Cordell Jackson aka The Rockin’ Grandma
Posted in Rock Gods, videos on November 5th, 2009
If you mention the name Cordell Jackson, many people have no idea who that is. Mention the fact that she is the old lady with attitude duelling rockabilly artist Brian Setzer on guitar in the Budweiser beer ad, and maybe some will remember.
Cordell Jackson was an American guitarist thought to be the first woman to produce, engineer, arrange and promote music on her own rock and roll music label. She was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, on July 15, 1923, and died in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 14, 2004.
In 1956 she released her first single, “Beboppers Christmas” b/w “Rock and Roll Christmas” on her own Moon label. The Moon label became notorious among Rockabilly fans for releasing 45’s by legends like Joe Wallace, Earl Patterson and Allen Page. who did the original version of the much -covered “Dateless Night” (written by Jackson).
Jackson then began playing occasional shows in the 1980s with her signature red Hagstrom electric guitar as a solo artist in Memphis, Hoboken, New York, and Chicago nightclubs. She recorded new material on her label with Memphis musicians Colonel Robert Morris and Bob Holden, becoming known as a “rock-and-roll granny” solo guitar instrumentalist. She appeared in 1991 and 1992 on national talk shows like Late Night With David Letterman
In the late 1990s, Cordell co-wrote and played with the Rockabilly icon, Colonel Robert Morris in Memphis. Colonel Robert also helped edit the book based on her life and career.
Her Moon Records label was the oldest continuously operating label in Memphis at the time of her death in 2004.
Here is a clip for “The Split”, a video by filmmaker Dan Rose, released through her label in the 1990s.
