Sound off
On our minds and on our playlists
Amid the clamor for new releases from John Mayer and Norah Jones this week came good news for a pair of old-timers, too. Wanda Jackson, the 1950s firebrand who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, revealed she’ll record her next album with the White Stripes’ Jack White. More surprising, though, was the announcement that 82-year-old jazz artist Mose Allison signed to Anti-, a respected Los Angeles label home to Neko Case and Tom Waits, and will release “The Way of the World’’ in March with Joe Henry producing.
Of course, younger artists reinventing beloved icons in their twilight years is nothing new. Johnny Cash’s career-redefining collaborations with Rick Rubin in the ’90s set the standard, and Rubin gave Neil Diamond a similarly unvarnished treatment in 2005. White’s done this before, too, returning country matriarch Loretta Lynn to her luster with 2004’s Grammy-winning “Van Lear Rose.’’
But with Jackson and Allison, who have both kept regular touring schedules, it’s not as if anyone had been eager to strip down their sound to its essence. For fans, it’s exciting to hear these venerable artists taking left turns at a time when most legends are content to rest on decades’ worth of laurels. Better yet is the prospect of younger generations discovering them, even when they’re old and gray.
