An Outlaw and a Lady

by Jessi Colter

  At the same time this Outlaw movement was gaining speed, I was looking to anchor our family in more comfortable quarters. In 1973, we moved to a five-bedroom home built in the twenties on Stokes Lane in the heart of the Green Hills section of Nashville. It was close to the Glaser Sound Studio where Waylon was doing much of his recording with Tompall Glaser and just around the corner from the studio of Jack “Cowboy” Clement.

  Tompall was Waylon’s primary pinball opponent and a supreme smart aleck. I got to watch some of those pinball marathons, held at Burger Boy or J.J.’s Market on Broadway or lonesome truck stops out Route 65. They were hilarious. The barbs never stopped. Neither did the playing, except for a breakfast break at two or three in the morning. When the boys got too cross-eyed and groggy to play another game, they’d retire to Tompall’s office where they’d meet up with Bobby Bare or Captain Midnight, the famed Nashville deejay and country music scholar, or Texas renegade Kinky Friedman. It was always a blast.

  Cowboy Clement not only became part of Waylon’s inner circle and one of his go-to producers, he became my brother-in-law! My sister Sharon met Cowboy while visiting us in Nashville. Her magnetic personality had never failed to attract beguiling men, and Cowboy was beyond charismatic. He was also one of the great producers of American music. Waylon described him as “part of the incredible vortex of energy that was Sun Records, a man who’d produced everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis to Johnny Cash to Charlie Pride.”

  “He’s crazier than a loon,” Waylon told me, “but I’m sure you’re going to love him.”

  I did. But Sharon loved him even more. Their whirlwind romance soon got serious. In their frenzied imaginations, they saw each other in a dazzling light: Sharon thought Cowboy was a movie producer and Cowboy thought Sharon was a movie star. In fact, they were stars in their own madcap movie. They married just months after they met and divorced not too many months after that. While they were together, the fireworks never stopped.

  By the time we moved from Stokes Lane to a secluded modern house just off Granny White Pike, high in Forest Hills with beautiful views overlooking Nashville, Sharon and Cowboy were history. History was much on my mind during this time because the real Granny White was a widow named Lucinda White who ran a tavern, once located close to our home, where in the late eighteenth century she had often hosted Andrew Jackson. Driving down the road, I often thought about Lucinda and the fabulous frontier characters who must have frequented her establishment.

  I wanted to stay close to home, but the road always called. To live with Waylon, to be with Waylon, to love Waylon with the kind of love he required meant being on the road. And while I had some resistance, I also couldn’t deny the pleasure that the road afforded. There was a flow to life on the road that, once I surrendered to its rhythms, provided a certain comfort. Most comforting of all was the knowledge that—despite the unexpected detours and speed bumps—Waylon and I were rolling down the road together.

  At the same time, I don’t want to overlook those detours and speed bumps. They could be both dangerous and maddening. How did I cope with them? The answer, as I’ve noted, is in my songs.

  Chapter 17

  OF MAN AND GOD

  I WAS WORKING ON TWO CRITICAL ENDEAVORS AT THE SAME time: my marriage to Waylon and my renewed relationship with God. Both endeavors were complicated, both involved internal conflicts, and both deeply influenced the music I was making.

  In the midseventies, I was writing two albums at once. They each carried my name, although those names were different. One album was called Jessi, the other Mirriam.

  Jessi was the wife of Waylon and the artist who had recorded two secular albums. Mirriam was the follower of Christ returning to her faith. Because I was both Jessi and Mirriam, I could not give up one for the other. All I could do was allow each to have her say.

  Jessi was my third album and the second for Capitol. Ken Mansfield produced it with help from Waylon. I wrote the music and lyrics for all ten songs. The first composition set the tone. I called it “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.”

  In the wee small hours of midnight

  When your man just won’t come home

  With your legs spread on his bed

  Howlin’ at the moon

  When the hot blood in your body

  Is tryin’ to flood your mind

  Let the hand that rocks the cradle lead your song

  On first blush, it seems to be a story about a woman trying to come to terms with a wayward man, a woman looking to be led by a primal force that may not be that man at all. That force may be God. Isn’t God the hand that rocks the cradle? Isn’t the left-home-alone woman seeking a spiritual salvation?

  And yet in “Here I Am,” the woman is offering nothing more than a simple love song to her man:

  You walk away into the sunset

  You stop, take one last look at me

  I feel that look wash warm all over

  Here I am, here I’ll stay

  We’ve been together but a short time

  Your fingertips have learned my face

  Your hands on me have lightened every darkened place

  Here I am, here I’ll stay

  This is the same woman who, overwhelmed with anxiety after having passed the night alone, finds herself still being able to say, “It’s morning and I still love you.”

  Like a dream I thought

  The sun would find you gone

  It’s morning and I still love you

  Yet the impassioned commitment I wrote about in these and other songs like “All My Life, I’ve Been Your Lady” and “One-Woman Man” are set against stories like “Rounder” that openly expressed my anxiety.

  You know he must get tired of tasting dust

  You know how long he’s stalked the night

  trying hard to trust

  You know you ain’t made a man to carry that load

  You know how tired he must be getting

  of hiding in the road

  Oh my Lord, don’t leave that Rounder alone

  And my Lord, need you to bring him all the way home

  Even in Jessi, my secular album, I was sending up prayers. I’m saying that I’ve not only been loving Waylon, but I’ve been loving God. Those prayers helped mitigate my fear of losing Waylon, who, despite his antics, I knew to be my one and only soul mate.

  In picturing life without him, I wrote:

  Without you I can’t go on

  Without you I’ve got no song to sing

  Without you standing there

  I don’t even care for anything

  Without all the love you give

  You won’t find me wantin’ much to live

  On the sacred side, my heart cried for God. Sitting alone at the piano when I was able to steal a few hours of solitude, I found myself meditating on the love I had felt for the Lord as a child and wondering where that love had gone. Tears filled my eyes as I wrote:

  God, if I could only write your love song

  I would leave it here on earth so you could hear

  I know you hear my words, you hear my music too

  Could it be you’d like to hear me loving you?

  I had been attending church on a more regular basis, sometimes going to the Church of Christ on Sixteenth Avenue where Don Finto was the minister. I saw Don more as a missionary than a minister. Many churches say, “All are welcome,” but not all churches mean it. Don meant it. There was no dress code. The more casual, the better. The pews were filled with folks from every walk of life. There were hippies and artists, the infirm and the addicted, the affluent and the homeless. Don embraced anyone seeking the comfort of God. He led what some began calling the Jesus Movement that heralded the inclusiveness and all-loving essence of God. Don preached against pharisaical doctrines that elevated legalism over love.

  Inspired by both the message and warmth of Don’s beautiful ministry, I wrote “Let It Go” in an upbeat, celebratory mood.

  There ain’t no shame you are ca
rrying

  can make him stop loving you

  And there ain’t no wrong you’ve done

  he won’t forgive you

  He knows our body’s made of dust,

  he knows our days are few

  Let it go, turn it loose

  I sought solace in Presbyterian churches where I discovered a new joy in reading litanies. I’d go to Catholic churches where the solemn beauty of Mass stirred my soul. I’d also have fellowship with Messianic Jewish believers whose passion for Christ had its own kind of power. I loved seeing how they married the Old Testament to the New. The more I was witness to different ways of worshipping, the more I felt myself drawn to the one true God.

  In that spirit, I wrote “Put Your Arms Around Me.”

  Put your arms around me

  Let me know you know me

  Let me hear you call me by my name

  I’m so ashamed I ever doubted

  That you and me and me and you and

  love would find the way

  There was a time I swore life was one big heartache

  There was a time I said good had up and gone

  There was a time I said there is no God in heaven

  Till every prayer I prayed came bringing me the sun

  I sang “I’m so ashamed I ever doubted,” and shame was certainly part of the emotional baggage that I carried in my return to faith. When I attended the Greater Apostolic Christ Church, though, my shame quickly dissipated. That’s because Apostolic was a full-gospel congregation of African American Christians whose praise and worship was absolutely overwhelming. Being the only white worshipper made no difference.

  I’d learned about the church from an African American woman, our housekeeper Jane. She was a prayer warrior and steely strong believer. In fact, when Jane heard Waylon complain about my going to church, she said, “Honey, my husband used to beat me for going to church. But that didn’t change my mind. You just have to be sweet and live it.”

  Greater Apostolic became my main Christian home for two decades. It was where I lived it. Every Sunday I couldn’t wait for services to start. Reverend Harris would lay it on the line, an impassioned preacher who, much like my mom, had the gifts of the Spirit. Passion washed over every inch of that sanctuary. The teaching was vivid and direct. And the music, the ever-positive, ever-joyful, ever-inspiring gospel music lifted me out of my seat and had me singing and praising God along with the rest of the congregation. Oh, how I loved it when we sang “Can’t No One Do You Like Jesus”!

  I wasn’t made to feel self-conscious or treated as an outsider. I was accepted as family. When I wrote and recorded “There Ain’t No Rain in God,” I had the full support of the soaring Greater Apostolic mass choir behind me. What a thrill!

  There ain’t no rain in God

  He made the sunshine just for you

  Don’t let those storm clouds brew

  Don’t let this world get to you

  When darkness creeps all around

  Hate his face and put him down

  Don’t you know you’re on God’s ground

  And there ain’t no rain in God

  It was at Greater Apostolic that I renewed my childhood faith in the holy ritual of praise and worship. You came to praise his goodness and worship his love. When the praising and worshipping was over, you left that church feeling more alive—a hundred times more alive—than when you entered.

  The moment of full return, the moment when the deepest part of my heart knew that I had recovered my lost faith, happened in a flash. It was late at night and I was seated at the piano. I wasn’t sure what notes to play or what words to write. I simply felt that I was close to some breakthrough. So I closed my eyes and offered up a prayer. I didn’t ask for inspiration. In fact, I didn’t ask for anything specific. I just prayed the way Jesus had taught me to pray. Praying for God’s will, I wrote:

  God, I love you

  God, I need you

  Would you find a way to stay close today?

  If I walk a little softer, if I try much harder

  To see your face in everything today

  Will you stay a little closer

  So I can hear you if you whisper?

  Would you find a way to stay right close today?

  The songs I wrote for Mirriam washed over me with an energy I had never felt before. They came quickly and powerfully. Because they were so emotionally draining, they left me almost numb. It wasn’t that I didn’t love writing them—I have never loved songwriting so much before or since—yet I felt more like a vessel than a writer.

  All the songs but one focused on my relationship with God. And the gift God afforded me was the opportunity to sing that one exceptional song to the person for whom it was written: Mother.

  Because we spent so much time on the road, we rented rather than bought our houses in Nashville. I lost count of how many times we moved. It was to our Saxon Drive home that Mother came in 1974 for a visit. I had just completed recording demos of all the songs for Mirriam.

  One evening after dinner I asked her into the living room.

  “There’s some music I’d like you to hear,” I said.

  “A new record of yours?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  At the time, my first album for Capitol—I’m Jessi Colter—had been released, and my second album—Jessi—was completed. Mother had heard and praised this music. There was never a hint of disapproval. She’d never urged me to record religious songs. Nor had I told her that for many months now I had been doing just that.

  As she sat on the living room couch and the music poured from the speakers, she smiled radiantly and nodded her head to the rhythms, her eyes moist.

  “Praise God,” she said. “Praise God who has answered my prayers more abundantly than I could have ever imagined.”

  “There’s one song,” I said, “that you haven’t heard. That’s a song I’d like to play for you right now. Would you come sit next to me at the piano?”

  “Of course, sweetheart. When I see you at the piano, I see my little girl playing in our church. My little girl who had been blessed by God with a gift to sing his praises.”

  “This song doesn’t sing God’s praise,” I explained. “This song is for you.”

  With Mother seated next to me on the piano bench, I ran my fingers over the keys and sang:

  My mama is a mama you’d believe in

  As a child I remember how she prayed

  Often misunderstood she lived lonely

  But my mama believes God’s holy Word

  Mama knows no strangers, she knows Jesus

  And everyone’s God’s children in her eyes

  A bluebird’s broken wing or a man that’s hurt and dying

  My mama trusts God for everything

  When I finished singing, neither of us spoke. We simply sat there, Mother’s hand on mine.

  Chapter 18

  JOY AND GRIEF

  IN 1975, MY MUSICAL CAREER SKYROCKETED IN A MANNER I never could have anticipated. Everything happened at once.

  A single from the I’m Jessi Colter album suddenly took off and reached number three on the pop chart. I was surprised, not because I didn’t like “I’m Not Lisa”—I always loved the song—but because I considered its confused identity theme a bit offbeat. No matter, along with the Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together,” Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” David Bowie’s “Fame,” and Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Shining Star,” it became one of the biggest hits of the year.

  Waylon couldn’t have been happier.

  “Baby,” he said, “you got yourself a pop smash that makes you a bigger star than me. Man, I couldn’t go pop with a mouthful of firecrackers.”

  I had no desire to be more popular than Waylon and, in fact, I was not. His fan base was broad, deep, and devoted. “I’m Not Lisa” certainly brought me more name recognition, but it did not reshape my ambition. I was happy to be featured during Waylon’s show.

 
; During one such show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, I had a phenomenal experience. This came at a point when “I’m Not Lisa” was at its height. Waylon designated a section of the show to highlight the song. A black Steinway grand, covered with dozens of long-stemmed white roses, was rolled out. That night I wore an exquisite shawl dress with elaborate fringe trim. I was excited—almost too excited—and also apprehensive.

  Maybe it was the pressure that comes with a hit song. Maybe it was the lead position that I was suddenly assuming. Maybe it was the fact that Waylon was highlighting me so dramatically. Whatever the reasons, it was unusual for me to feel a sudden sense of insecurity. My mind was a mess. Would a live performance be as good as the record itself? Would the audience be disappointed? Would a subpar rendition prove the hit was a fluke?

  A flood of emotions washed over me as I walked to the piano at center stage. A hush fell over the audience. I took a deep breath. And then another. And then a third. And then—to my own surprise—I found myself kneeling in front of the piano. I stayed on my knees for at least a minute. No one quite knew what I was doing. But I did. I was praying. I was praying for strength, for calmness, for resolve, for energy.

  God answered my prayer. He visited me. He entered my heart and quieted my mind. He stripped me of the burden of self-concern that had been weighing so heavily on my psyche. He set me free. It was an experience unlike anything I had ever felt. I felt light as air. I felt like a weightless spirit. I felt focused. I felt no fear. I felt an awesome sense of security. I felt as though my heart and God’s heart were one. I stood up, went to the piano, and gave the performance of a lifetime. The standing ovation only confirmed what I already knew: I had been transported to another realm.