Released: 1961
Wanda Jackson was the biggest little star you’ve probably never heard of. Making music ever since her father bought her a guitar at the age of six, by the time she became a teenager the wowed country star Hank Thompson convinced the Decca label to give her a contract, although her output for them – standard torch and twang stuff – failed to set the world on fire.
It was a flame of a different kind that transformed her career. in 1955 she met and became romantically involved with a rising star in the new dangerous field of rock n’ roll; approaching the peak of his powers, new boyfriend Elvis Presley persuaded the singer to ditch the rhinestones and tap into it’s rawness and rebellion.
Funnel of Love was the b-side of Fujiyama Mama, a single which had spent six months at the top of the charts in Japan, but when Jackson eventually returned to country, her profile waned. She was to be resurrected more than twenty years later having found cult status after being championed by bands such as The Cramps, who’d used her primal growl as one of the elemental parts of their recipe for twisted psychobilly. Described once after her revival as “the original Riot Grrrl”, Jackson would in her later years boil down that appeal to simply “There’s a wild gal always fighting to get out.”
The Voice Of Unreason 