Don'a Wan'a

 

Wanda Jackson

Don'a Wan'a
(Boudleaux Bryant, Acuff-Rose BMI)

Capitol F3863
1957

The song that Wanda doesn't want you to listen ! According to her autobiography "Every Night Is Saturday Night" :

When I got into recording rock and roll, I never abandoned country. I thought of them as different branches of the same tree, and Capitol really latched onto the practice of releasing one of my rockabilly songs on one side of a single and a country song on the other. I give Ken a lot of credit in being open minded to let me try different things. Because of that I was usually willing to try things that he brought to me, even if I was a bit skeptical. Sometimes, however, there were some things I was really unsure about.

One of those songs was «Don’a Wan’a,» which honestly, I «don’a wan’a» anyone to ever hear again. There was a small window of time when calypso music was very popular, thanks to the success of Harry Belafonte. He scored some big hits in the ’50s with songs like «Jamaica Farewell» and «Day-O.» And, of course, whenever one artist gets a hit with something unique, everybody else then tries to do the same kind of song. «Don’a Wan’a» was written by Boudleaux Bryant, who was one of the greatest country songwriters of all time. This is probably proof that even the great ones have an off day. I don’t know how Ken Nelson got the song, but he wanted me to record it to try to get in on the Calypso craze. He suggested I adopt an islander accent, but it sounded like I was mocking that kind of music. I didn’t want to do it at all. I said, «Ken, I feel silly, so it’s bound to sound silly.’ I was horrified by the whole thing. Capitol wasn’t great at rushing to get releases out, and by the time they did, the record got no attention. I’m not kidding you, it was almost like the day that song was released was the day calypso died. I don’t know for sure, but I may have been the one who killed it!

Actually, I like that song. Wanda sounds to me a little bit Japanese . . .