Wanda Jackson

★★★★ Encore BIG MACHINE/BLACKHEART. CD/DL

The Queen of Rockabilly signs off in style.

Few artists have a recording career spanning seven decades, and fewer still would be capable of delivering such an assured and powerful final LP as this. Writing and performing in collaboration with a slew of female singers including Joan Jett and Angaleena Presley, Jackson reflects back on her life with her late husband Wendell Goodman, and such thoughts also seem to have inspired the beautifully pitched cover of Johnny Tillotson’s country ballad It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’. Two Shots drives along with a Mystery Trainstyle shuffle, Treat Me Like A Lady flips between ’70s funk sections and late-night soul, while heartfelt closing track That’s What Love Is repays the price of admission all on its own. Jackson is in magnificent voice throughout, and if this really turns out to be her valedictory album, it’s a very fine way to leave the stage.