Review: Wanda Jackson - Right Or Wrong (1961)

Tracks: 1) Right Or Wrong; 2) Why I’m Walkin’; 3) So Soon; 4) The Last Letter; 5) I May Never Get To Heaven; 6) The Window Up Above; 7) Sticks And Stones; 8) Stupid Cupid; 9) Slippin’ And A Slidin’; 10) Brown Eyed Handsome Man; 11) Who Shot Sam; 12) My Baby Left Me.

REVIEW

One of the few «soft country» songs recorded by Wanda and her band during those tumultuous sessions of October 1960 was ‘Right Or Wrong’, a pretty little ballad that she, surprisingly, wrote herself — surprisingly, because in stark contrast to all of her rebellious, self-asserting, feminist-empowering rock’n’roll material, this one’s subject was perfectly adapted to country music’s classic «stand-by-your-man» ideology: "Right or wrong I’ll be with you / I’ll do what you ask me to / For I believe that I belong / By your side, right or wrong" — quite a long distance from ‘Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad’, I’d say. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with this approach: people are allowed to have multiple sides, and as long as we decide to interpret such songs, for instance, as advocating devotion, compassion, and forgiveness rather than mindless slavish submission, there’s really nothing to be ashamed of. The specific problem with ‘Right Or Wrong’ is that it is simply not a very interesting song — feels like a pretty generic country tune with a bit of a doo-wop flavor, spilling all its charm in the first fifteen seconds and kept alive only by Wanda’s careful articulation of each syllable; say what you will, but the girl could be pretty seductive in her sentimental-submissive avatar. The Nashville-style backing vocals and the Magical Mystery Chimes throughout are quite corny, though.

Ironically, in retrospect it is the B-side to the ‘Right Or Wrong’ single, originally forgotten and only resuscitated decades later on extensive compilations, that has eventually managed to draw critical and fan attention and is generally considered today to be one of the artistic highlights of Wanda’s career. ‘Funnel Of Love’, written by country great Charlie McCoy and the relatively unknown Kent Westbury, is one of those «what the fuck?» songs where you’d expect things to be normal and predictable, but somehow they turn out really, really weird. Under the surface, it’s more or less typical catchy country-pop; on the surface, it’s sort of a «Carmen-meets-Madame-Butterfly» display of dangerous and exotic sensual passion, a perfect Dionysian antidote to the Apollonian declarations of ‘Right Or Wrong’ if there ever was one.

For starters, what’s up with Roy Clark’s guitar sound here, all twangy and flangy and bending those notes as if he was playing a koto rather than an ordinary electric guitar? The song completely draws you in from the opening chords that promise you a very special ride — maybe even an excitingly warped and deviant one, replete with the same wolfey "aah-ooommm" vocal harmonies you typically meet on a titillating Coasters record. Next, there’s Wanda’s own vocal — with that devilish rasp coming back in its full glory — and, funny enough, the vocal melody is structured a little like a «funnel», swirling over the same phrases a couple of times before being «sucked inside» the instrumentation. The message of the song is the same as in Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ ‘Shakin’ All Over’ (no coincidence here that Wanda would resuscitate that one half a century later during her «grandma years» with Jack White) — but where Kidd always emphasized the idea of «love as fear», Wanda here is more happy with the concept of «love as orgasmic submission to the unknown», so next time you consider a hentai tentacle porn project or something, think of adding ‘Funnel Of Love’ to the soundtrack.

But as cool as it is to see justice served in the historical perspective, back in April 1961 it was ‘Right Or Wrong’, the A-side, that gained most of the airplay and not only earned Wanda her highest place so far in the country charts (#9), but even broke her into the general Top 30 — and that was the deal which sealed her fate. Whether it was truly her own decision to revert back to pure country or it was subtly forced on her by her record label is something we’ll probably never know; in any case, it would be unjust to blame her for taking that decision at the time — when even stalwart Southern rockers like Jerry Lee Lewis were going back to the good old country barn. While There’s A Party Goin’ On did give some hope that the spirit of rock’n’roll would live on in soldier girls such as Wanda, in the end it is worth remembering that «Wanda Jackson, the rock’n’roller» was, after all, just an artistic persona — and when the time, as it seemed back then, came to retire that artistic persona, that was just what she did, without any extra tear shedding or anything. No, it wasn’t «fake» — some might argue that «Wanda the rocker» was always closer to «the real Wanda» than «Wanda the country singer» — but it would be ridiculous to assume that Wanda Jackson was some sort of, you know, Keith Richards, cruelly trampled upon and choked by the record industry to prevent her from realizing and making use of her true nature. Above all, she was a normal Fifties’ gal, and she, too, probably felt that the exuberance of rock’n’roll was a «phase» that had to be let go once the artist stepped into his or her «mature» period.

Anyway, the transition was still gradual: the sessions for Right Or Wrong, most of which took place over just two days (April 17–18, 1961) at the very same Nashville studio that yielded the bulk of There’s A Party half a year earlier, yielded a more or less equal number of country-oriented and rock’n’roll-style tracks, with the label deciding that, in accordance with the fad of the times (see Elvis’ Something For Everybody as a natural inspiration), one side of the LP would consist of nothing but country ballads and the other of rockin’ material — a bad, bad fad, especially bad if your source material is not all that great in the first place.

The country side is just a total snooze. Back when Wanda was still a bona fide rocker, a country ballad slipping in now and then was a perfectly sensible choice, for the sake of diversity and mood swing — not to mention that, when she was not recording that material en masse, some of those had interesting and quirky melodic and vocal touches. Here, the title track is followed by five covers of contemporary country artists, and it’s dull as heck. Yes, it’s a professional Nashville backing, and yes, Wanda does good as a country singer, but this is all painfully stereotypical, the waltzing mid-tempo quickly gets unbearable, and the idea of a «quirky touch» for any of those songs is, for instance, to include a deep-set thunderous drum roll in the middle of chanting the title to ‘I May Never Get To Heaven’ because... because what? to punctuate the self-sacrificing stunning blasphemy of the line? ... whatever.

If you are a fan of the generic country sound of early Sixties’ Nashville, the A-side of the LP will be perfectly enjoyable, but it seems she is striving for the fame of Patsy Cline here more than ever before, without giving any convincing arguments as to why we should actually bother. So let’s skip right ahead to the rocking side and... it should be awesome, right? Just like her previous album and all?...

Alas, no. The B-side has nowhere near the same exhilarating party energy as the tracks Wanda and her band recorded on the previous album. Perhaps it was a different set of musicians (no source has been able to properly identify who specifically is playing along here), but mostly it was just a matter of ever so slightly toning down the intensity of yesterday. Even when Wanda covers classic rock’n’roll material, such as Little Richard’s ‘Slippin’ And Slidin’ or Chuck Berry’s ‘Brown Eyed Hand­some Man’, she seems to be holding back. The rhythm section is a bit more cuddly and playful, the guitars are altogether more melodic, and the brutal rasp is unleashed only very occasionally (on ‘Slippin’ And Slidin’, mostly).

Just a few months earlier, Wanda’s version of ‘Hard Headed Woman’ showed that she was fully able to tackle the King head-on, all but beating him at his own game when the fire was fed well enough. Now, this relatively much more tepid cover of ‘My Baby Left Me’ sounds slower, more stiff and disciplined than Elvis’ classic performance of the Arthur Crudup classic: decent, but utterly unimportant, with Wanda singing in a perfunctory, disinterested manner, almost as if somebody just begged her to do an Elvis number and she reluctantly agreed upon this one. Her run through the befuddling verses of Chuck Berry’s ‘Brown-Eyed Handsome Man’ is much more inspired and involving in comparison, but the song is still way too polished and fragile next to Chuck’s own version.

An attempt to branch out is made by covering Ray Charles’ ‘Sticks And Stones’, with the electric piano player, whoever he is, actually doing an excellent job in capturing the essence of Ray’s playing — it’s only too just that the extended solo takes up about a third of the song’s running time — but the impact of such a branching is lessened when the other two «rocking» songs actually turn out to be facetious country-pop numbers, namely, Neil Sedaka’s ‘Stupid Cupid’, originally a hit for Connie Francis back in 1958, and George Jones’ ‘Who Shot Sam?’ from 1959. Both songs were fluffy, if fun, from the start, and neither of these performances is much of an improvement on the original.

In the end, the «rocking» side leaves you a bit bewildered. If it is so seemingly uninspired, and if the general strategy was to move Wanda away into the country market for good, why did they include it in the first place? The most logical answer that springs to mind is that they intentionally recorded a subpar rocking set so as to make the old fans believe that Wanda Jackson, the «female Elvis», had naturally run out of rock’n’roll juice, and make it easier for them to accept her crossing to the other side. Or maybe they were just following actual guidelines from Elvis’ camp — «feel free to do a rock’n’rolling number from time to time, but remember that the word of day is playful, not provocative». Regardless, the fact of the matter is that the rocking tracks on this album are just OK. Enjoyable as background music, but nothing «iconic» about them whatsoever. In the end, one single ‘Funnel Of Love’ is worth all the twelve tracks on this album put together and multiplied by ten — an unfortunate historical anomaly, as it turns out, rather than an exciting artistic path that the lady may have pursued to continue forging her own identity. Or, perhaps, may not have pursued, if we accept that Fate is always stronger than one person’s dreams and ambitions, in the end.

• Only Solitaire reviews: Wanda Jackson