The paperback edition of Every Night Is Saturday Night: A Country Girl’s Journey to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – the memoir of Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and musical pioneer Wanda Jackson – will be released by BMG Books on her 85th birthday (October 20, 2022) and will coincide with a simultaneous audiobook release from Penguin Random House.
The “Queen of Rockabilly”, Wanda played with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley in their heydays. Her legacy is revered by contemporary artists like Elvis Costello (who wrote the book’s foreword), Adele, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett and Jack White but her influential role as a pioneer for women in rock music deserves further amplification.
Wanda Jackson’s debut single, You Can’t Have My Love, reached the Top 10 while she was still a 16-year-old high school student. She hit the road after graduation, playing package shows with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley, who gave Wanda his ring and asked her to be “his girl.”
With Presley’s encouragement, the Oklahoma native began recording rock music, often releasing singles with country on one side and rock on the other during her decade-and-a-half tenure on Capitol Records.
Known for her energetic stage shows and pioneering presence as a female artist, Wanda stormed the charts with a series of hit singles, including Let’s Have a Party, Right or Wrong, and In the Middle of a Heartache.
With more than 40 albums to her credit, Wanda has proven to be an enduring and genre-defying legend of American music.
In Every Night is Saturday Night, Wanda tells her own story of getting discovered by Country Music Hall of Famer Hank Thompson; why she refused to return to The Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years; the challenges she and her integrated band, The Party Timers, faced in the early 1960s; finding the love of her life; her recent work with rock luminaries Jack White and Joan Jett; and how her deep faith has sustained her over more than seven decades of rocking, shocking, and thrilling audiences around the globe.
The BMG paperback edition, and a Penguin Random House audiobook narrated by iconic voice actress Grey DeLisle, will be released to coincide with Wanda Jackson’s 85th birthday.
