The Party Ain't Over Reviews

Wanda Jackson sounds ready and up for anything that Jack White can throw at her, and it's through no fault of her own that Party doesn't quite work. White seems more interested in creating an over-stylized faux-50's rockabilly sound than crafting something viable for Jackson to perform with. There are moments when he hits it right on the money, but he doesn't manage to marry his production ideas to the artist he's working with. Van Lear Rose this ain't.

When you've got a voice as singular and iconic as Jackson's it seems fool-hardy to bury it within the mix or layer it in echo effects, but that is exactly what White does on numerous tracks. The opener "Shakin' All Over" starts off fine, gets rocking during the verses, but the chorus proves most distracting once Jackson starts to sound like she's singing through a pay-phone's poor connection. Or maybe it's through a tin can. And "Nervous Breakdown" doesn't even sound like Jackson, but in both instances she's performing the lyrics with everything that she's got.

In her early 70's, Jackson still sounds like a rough-and-tumble kewpie doll. Her voice is forceful and girlish in equal doses, and during "Rum and Coca-Cola" she sounds like any track off of Queen of Rockabilly. But when covering "You Know I'm No Good," it sounds more like a novelty that never quite takes off than an actual song. No matter how much conviction she tries to give it, something just doesn't mesh together correctly.

The same could be said of "Busted" and "Rip It Up." "Rip It Up" doesn't sound that much different than the version available on Queen of Rockabilly, except Queen's version is an authentic 50's rockabilly song and not a 2011 pastiche. And "Busted" just doesn't fit in with the rest of the album, sounding at once too much like a carnival and not fitting in with the rest of the cover songs. I don't blame Jackson for any of this. She's clearly having a great time in the studio and is a joy to hear. I blame White's insistence on thrusting his POV about Jackson as an artist instead of meeting her halfway and crafting an updated sound like he did with Loretta Lynn.

But White pulls everything together for a cover of Bob Dylan's "Thunder on the Mountain." Jackson performs the song with her patented artistry and phrasing and hits it out of the park. And White's production turns the song into a rollicking and rolling country-punk dance party. It's an amazing moment and one wishes that the rest of the album, namely White's production choices, could have matched the heft, power and might of this song.

[Author's Note: Having re-listened to the album over the past few months I have come to a few conclusions: I still maintain that Jack White was in the wrong for distorting her voice so much, or burying her so deeply in the mix. And "You Know I'm No Good" still rings false and like a novelty, and the final minute's descent into a near-carnival/burlesque ear-ache is a fatal misstep. But Jackson's energy is infectious, and many of the songs grow on you over time. I bumped it up a whole star, but I maintain many of my original views. So the body of the review hasn't been edited.] DOWNLOAD: "Thunder on the Mountain"