Again, I feel like the Lord has just caused it to happen; more publicity than I've ever gotten in my life, the last fifteen, twenty years.
And it wasn't until '84 when I was first asked to come to Sweden and do an album and concert tour.
And rockabilly kinda makin' a revival in certain places, even in America, but in Europe it's very big and it has been for a long time. Even new generations of fans, which is exciting too.
And then, when I graduated from high school, I already had a couple of Country hits that had dented the charts.
As I go back and listen, the other girls weren't singing quite like I was.
But, it was a popular show, and I knew everyone on it, so it was always fun to do.
But, we didn't have all the media that we do today.
Getting comments like that from even the young people at the shows who probably aren't singers, the girls who just tell me that I'm an inspiration to them, for one reason or another.
I did a couple of those, we'd release a single with a Country song on one side, and a rock thing on the flipside.
I didn't realize how many true Rockabilly fans there were here in America.
I enjoyed listening to it, but I didn't think I could do it.
I have eighteen titles in the German language. I had a number one song in 1965.
I have some of the old videos of my performances on it.
I knew it was very big in Europe, I've been working over there for twelve years.
I learned so much about recording and about singing on records from Ken Nelson.
I loved Carl Perkins, Jerry lee Lewis... not only were they personal friends.
I really appreciate people like Rosie coming out and saying I've inspired them.
I thought it was a very cute song. I just picked them out because I liked them. I wasn't trying to make any statements.
I'd been working with Elvis, but I just recorded Country, so he, definitely, like you said, encouraged me to try it, but I didn't, right then.
I'm still learnin'. I pick up something from every performer I watch.
If I needed to record, I'd head to the coast or Nashville, one or the other.
If something pops in my mind and it's easy, I write it.
It really is, to see that this kind of music is still so popular.
It seems like the good things that have happened in my career are things that you don't try to plan and push, and make it happen, it just seems to happen.
It was a more innocent time too.
It would be nice to say that I planned all of this, that this was exactly what I'd planned, but it was just one of those things that happened.
It would take them three days to tape a thirty minute show, and you just got so worn out, you did it however they wanted, just to get it over with.
It's not available in America, we don't have a distribution company or a label yet, but in Denmark, at the first of the year, I recorded with a group called the Alligators.
My daddy toured with me, until the time I was married, and then my husband toured with me, so I was never out there just by myself, floating around.
None of the other guys in the band really sang, so that's when I brought Roy Clark in.
On that show, I did country and some rock, too, whatever record I had out at the time, I'd sing that.
Right, different generations come along, and discover the music, I think.
Right, I was a teenager then, this was my generation's music, it was what I danced to on dates.
So it's a fresh, new Rockabilly sound, and on it, it's a CD, we have some songs, of course, that are standards that they wanted on there.
So, it happened pretty fast, but, it is causing a lot of stir, which thrills me that people still remember the songs.
So, it's nice to know that you've inspired someone to do their life's work.
So, television wasn't really new to me.
That has brought so much fan mail and it is so encouraging when I read that people wanted to know where I was and what I was doin' and just didn't have anyway of knowin' 'til they saw those shows.
The young people at the shows are all singing them right along with me, so I know that they have the records, they're bringing 'em out for me to sign.
There wasn't so many ISSUES like there are today. It was a simpler time.
They're dressing like in the 50's when they come out to the shows, and many of them have vintage cars.
We had to work five back-to-back shows, forty-five minutes on, fifteen minutes off. That's just an awful lot of singing.
Well, I didn't learn them I had to do them phonetically. But I've recorded in Dutch and Japanese, too.
Well, I didn't really have a plan. I just wanted a hit.
Well, they're all a bit of a mixture because I'm known for the country, the rockabilly and the gospel; sound so I kinda mix it up.
Well, when I first began working at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, I had worked at the Showboat for a couple of years with various bands.
Yeah, but I have the box set out now.
Yeah, they let me do whatever I wanted to.
You could have a hit in California that no one had heard of in Oklahoma.
You could hear a song, and if you didn't like it, well, you didn't listen to it.
You know, no one steered people's careers in those days, I don't think, like they do today.
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