by Jessi Colter
As it turned out, these were the unfounded fears of a teenage girl who had lived a sheltered life under the strong protection of loving parents. All Duane wanted to do was treat me to dinner at a mesquite grill over on Pinnacle Peak. In fact, the Pinnacle Peak Patio did turn out the tastiest cowboy steaks in the state.
We arrived just as the last sliver of sun was visible on the vast western landscape. The sky turned from purple to dark, brooding blue. When darkness finally fell, the enormous sky—aglow with a half moon and a million glittering stars—surrounded us.
“It’s a big, wide world out there,” said Duane, finishing off his steak.
“I like the quiet,” I said. “I like the view from here. I like everything about Arizona.”
“I was talking about the world outside Arizona. Like New York. Like California. Like London. You’d like all those places, Mirriam.”
“I’m sure I would.”
“And I’d like to show them to you. What do you say?”
What could I say? I was flattered. I was excited. I was young.
“Would you consider joining my show and going on the road?” he asked.
“Of course I would,” I said. “But are you sure I’d fit in with your band?”
“I’d feature you,” he promised. “I believe my fans would get a kick out of you. In fact, I know they would.”
This was the summer of 1961, weeks after I’d graduated from high school. My Don Swartz romance was over. Duane’s marriage was over. It felt like a good time for a new beginning.
“Naturally I’d have to ask my parents,” I said.
“I wouldn’t do it without their permission,” Duane affirmed.
On the long road back over the desert, in the dark of night, we didn’t say much to each other. We didn’t have to. At that point we were seeing my future in the same way. My future was music.
It was the beginning of the New Frontier. Jack Kennedy was the newly elected, youngest president ever. Youth was a prized commodity. Hope was in the air. Rock and roll was on the radio.
In the fall of 1961 and the winter of 1962, I traveled with Duane Eddy, who during that tour declared his love for me and became my boyfriend. I was excited by both this new romance and our travels around the country. We performed in places that seemed glamorous to a girl from small-town Arizona—Chicago, Atlantic City, New York City, Philadelphia.
In Philly, for example, I appeared on American Bandstand where Dick Clark, a close friend of Duane’s, greeted me with great enthusiasm. He plugged my records shamelessly and proved to be one of my most loyal supporters.
We played on shows with the top pop artists of the day—Chubby Checker and the Shirelles who were super-hot with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.” When we shared the stage with Brenda Lee, I could see that she, like many of the girls, had a crush on Duane. In New York we stayed at the swank Warwick Hotel where in a few years the Beatles, friends of Duane’s, held some of their famous press conferences.
Duane, of course, was the star—and much admired by his colleagues like the Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, and even Elvis. Duane was respected as an early architect of rock. I was content to be a featured part of his show and sing my singles like “Lonesome Road” and “Young and Innocent.” When those singles didn’t take off, I was fine. And so was Duane.
“It takes a while to build a career,” he told me. “And you’ve taken all the right first steps.”
Career-building, though, was not one of my concerns. I was simply content to get a firsthand view of this new world of high-powered show business. I liked the always-on-the-go fast-moving energy. I liked flying off to exotic new places and meeting exotic new people—artists, agents, promoters. The cast of characters was colorful. I saw that my prayer—for an adventurous life—had been answered. And I was grateful.
I was especially grateful for Duane’s attention. He was a fine mentor. He knew music in a way that I did not. I was fascinated to learn that, although famous for rock music, Duane had great esteem for country music, a genre I had largely ignored. He pointed me in the direction of country artists like Don Gibson, a singer-songwriter famous for “Sweet Dreams” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” I became enamored of Gibson’s vocal phrasing. To hear him sing “Just One More Time” or “Sea of Heartbreak” or “Lonesome Me” was a revelation. He had this wonderfully relaxed rhythm, a silky-smooth voice, and a beautifully laid-back sense of storytelling. I carefully studied his approach and, of all the singers of the late fifties and early sixties, I’d say Gibson influenced me most deeply.
Duane made me realize that I had a lot to learn when it came to country. I knew little about its history or even the work of current artists like George Jones, another singer I came to adore. It didn’t take me long to realize that George was a giant of American music, one of the most profound writers and brilliant singers ever to grace a stage. Later in life I’d get to know George well, but in these early years he was a far-off guiding light and powerful inspiration.
When we traveled to Nashville, Duane made good on his promise to introduce me to his pal Chet Atkins, an altogether decent man. Chet was from the mountains of Tennessee and never lost that country-boy charm. He was tall and slender, with high cheekbones, blue eyes, and light brown hair. His tempo and temper were always extremely laid-back. When he got lost in thought, his eyes would start blinking at double-speed.
After I sang him a few of my compositions, he said, “Your songs are good. You have talent. Keep writing and keep sending me your stuff. I think I can place them with country artists and maybe pop artists too. Don’t worry about category. Just write what you feel.”
“That’s all I know how to do,” I confessed.
At the same time, Chet did not sign me up as a solo artist. He had that power. As head producer at RCA, he could sign whomever he pleased. I don’t know if that disappointed Duane. I know it did not disappoint me. My expectations remained low to nonexistent. An encouraging word about my songwriting from a leading industry light was all I needed.
It was during that initial tour that Duane proposed. I wasn’t surprised but, at the same time, I wasn’t without doubts. On the plus side, Duane was a great guy. He was smart, he was talented, he was handsome, and he was certainly supportive of me. But love? I looked back at love as something I had for my high school heartthrob Don Swartz. Love meant head-over-heels love, dream-of-you-night-and-day love, can’t-live-without-you love. True, my love for Don was an immature love, a love that didn’t last, but I kept referring to it because it was the only romantic love I had ever known.
Did I love Duane? Well, I had great fondness for him. I was grateful to him. I enjoyed his company. I liked him enormously, but love—the real deal, heart-stopping, dream-making love? No, I didn’t feel that kind of love for him. But then some thoughts came to mind: Maybe marrying love and romantic love are two different things. Maybe romantic love belongs to high school. Maybe that’s not the love that binds a marriage. Maybe marrying love rightly describes my feelings for Duane. Maybe marrying love is mature love. You don’t have to be giddy. You don’t have to be weak in the knees. No stars in your eyes. No romantic intoxication. Simply like and respect a man a great deal, a man whom you are certain likes and respects you—and, most importantly, a man who says he loves you.
Duane’s feelings for me were certainly more blatant—more effusive and romantic—than mine for him. But rather than view that as a problem, I saw it as a plus. Someone had once spoken words that registered in my psyche: Always marry someone who loves you more than you love him. Remembering those words made my decision easier.
“Yes,” I told Duane, “I will marry you.”
“Vegas is a marrying town,” said Duane. “Any objections to Vegas?”
“None.”
Vegas provided a certain glamour. Vegas was glitzy, Vegas was fun, Vegas was an upcoming hot spot of American entertainment—and close to Arizona. Duane booked a palatial suite at the Tropicana
Hotel. My family was there. Among the few other guests was Dick Clark, who served as Duane’s best man.
I cannot recall any discussions about marrying in a church. My parents offered no objections. They understood, as did I, that, given the show-business culture I had entered, Vegas was the place.
Although Duane’s parents lived there, Phoenix was not a place where we wanted to settle. He had his hopes set on Los Angeles. After long years of grueling tours, he wanted to concentrate on building his publishing business. The idea was to develop a deep catalog of songs that would provide long-term income. He was also interested in taking new artists into the studio as a producer.
As a singer-songwriter, I fit into Duane’s plans quite nicely. And as far as LA went, I was game. I’d miss my family, but Southern California was an hour’s plane ride away. Besides, the notion of living in Los Angeles was intriguing. The City of Angels was uncharted territory. I knew little about it. Duane knew a host of fascinating people there. He spoke of them fondly and assured me I’d like them. No doubt I would.
Once I arrived, though, I found myself harboring other doubts—new doubts, nagging doubts, unexpected doubts that turned my spiritual life upside down and inside out.
Chapter 7
THE CANYONS
OUR FIRST HOME, A RENTAL, WAS IN LAUREL CANYON, THE lovely rustic area just north of West Hollywood that cuts through the hills leading to the San Fernando Valley. This was the first permanent place I had lived outside my childhood home in Mesa. The contrast could not have been greater.
The stark rough-and-tumble topography of Arizona was all about uncultivated beauty, the rugged sculpture of centuries-old rock and stone, the mysteries of copper mines hidden beneath jagged mountains. The landscape of Los Angeles was all about cultivated beauty, the importation of palm trees and exotic plants to re-dress what had once been a desert. As a child, I learned to love nature in the raw. As a young married woman, I learned to appreciate nature as modified by man. I say “appreciate,” not “love,” because, in truth, I never learned to love Los Angeles.
Nor, I must admit, did I ever learn to love my husband in a way that I could call complete. Still hanging over my head was that sense of love as something both wildly romantic and emotionally obsessive. Since Duane was my first and only lover, I also had no way of comparing our sexual rapport to anything else. Sex seemed little more than perfunctory. There were no fireworks, and no way to know whether it was because of him or me. Maybe the chemistry simply wasn’t there. Or maybe my inexperienced mind rationalized that marital sex, like marital love, didn’t have to be explosive or all-consuming.
I had no reason to complain about the lush lifestyle to which Duane had introduced me. Our comfortable and charming Laurel Canyon home was designed in the style of a Swiss chalet. It was exciting to learn that Henry Mancini, one of America’s leading composers, was a nearby neighbor.
Even more exciting was the fact that my own compositions, encouraged by Duane, were getting out there in the world. I found it easy to work on the Baldwin Acrosonic spinet in our living room. In those early years in Los Angeles, it was especially satisfying when Chet Atkins proved true to his word and took several of my songs. This came at a time when, thanks to Duane, I had gone to my first George Jones show. As a result of listening to George, I was writing with a decidedly country flavor. Chet got Dottie West, then a rising country star, to record my “No Sign of the Living” and Hank Locklin, the Grand Ole Opry stalwart, to cut “I’m Blue.”
“But you aren’t just country,” said Chet. “I think you can write pop songs as well.”
I saw Chet was right when Nancy Sinatra sang my “If He’d Love Me” for her father’s Reprise Records. It wasn’t a big hit like “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” but the writer and producer of “Boots,” Lee Hazelwood, sang his own version of my “I’m Blue” as a solo artist, also for Reprise.
“You’ll have lots of hits,” said Chet. “Just keep writing.”
Writing and reading became my refuge, especially when I became pregnant a few months after my twentieth birthday in the summer of 1963. Writing brought me enormous joy, and reading brought me into an intellectual realm I had never before known.
Duane himself was a serious reader and deep thinker. He surrounded himself with smart show-business friends like the wonderful singing duo Don and Phil Everly. Of the two brothers, Phil was the talkative one, an engaging character who often bemoaned the ongoing conflicts between him and Don. Lou Adler, then managing the Mamas and the Papas, was also part of our social circle, which included a number of psychologists and academics. In his own low-key way, Duane had a point of view he was interested in promulgating.
That point of view was best expressed by two key figures—the author Ayn Rand and the psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, Rand’s former lover and founder of an institute promoting Rand’s philosophy known as objectivism. Rand had found fame by writing two bestselling novels: The Fountainhead, published in 1943 and turned into a film with Gary Cooper in 1949; and Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. At Duane’s suggestion, I read them both. I was intrigued.
“What’s most intriguing,” said Duane, “is the thinking behind the story—Rand’s view of human behavior.”
The friends who often congregated at our home were, like Duane, devotees of Rand. Several were psychologists who had worked under Branden’s tutelage. They were filled with enthusiasm for objectivism. They were the first genuine intellectuals I had ever known and entered my life at a time when I was especially impressionable.
Rand’s books were more than entertaining reads. They were replete with provocative ideas. For example, the lead character in The Fountainhead, Frank Roark, is an architect modeled on Frank Lloyd Wright. Modern architecture is a central theme. Modern man is even more of a central theme. Rand saw the ideal modern man as someone reliant on no one but himself. He is a prime mover whose integrity derives from not only his own values but his self-interest.
One of Rand’s most famous tracts is entitled “The Value of Selfishness.” The six pillars of self-esteem are conscious living, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposely, and personal integrity. There is no mention of God, no acknowledgment of a higher power, no allusion to a mystical or spiritual force to undergird our behavior and, of course, no acknowledgment of Jesus Christ.
Given my background, you might think that such a philosophy would repel me. In fact, it attracted me. It may have been the new circumstances surrounding me—new husband, new city, new culture, new friends. Or it may just have been that this was my first in-depth exposure to a system of beliefs not defined by my mother. The truth is that I had never read psychology or philosophy before. The age of a college student—an age when attitudes swiftly shift and struggles with self-identity are rampant—I was an eager reader, willing to consider what seemed a sophisticated and measured means of adjudicating human behavior. As my first taste of exotic intellectualism, objectivism was intoxicating.
I certainly did not share these new thoughts with Mother. When she called from Mesa, our conversations were short. She asked about my health, Duane’s health, and whether I was happy. I said I was. I told her about the songs I was writing and mentioned that our social life was amusing. During that summer of 1963, when I told her I was pregnant, she was overjoyed, as was I.
In November of that same year, Duane and I traveled to London, where we learned on the twenty-second that John Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. The violent end of the New Frontier came as a shock. Not overtly political, I nonetheless shared the sentiments of most Americans who saw Kennedy as a beacon of hope. Shattered hope followed for years to come. The country was entering a dark period of uncertainty and fear.
Back in Los Angeles, I awaited the birth of my first child with great anticipation. Duane and I had moved to another canyon, this one called Coldwater, that ran north through Beverly Hills, an even more prestigious area than Laurel Canyon. Robert Mitchum lived on the
corner. Though I don’t remember seeing him, I was excited to know that he was a neighbor. Our new home on Betty Lane was larger and far more modern than our first.
My close friend was the actress Shelley Fabares, at the time married to Lou Adler. A wonderful woman, Shelley was famous for her role as the daughter in The Donna Reed Show and had also costarred in three of Elvis’s films. It was through her that I met Annette Funicello, Shelley’s best friend. The three of us had great times together.
On April 5, 1964, our darling Jennifer was born. Though in these early years I had been excited to travel with Duane through Europe, that excitement couldn’t compare to the joy I derived from staying home and tending to my precious infant. Life suddenly had new meaning. Motherhood became my first priority.
When my parents came to visit Beverly Hills, they were pleased with my surroundings but not overly impressed by my lifestyle. They had their own preoccupations—Mother’s church, Daddy’s mine—and didn’t stay long. While they were there, though, they lavished love on their granddaughter. I’m sure Mother saw the large number of secular books around the house. As she was a highly intuitive person, I’m certain she sensed the philosophical shift I was experiencing. Duane had never hidden his own intellectual interests. And yet, not a word from Mother. No warning, no scolding, no recriminations.
“We love you, Mirriam, and always will,” was all she said. “We’re proud to see you’ve become a wonderfully caring mother.”
Of course both she and Daddy were wonderfully caring grandparents. But, looking back at this period, I’m amazed that Mother was careful not to challenge my forays into non-Christian thinking. She understood what most people wholly committed to a specific theology do not understand: that there are times to approach a nonbeliever and times not to. To understand that requires maximum sensitivity. It requires that you truly put yourself in the other person’s place to see whether words, no matter how eloquent, would make a difference.