rock, and in the 1970s, after a religious experience, to gospel, although she wipes out the boundaries between categories. Along the way, she found a niche recording songs in German, Dutch, and Japanese. Since her career in the United States was in decline, she took advantage of the rockabilly revival in Europe and toured there extensively.

In January 2011, she teamed with guitarist Jack White to release an album, The Party Ain't Over. Out of a wide range of songs, one stands out, Wanda Jackson's version of "Thunder on the Mountain," by Bob Dylan.

Listen to Wanda Jackson and Bob Dylan

Whenever I write about music, I realize how inadequate words, at least my words, are to convey the truths of music. So, take a break from this article, and click here to listen to Bob Dylan singing "Thunder on the Mountain," from his 2006 album Modern Times.

Now, make sure your surge protector is on, your smoke detector is off, and children under three and all pets are out of the room. Then click here and be prepared to wonder after five minutes and forty-five seconds, how we can have any shortage of energy when this seventy-three year old grandma and church lady can belt out almost 500 words while busting moves to make her grandkids envious... without any sign of getting weak in the knees.

Bob Dylan uncovered

Bob Dylan moved from Minnesota to New York City's Greenwich Village in 1961. (It would be thirteen years later before I would get there - more). For half a century he has grown to be a senior statesman for music in the United States.

Along the way, Bob Dylan has gained a knowledge of music in the United States as encyclopedic as that of his old Greenwich Village pal Herbert Khaury (better known as Tiny Tim) and has drawn on that knowledge in his songs, as documented by Sean Wilentz in Bob Dylan In America. (Bob Dylan himself remembered the perhaps unlikely friendship with Tiny Tim in his own Chronicles: Volume One .) He knew and admired Wanda Jackson. In fact, on the opening page of her website, Bob Dylan is quoted as calling Wanda Jackson "An atomic bomb in lipstick."

"Thunder on the Mountain" covered

Bob Dylan also recommended that Wanda Jackson cover his "Thunder on the Mountain" (source).

Covers raise some issues. Why are you recording this? Do we need another version? Can your performance compete with the original performance, or add insights to the song?

In "Thunder on the Mountain," Bob Dylan created words and music that, if they were not so full of vitality, might be a museum display of popular music and culture in the United States. When Bob Dylan suggested that Wanda Jackson sing "Thunder on the Mountain," he did not so much throw down a gauntlet in challenge as throw that whole mountain at her.

Wanda Jackson does not cover "Thunder on the Mountain." She uncovers, discovers the song. I imagine that when Bob Dylan heard her version, he said, "Where did that come from?" even though Wanda Jackson remains faithful to his work. When I listen to Wanda Jackson singing "Thunder on the Mountain," it has a weird stereophonic effect, as if I am hearing Bob Dylan's original in one ear and Wanda Jackson's enhancements in the other.

Wanda Jackson's Bob Dylan cover has a special significance, although Bob Dylan's songs have been well-served by their covers by musicians such as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, the Byrds, and Peter, Paul and Mary. Although Bob Dylan is a Wanda Jackson fan, I (a Bob Dylan fan) had never heard Wanda Jackson until I heard "Thunder on the Mountain," and my response was the same as my response to the first piece by French classical composer Olivier Messiaen I ever heard: "Where has this music been all my life?" (as I recounted here). I suspect that there are Wanda Jackson fans who will have the same response to hearing a Bob Dylan song.

Besides the musical validity of Wanda Jackson's performance of "Thunder on the Mountain," her version takes on historical significance, the meeting of two great musicians, each of whom has made a distinct contribution to popular music. By singing Bob Dylan's "Thunder on the Mountain," Wanda Jackson reminds us how much each of them has enriched our music and our lives.

According to my title, Wanda Jackson sings the greatest Bob Dylan cover ever - ever was, ever will be - I do have a problem: horns. If you watch and listen to the video again, you can see and hear that Wanda Jackson brings so much brass, not to mention sass, to a recording session that horns are redundant.

Sources

Wanda Jackson has an especially rich website (here) as does Bob Dylan (here). Other sources are linked to in the article. Special thanks to my niece Molly for introducing me to Wanda Jackson.