Video Premiere: Wanda Jackson and Justin Townes Earle – Am I even a memory?

“I’ll always be a rocker, but there’s nothing like a great country song and this is a well-written, great country song. My fans love it, too. They even sing the words along with me when we perform it live on stage.” – Wanda Jackson to NPR.org

Justin Townes Earle is the producer on rock’n roll queen, Wanda Jackson’s new album Unfinished Business. Wanda Jackson know how to pick’em, last year, Jack White and now, Justin Townes Earle. And the results are splendid!

Here’s the first video off the record, Am I even a memory? written by singer/songwriter  honky-tonk revivalist Greg Garing. It’s a wonderful country ballad.

Am I even a memory?

From NPR.org:

Director Seth Graves set the song’s video in the “trendy dive bar” Santa’s Pub in Nashville. He framed the singers’ interaction as two lives crossing for just a moment on the dive bar’s stage, as Earle mourns one lost love (played by Mindy White, singer for the band States), and Jackson beckons toward another.

“Frankly … it’s a breakup song … sung between a 74-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man,” wrote Graves. “I’m no champion for social norms, but the Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow approach (the back and forth literal approach) seemed like it could potentially come off weird if taken literally. Not weird in a good way, anyway. That’s not the kind of video I wanted to make. It seemed necessary, inspiring and way more interesting to find a way to create and use images that would give them each a different take on the song. So. I just thought of two lonely people, singing the same song for different reasons.”

Here’s Greg Garing’s own version:

– Hallgeir