by Jessi Colter
My reasoning, however, didn’t convince the record company. Or Waylon.
“Honey, I hear you loud and clear,” he said. “But I know this cold-hearted music business all too well. Even if you do put it out, I don’t see Capitol promoting it.”
“It’s not about the promotion,” I said. “It’s about God. I’m gonna put it out there, Waylon. I really am.”
“Far be it from me to mess with a hardheaded woman,” he said good-naturedly. “You do what you gotta do.”
And I did.
The album cover said “Jessi Colter” on top and “Mirriam” on the bottom. In between was a photograph of me in white. I used my new name—Jessi—because I had no intention of abandoning it. I was happy and proud of my success in secular music. There would be other secular albums to follow. But there would be no Jessi without Mirriam. Mirriam was foundational to Jessi’s spirit, and Mirriam needed to speak out. Mirriam needed to sing songs that reconnected her to her mother’s church and her mother’s faith.
“For Mama” was the first selection, followed by the songs I had been able to sing for her before she fell sick: “God, If I Could Only Write Your Love Song,” “God, I Love You,” “Let It Go,” “I Belong to Him,” and “There Ain’t No Rain.”
In the days before I made my irrevocable decision to release the record, I listened to it over and over again. Certain songs seemed more urgent, more expressive of my innermost devotion than ever. “I Belong to Him,” for example, touched on both my relationship to Waylon and my relationship to God. I was delighted when Waylon and the great Roy Orbison agreed to sing the background vocals:
A thousand ways, a thousand days
The song of the world haunts a memory
I played my part, it broke my heart
But on the mend, I found a friend
I belong to him
Other songs, like “Master, Master,” were more traditional hymns in which, without other musical augmentation, I accompanied myself on piano. I sought the stark emotion of a simple prayer:
Master, master, won’t you touch me
One touch can sanctify me
The same hands we nailed to that old rugged cross
Are the same hands that reach out to me
“Consider Me” considered my need and love for the living Christ:
He died a lonely man, he was the only one
I walked right through his door not knowing anymore
That I was ready for his gentle ways
I closed the album with “New Wine,” a mysterious meditation that came to me in the form of fiddle-and-guitar sacred blues:
Here . . . now . . . seek . . . find . . . new
wine . . . from heaven
The new wine, of course, was my old new faith, restored and rechanneled through this album, Mirriam, that was finally released in 1977.
Unfortunately, Waylon’s predictions proved all too accurate. Capitol had no interest in promoting it. Making matters worse, a change in management meant my champion in the marketing department had been replaced. The new exec was a numbers man with no feeling for a spiritual record. Certain it wouldn’t catch on with the public, he buried it.
The dire predictions about my career, made by Waylon and Capitol, proved true. I never had another hit as popular as “I’m Not Lisa.” And the sales of my following albums began to decline.
I hardly despaired. Mirriam was a record I had to make and share with the world. Even as I recognized the futility—and harm—in trying to control Waylon’s spiritual path, I had to remain firmly on mine. If my career suffered, I did not. My relationship with God came first. My relationship with my family overshadowed my relationship to show business. I saw show business as fun, a less than serious way to sing songs and entertain people. Unlike Waylon, whose fierce dedication to his craft was unstoppable, I had no burning desire to set show business on fire.
In 1977, despite disappointing sales numbers for Mirriam, I was a happy woman. Jennifer was turning thirteen and had already developed a beautiful singing voice. Waylon was working away at Cowboy Jack Clement’s studio, churning out platinum albums like Ol’ Waylon and the aptly titled I’ve Always Been Crazy. His hair was getting longer, his beard was getting shaggier, and I liked the look.
On the cover of Ol’ Waylon, the record that included his huge number-one hit with Willie—“Luckenbach, Texas”—he drew a red heart and wrote my name inside. I was touched. I was also delighted that I’ve Always Been Crazy included a medley of Buddy Holly songs, an indication that Waylon was at long last able to express in musical terms his abiding love for his mentor. On that same album he sang Shel Silverstein’s endearing “Whistlers and Jugglers.” The signature song, though, was Waylon’s own “Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand?”
The question came as the direct result of one of the worst episodes in Waylon’s career. It was a week after Elvis died. On August 24, 1977, at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studios in Nashville, while editing a Hank Williams Jr. version of my song “Storms Never Last,” Waylon was hit by a storm he never saw coming.
He was busted for drugs.
Chapter 20
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND
THE COMFORTS OF SOUTHERN COMFORT, OUR BEAUTIFUL NEW home, didn’t last long. Our newfound domestic tranquility was turned inside out by Waylon’s arrest.
I found out in a phone call.
“Honey,” Waylon said, “I know this is gonna sound scary—and it is scary—but the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency is at the studio. There are eight agents and a bunch of local narcs and cops. They’re searching this place with a fine-tooth comb and they may or may not come out to the house. I need you to go through all my things—I mean everything—and flush down the toilet anything that even looks suspicious. Do it now.”
“Are you under arrest?” I asked.
“Don’t think they’re hauling me off tonight but can’t be sure. I’ll call when I can. But do what I ask, honey, and do it fast.”
A dagger of fear pierced my heart. I ran to Waylon’s closet and rifled through his stuff. Of course I knew he snorted cocaine. I even tried it once, just to understand what he found so alluring. I hated the feeling it gave me and I never touched it again. Waylon kept his stash far away from me. I had no idea where he hid it. All I knew was that I was looking for packets or vials of white powder. I searched the house—went through every drawer and article of his clothing—and found nothing. At about the time I had come up empty, he called again.
“I’m not coming home tonight,” he said.
“Are you going to jail?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“No. They haven’t found anything, but they’re still looking.”
“So are they going to arrest you?”
“There’ll be an arrest that probably won’t stick. But it won’t matter. The press already knows. It’ll be all over the news tomorrow.”
“If they’re not taking you to jail, why don’t you come home?”
“Reporters are gonna follow me. I don’t want to get you entangled in this. I don’t want them taking pictures of the house. It’s best that I stay away until I can clear this up. You’re gonna have to tell the kids something ’cause they’re gonna hear about it at school.”
Waylon was referring to my daughter Jennifer and his son Buddy.
“When will you be home?” I asked.
“Not for a while, hon,” he said. “Not till I get a handle on this thing.”
For the next few days, I felt like I was living inside a science fiction movie. I kept the kids out of school, which was wise, because, as Waylon predicted, the press had a field day. In newspapers across the country his fans read how he’d been arrested on alleged drug possession and faced up to fifteen years in prison.
The arrest did come, but he was able to post bond. Cautious to the point of paranoia, he stayed away from the house for weeks, living at the Hyatt in downtown Nashville, but he called every night to give me an update on the ca
se. Naturally I was filled with fear. To read the newspaper accounts, my husband would soon be hauled off to federal prison.
Waylon kept reassuring me that wasn’t going to happen. He kept telling everyone who worked with him that they should tell the truth and not try to protect him. Well, the truth was that Waylon had been using cocaine for years. He himself said he was a walking pharmacy. But apparently he was able to get rid of all the drugs on him—plus all the drugs in the studio—before the agents started their search.
The case against him was built upon a package sent from Neil Reshen’s office in New York to the studio. The Feds claimed that package was filled with cocaine. Waylon was certain one of his ex-wives had tipped off the Feds about the package. He hired a famous lawyer, Jay Goldberg, to handle the case. The legalities went on for months and cost us more than a hundred thousand dollars, but Goldberg was brilliant. He punched holes in the case, showing blatant defects in the government’s faulty warrants.
Mark Rothbaum, who worked as an assistant for Neil, valiantly assumed blame for mailing the package and was sentenced to a very short term in a minimum-security facility. Willie Nelson was so impressed with Mark’s loyalty that he hired him as his manager, a job that Mark maintains to this day, some forty years later. The end result for Waylon was that all charges were dropped.
In a weird way, all the hoopla surrounding the case increased Waylon’s reputation as an outlaw. The music press, as well as his fans, ate it up. Big bad Waylon beat the Feds. His record sales went soaring. By this time, though, Waylon was fed up with the whole business—thus his song “Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand?”
“I’m gonna presume this is enough to make you wanna stop,” I said.
“It’s not a bad presumption,” said Waylon, “and right reason says it’s the only sensible move.”
“Then be sensible,” I urged.
“Wish I could be. But I gotta be honest, and I honestly can’t be making any promises to you I don’t intend to keep.”
Disheartened, I knew Waylon had no intention of quitting. All the bust did was make him more paranoid. He was convinced that our phones were tapped and our home was under surveillance. Though that was not the case, I realized the futility of trying to convince him otherwise. Waylon was more than headstrong. He was absolutely immovable when it came to change. He’d change when and only when he was ready.
Realizing that, I resigned myself to the fact that I was married to a man whose addiction would remain untreated as long as he chose. I saw my choice as twofold: I could stay and love him as best as I could, prayerfully nurturing him with patience and compassion, or I could leave him. I chose the former.
I suppose I could be seen as an enabler. I don’t believe I was. I never pretended that my attitude about his drug habit was anything other than disgust. I never gave him the idea that it was okay with me. He understood to keep the drugs away from me. He honored the sanctity of our home. And at the next great crisis of my heart, he stood beside me, offering me the support I so badly needed. The crisis was the death of my father.
We were in London on one of those improbable side trips that characterized our lifestyle. In the aftermath of the legal nightmare, this project was a godsend—a concept album, a country-and-western opera called White Mansions, written by Paul Kennerley, an Englishman who’d composed a Civil War story seen through Southern eyes. When Kennerley heard Waylon’s record of “That’s Why Cowboys Sing the Blues,” he decided that Waylon’s voice was perfect to play the Drifter, a character who roamed the land, warning of the South’s impending doom. I was cast as local plantation belle Polly Ann Stafford.
“It sounds a little weird,” I’d told Waylon when he first explained the project to me.
“It’s great, it’s perfect.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Instinct. I feel it in my gut. Besides, it’s being released by A&M, Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert’s label. They’re the guys who signed me up before anyone knew my name. They’re the true believers.”
“All right. When are we leaving?”
“Day after tomorrow. Get to packing.”
As I packed, I read over the lyrics and studied the story. Waylon was right. The songs were brilliant. Each character was imbued with compassion. I saw the narrative as a penetrating study of human empathy.
“Leave it to an Englishman to get it right,” said Waylon. “We Americans are too close to our own history to see the forest from the trees.”
We flew to London on the Concorde. Waylon sported a new pair of cowboy boots, a gift from an old bull-rider friend. But the boots were a size too small, and when we got to our fancy hotel overlooking Grosvenor Square, it took a three-hundred-pound security man to pull them off Waylon’s swollen feet. His feet were so sore he had to walk into the recording studio barefoot.
That’s when we met Glyn Johns, the man who’d produced the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Who—just to name a few. Glyn brought in, among others, Eric Clapton and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. The music was riveting, soulful, and deep.
When we got back to the hotel after the first day, Waylon was the most animated I’d seen him in months. He loved how the English writer interpreted the Civil War without bias, dramatizing the bigotry and brutality on both sides. Waylon especially appreciated the subtlety of his character, a troubadour who walked the line between the North and South and understood that the real villain wasn’t a region but war itself.
Because he was a Southerner—and also because our new Nashville home was situated in the middle of Civil War history—Waylon took White Mansions personally and ranked it among his favorite albums.
One of the songs I sang that moved me most expressed Polly’s feelings for the wounded men facing death. What I didn’t know—the news Waylon wanted to spare me until we were through recording—was that at that precise moment back home in Arizona, my own father was dying from pneumonia.
Waylon and I flew home to Mesa as quickly as we could. My brother Johnny said that Daddy’s passage had been peaceful. He told how, just before his passing, Daddy sat up in bed and sang a corny old song he used to croon to Mother whenever she’d scold him for discussing money at the dinner table and called him “Carnal Arnold.”
“I love you so much,” he’d sing, “it hurts me . . . I love you . . . I love you . . .”
We buried him in a plot next to the woman who saw how he’d been slain in the Spirit, curing his throat cancer and enabling him to live a long life of ceaseless exploration and endless optimism. He had loved me unconditionally. He had also loved Waylon, who looked to him as a second father. I cherish the times Waylon went to the mine with Daddy and spent days listening to his war stories of prospecting in the Arizona wilderness.
In his relationship to Mother, Daddy had shown me what it means for a man to respect a woman. He encouraged her to lead her life as a disciple of God, both separate from their diverse pursuits yet joined in the spirit. Together they had served their muses—hers was Jesus, his natural science—without trampling on each other. I am blessed to be their progeny, a product of their miraculous marriage. They live in my heart today, as they always will.
When your parents die, that invisible wall that has appeared to protect you from alien elements seems to fall. Your sense of vulnerability sharpens. You are left alone. You feel a sadness you have never felt before.
I felt all those things. Yet the feeling I remember most wasn’t one of fear but rather one of gratitude. It was my parents who taught me to face fear with equanimity. It was my parents who taught me to walk through fear. They exemplified courage. They exemplified perseverance.
Thus I persevered. I persevered through the challenges of a professional and personal life that became, all at once, as exciting as it was complex.
Chapter 21
A COWBOY ROCKS AND ROLLS
“HOW DO YOU FEEL ’BOUT DOING A ROCK-AND-ROLL RECORD?” asked Waylon one morning during a late breakf
ast at Southern Comfort.
“I feel great. Why would I feel otherwise?”
“Don’t know. Just thinking you might wanna make another gospel record. Don’t wanna be accused of stifling Mirriam.”
“Mirriam can’t be stifled,” I said. “And besides, she’s delighted with the gospel record she made. In time she’ll make another. But I can assure you that Jessi has no problem rocking and rolling.”
“That’s my girl.”
Waylon had a bunch of songs written by great writers that he wanted me to hear. Over the course of several days, we listened to them all. I began to envision the project as a joyful dance record, a welcome antidote to the challenging times Waylon and I had recently endured.
One in particular—“That’s the Way a Cowboy Rocks and Rolls”—was written by our friend Tony Joe White and seemed especially apt as an album title. Growing up in Arizona, I’d long been fascinated by cowboy culture and saw, as did Waylon, a direct correlation between the rough-and-ready western hero and his rock counterpart. They both stood outside the mainstream; they both were always moving on, living a vagabond life against a backdrop of some enticing romantic dream. The dream was elusive, and the search for the ultimate roundup or the lost chord never stopped.
There were songs by Johnny Cash (“A Cowboy’s Last Ride”) and Neil Young (“Hold Back the Tears”). I didn’t at all object to singing an album of covers rather than originals. I was delighted to work as an interpretive singer instead of as a writer. “Black Haired Boy,” Guy Clark’s poignant literary portrait of an enigmatic youngster, remains one of my favorite recordings. Waylon’s favorite, “Maybe You Should’ve Been Listening (When I Said Goodbye)” contains an achingly beautiful steel guitar solo by Ralph Mooney, a legendary musician who, like drummer Richie Albright, had been a Waylor—a member of Waylon’s formidable band—for decades. Waylon considered Mooney a genius.