Wanda Jackson to be honored as Oklahoma Cultural Treasure
“Queen of Rockabilly” Wanda Jackson will be designated as the 13th Oklahoma Cultural Treasure on Feb. 28 at the 2018 Governor’s Arts Awards ceremony.
Gov. Mary Fallin will be joined by Oklahoma Arts Council Executive Director Amber Sharples to confer the designation on the music pioneer, according to a news release. As previously reported, the awards ceremony will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. Feb. 28 in the fourth-floor rotunda at the Oklahoma State Capitol.
“Wanda Jackson has earned the honor of being named an ‘Oklahoma Cultural Treasure.’ Her talent and gritty determination led to a singing career that started from winning an Oklahoma high school talent show to being a worldwide entertainer,” Fallin said in a statement.
“She became a legendary singer in the rockabilly music world and later expanded her unique singing style in country and gospel music. She has represented our state well and is known almost as much as being from Oklahoma as the ‘Queen of Rockabilly.’ It is a well-deserved honor for one of our most talented citizens.”
Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, the longtime Oklahoma City resident made her mark as an influential rockabilly singer at a time when the genre was dominated by male artists. Initially a country music artist, Jackson evolved her music into rockabilly during the mid-1950s at the encouragement of Elvis Presley.
The Maud native’s recordings “Fujiyama Mama,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Mean Mean Man,” and “Let’s Have a Party” are noted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as among the greatest rockabilly songs ever made.
Jackson’s recordings in the 1960s and 1970s broadened her reach as she integrated her country music roots while expanding into the gospel music genre. She earned Grammy Award nominations in 1964 and 1970.
She was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000, and in 2005, she earned the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship Award. A documentary, “Wanda Jackson: The Sweet Lady With the Nasty Voice,” featuring Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Lemmy Kilmister, was released in 2007.
Her return to her rockabilly roots during the 1980s coincided with a sustained career that as recently as 2011 featured the release of an album produced by Grammy Award-winning rock artist Jack White that charted on the Billboard Hot 200.
Jackson continues touring across North America. She released her autobiography “Every Night Is Saturday Night: A Country Girl’s Journey to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame” in November.
Throughout her long and historic career, Jackson has remained devoted to Oklahoma.
“One of the highest honors an artist can ever receive is to be honored by their home state,” Jackson said in a statement. “This means so much to me. I’ve always been proud to be from Oklahoma, that’s why I never moved away. Thank you, Oklahoma.”
The Governor of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Arts Council may designate a person as an Oklahoma Cultural Treasure if that individual is considered “especially precious or valuable by a particular period, class, community or population.” The honoree must be 70 years old or older, be a “bearer of intangible cultural assets” and have outstanding artistic or historical worth, according to the state Arts Council website. Previous honorees include visual artists Ed Ruscha, Wilson Hurley, Charles Banks Wilson and Doc Tate Nevaquaya; historian and author John Hope Franklin; novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday; storyteller Te Ata; and Oklahoma’s five American Indian prima ballerinas.