Oklahoma Mama: Interview with Wanda Jackson

Viewers of the Ken Burns "Country" documentary were no doubt startled by the incredible footage of a young Wanda Jackson tearing up the stage in a rare clip.

While there were a few standout female rockers in the 1950s (most notably Virginia's own packet of dynamite, Janis Martin) Jackson took the rockabilly music pioneered by one of her boyfriends, Elvis Presley, to a whole new level.

Jackson's work for Capitol Records and with producer Ken Nelson spawned numerous classics -- stomping anthems like “Let's Have a Party” and “Fujiyama Mama,” fueled by Jackson's untamed growl and kittenish persona (not to mention top notch guitarists such as Grady Martin and the young Roy Clark).

I'm pleased to see that my 2010 interview with the petite Oklahoma powerhouse is still online -- although wonkily formatted -- at the Style Weekly website. Read my in-depth talk with the legend by having a party right here.

And for more on the great Wanda Jackson, go here. 

Dark Star: Lost and Spaced

I found myself again.

This happens from time to time. I do a search on a completely unrelated topic and somehow one of my old stories pops up -- usually something that I had completely forgotten about. This thrills me to no end because that means I get to read it "fresh," as if someone else wrote it.

This time, I went looking for information on the films of John Carpenter and I ended up finding a review I wrote for Style Weekly of Carpenter's first movie, Dark Star.  This amazing student film manages to capture the fried zeitgeist of the post-'60s counterculture while successfully skewering the great epic sci-fi films of its day.

Surf over here to read the review.

You can snag a copy of Dark Star by going here.

Style Weekly: Q&A with Leo Kottke

I love it when I find myself.

This has happened a few times: I do a Google search on a completely unrelated topic and somehow one of my old stories pops up -- usually a story that I had completely forgotten about. This thrills me to no end because that means I get to read it "fresh," as if someone else wrote it. 

The other day, researching a potential feature on astrology (don't ask), the search engine coughed up an interview I conducted with the legendary folk guitarist, Leo Kottke in 2009. In the introduction to the Style Weekly piece, titled "Dreams and All That Stuff," I write that "I'd always heard that Leo Kottke was a tough interview -- when you could get him on the phone, that is. What a crock. Calling from a tour stop in El Paso, Texas, the finger-picking specialist is gracious, funny and forthcoming with details surrounding his still-evolving career in music."

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Q: You say you were self taught.

When I was 13, I got sick… Once I got sick, I got sicker. After a couple of months I was in bed and not allowed to sit up. So I'd been on my back for two months. My mother brought home a toy guitar because you could play it on your back. I was a trombone player. I didn't really think that the guitar was a musical instrument. It was invisible to my ears. I was into marching bands and wind ensembles and stuff like that. So I was lying there and really sick, all screwed up, and the guitar had a little -cowboy stenciled on it and it was garbage, I can hear it really well and it was junk, but I didn't know that. I made what turned out to be an E chord and strummed it. I don't know how I got it in tune.

And that was it. I can still remember it – the sun was shining. I was out of bed in a week, never wound up back in bed. I knew exactly what I wanted and that was the guitar. I didn't dream that it would become a job. I couldn't have cared less and, in some ways, that is still true. The job is a distant second to just being allowed to get my hands on the guitar every day. I sat up immediately and I remember everything about it, beautiful weather – big cumuli out the window, blue sky. It was a happiness that I had never met and it's still like that.

Q: Has your romance with the guitar ever worn off?

It never did wear off. But I did notice that some behavior of mine would cloud it, so that was it for the behavior (laughs). Dizzy Gillespie talked about that, he wrote a great memoir, "To Be or Not to Bop" He said that you have take care of [your art], to be a kind of a monk, otherwise it won't sustain for you. That's the trick. You'd give up anything for it.

To read the rest of "Dreams and All That Stuff," go to the Style Weekly website by clicking here.

And for more on the evocative folk guitar of Leo Kottke, take yourself here. 

Style Weekly: Don Harrison's 12 Discs of Christmas

I know you are sick to death of Christmas music by now. 

But if you want to celebrate the season with some stellar holiday sounds that won't make you want to strangle a relative or tackle an inflatable reindeer, the long-playing albums on this list (compiled for Style Weekly a few years ago) will warm you up quicker than a mug of steaming spiked cocoa and all 19 of those Snuggies you got LAST Christmas.

Read "Don Harrison's 12 Discs of Christmas" right here.

Have a safe and happy one out there. And watch out for those "Blue Christmas Lights."

Style Weekly: Night Vision

When you've got ghosts.... who ya' gonna call?

It's only makes sense that, if Richmond is crawling with stories of spirits and poltergeists, the city would have its fair share of ghost hunters. Last year, I wrote a cover feature for Style Weekly, "Night Vision," that documented River City's many intrepid paranormal investigators. For the story, Style photographer Scott Elmquist and I accompanied the RIP / Ghost Raps group as they embarked on a nighttime investigation of Weston Plantation: 

BETTY WEBB'S HAD her hair pulled here in Weston Plantation. She's watched light bulbs flicker and heard phantoms cleaning the fireplace.

Once, the former Weston tour guide thought she was alone in the historic Hopewell house — until she heard someone walking in the front passageway. It was "almost like they were pacing," she says. "I remember turning around and holding my breath, and it was then that I felt something go right up my back."

Built in 1789, Weston is one of the last remaining plantation homes on the Appomattox River. Standing as dusk approaches on a pleasant Saturday evening, the stately white house has just played host to an afternoon wedding. But five minutes after the happy bride and groom drive away to new beginnings, dark clouds approach. The search for the dead now begins.

Click here to read "Night Vision." 

RIP's main spirit busters, Big Ray Rucker and Ken "KB" Ballos will be among our guests on today's special Halloween edition of "Open Source RVA" (hear it at 4PM on WRIR 97.3 and wrir.org). At the time of the feature article, Big Ray and KB could be heard on radio station WLEE, but the duo now host their weekly Friday night radio show, "Ghost Raps," on WHAN. For more on them, click here.

Insert spooky EVP here. (Photo by the mighty Elmquist)

The City of Richmond: When Typos Strike!

Anytime that I, Don Harrison, can help the City of Richmond fix a “typo” that saves taxpayers $250,000 a year…  well, I guess that’s what I’m here for.

As Scott Bass reports in this week’s Style Weekly, my recent Style editorial on the CenterStage/Landmark giveaway may have enticed some city employees to actually look at the important documents they sign into law. After those important documents pass city council, of course:

"A typo is a typo. We try not to have them, but once or twice a year it happens," City Attorney Allen Jackson says. "It just didn't get changed when the amendments got introduced on May 14."

It's unclear who noticed the error. Mayoral press secretary Tammy Hawley emailed Style seeking a correction to a Back Page essay that first ran online July 3. In the essay, "Foul Play," Style's former arts and culture editor, Don Harrison, rails against the deal, pointing out that the city was reaching further into taxpayers' pockets to give RPAC and the Richmond CenterStage Foundation an extra $250,000 a year, in addition to $14 million to rehab the Landmark.

Hawley's email to Style was sent July 11, the same day Chief Administrative Officer Byron Marshall and officials with RPAC executed their agreement in which the typo was fixed.

Of course, I owe it all to my crack research staff and all of my unpaid interns.

Here’s a link to this week’s Style story, and you can read my original editorial here.

Cover feature on Tony Booth

Having a live Tony Booth in the car is not unlike traveling around with his voice in the speaker. Sooner or later, there will be music trivia.

Click here to read my Style Weekly cover feature on legendary oldies DJ Tony Booth.
Booth, currently the afternoon drivetime jock on Oldies 107.3, celebrates fifty years in broadcasting next month.