>Wanda Jackson to Rock Bonnaroo

>The coolness of Wanda Jackson is boundless:

Wanda Jackson, 73, has been selected to play the celebrated Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival this summer in Manchester, Tenn.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is part of a prestigious and eclectic lineup that includes Eminem, Arcade Fire, Robert Plant and Band of Joy, Lil Wayne, The Black Keys and Loretta Lynn.

The 10th annual Bonnaroo is set for June 9-12 on the 700-acre farm it has called home since its 2002 debut.

A Maud native and longtime Oklahoma City resident, Jackson has been celebrating a career revival since she partnered with rocker Jack White, who produced her new album “The Party Ain’t Over.” She and White promoted the January album release with performances on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “Conan,” and Jackson and Weatherford band Green Corn Revival ripped through a packed hometown show at the ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Bricktown.

>Wanda Jackson Teams With Jack White

>I’ve posted before about Wanda Jackson, a member of our stodgy Baptist church, and her working with the yowling Jack White. Here’s the latest:

What happens when Oklahoma’s “Queen of Rockabilly” meets Detroit’s dean of daring guitar dynamos?

Why, a party, of course.

That’s what Wanda Jackson’s been all about since she hit the Top 40 with “Let’s Have a Party” in the late ’50s. Back then it was boyfriend/mentor Elvis Presley who taught this country girl from Maud how to rock ‘n’ roll.

Now she’s learning some 21st century tricks from one of alternative music’s most successful eccentrics — Jack White.

Sounds interesting.

Wanda Jackson to Perform at Oklahoma City’s 66 Bowl Celebration

I’m late to post this but Wanda Jackson performed last Saturday at 66 Bowl Celebration, a bowling alley:

The “Sweet Lady With the Nasty Voice” and her husband/manager celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary Oct. 7. On Saturday, 66 Bowl marks its 50th year as a landmark on the Mother Road.

Like one of Wanda’s hit songs says, “Let’s Have a Party.”

The Queen of Rockabilly returns to the scene of her romantic beginnings for a special show at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Who’s Wanda Jackson? A down-on-her-luck faded rock’n'roll star from the dim past? Hardly. Here’s her Wikipedia entry. Irrelevant to day? Ha!

Another cause for celebration is Wanda’s current collaboration with Jack White. She told me the front man of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs is producing her next album. At the time of our conversation, she was on her way to Nashville, Tenn., where she would record half a dozen preliminary tracks, with White at the studio console.

“One of the biggest stars on the planet I guess right now,” she said of White.

She said it would be premature to reveal titles of the songs she’s covering because the selections might change, but she did allow that White had been consulting with his friend Bob Dylan.

“Jack e-mailed (Wendell) and said he happened to be talking to Bob Dylan the other day, and Dylan is a big fan of mine,” Wanda said. “So, he asked him if he could think of a song that he thought would be good for me to record. So, I might be doing one of Bob Dylan’s songs.”

Just another milestone in a career that’s been full of them. The Maud native, 72, was a young country and gospel artist who began singing rockabilly in the 1950s on the advice of her mentor and then-boyfriend, Elvis Presley.

Take that, you dang whippersnapper.

Oh, and one more thing about Ms. Jackson: she’s a member of our church.

Not bad for a bunch of stodgy Baptists.