“When I was at Yale, we were studying Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? We got a copy of it at Yale before it really was opened on Broadway,” Wheeler told Come Hear, North Carolina. “So we analyzed it, and if you saw the movie – I mean [remember] how the man and woman fight and go at each other like crazy? I mean, it’s mean. Mean spirited. It is natural for a couple to spar in good faith, good spirit, but this was not [that]. This was mean. For some reason, when I was trying to write a song, I remembered that, and it really inspired me. Now that’s a stretch, isn’t it! Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ends up being ‘Jackson’!”
“I needed a town, and I tried Nashville and some others, and that was too soft,” Wheeler continued. “I wanted something that really got you, so I finally got Jackson. Of course, that was my most successful song and still is.”
Billy Edd Wheeler is a member of the Nashville Association of Songwriters International’s Hall of Fame and the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. He is also a playwright, novelist, poet, painter, singer and sculptor.
“Jackson” is known for two popular recordings. It was released as a pop hit single by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and as a country hit single by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Country Singles chart.