Country music was not as popular in the early 1950s as it is today. There were plenty of folks who liked it, but a lot of people turned their noses up at it, too. That made some country fans kind of embarrassed. Country music had a stigma to it at that time, and some people just didn’t want others to know they liked it. Everybody at school knew I was performing on the radio, but I didn’t get made fun of. I guess I do remember some boys laughing sometimes when I was lugging around my guitar after school. They’d call to me, “Hey, whatchya got in that case? A machine gun?” But, other than that, nobody said much of anything. I think a lot of the kids were just proud to know someone who was on the radio.
During my radio station days, there was one country artist who was my absolute favorite, and that was Hank Thompson. I bought all his records and was a big fan of the hits he’d had at that point, including the Top 10 singles “Humpty Dumpty Heart,” “Green Light,” and “Whoa Sailor.” The fact that he lived in Oklahoma City and had a TV show on WKY-TV made me an even bigger fan. I played and sang some of Hank’s songs on my show from time to time, and thought of him as my musical idol. In fact, I always liked how Hank enunciated his words and the way you could understand all the lyrics. That was something I tried to do from the very beginning, thanks to his example.
One day I had just finished my show at the station, which I had been doing for several months by that point, when someone from the KLPR office came into the studio. He said, “Wanda, there’s a call for you out here. It’s some man, but he didn’t give his name.” I looked at my watch and figured it must be Daddy wanting to know if I needed him to pick me up. I went out to the reception desk to take the phone call. A warm and friendly voice on the other end said, “Hi Wanda, this is Hank Thompson.” I just about fainted. I was tempted to think it was a joke, but Hank’s speaking voice was very similar to his singing voice, and I could tell that it was really him.
Hank told me that he was driving in his car when he heard my radio show. “I pulled over as soon as you were finished so I knew I’d be able to catch you before you left the station,” he explained. Maybe I murmured something back to him, but I might have been too stunned to respond. “You’ve got a really interesting voice and I like your singing style,” he continued. “My band and I are playing at the Trianon Ballroom on Saturday night, and I’d like to invite you to come down and sing a couple of songs with us.”
By this point I thought for sure I was in a dream. This was just too good to be true. I said, “Gee, Mr. Thompson, I would love to, but I’ll have to ask my mother.” He laughed a little, but then realized I wasn’t kidding around. He cleared his throat.
“Good grief, girl, how old are you?”
“I’m fourteen,” I said, trying to sound as confident and grown up as possible while praying that my newly revealed age wouldn’t get me uninvited to the show.
“Fourteen? That’s hard to believe,” he chuckled. “I thought for sure you were much older than that. You have a very mature voice.” I held my breath waiting to see what he would say next. “Well, Wanda,” he finally continued, “you be sure to ask your mother and, if it’s okay with her, we’ll see you on Saturday night. And you be thinking about what you might want to sing.” I thanked him profusely and hung up the phone.
I ran as fast as I could to the cab stand to tell Daddy about the phone call from Hank. He saw me coming and got out of the car thinking something might be wrong. “Wanda, honey, are you okay?” I ran right into his arms and began breathlessly recounting every detail of my conversation with Hank. He was overjoyed by the news. “Hop in the car, sweetie. Let’s get home and tell your mother. She’s not going to believe it!” Mother and Daddy both liked Hank’s music, so there was no question about getting their permission. That Saturday night the Jackson family was going to be one place, and one place only: the Trianon Ballroom in downtown Oklahoma City. That was the big place in town at the time. You’d walk in at street level and get your ticket. Then you’d walk upstairs into a great big room with one of the best dance floors in the whole Southwest. It was raised and had a nice wooden floor. Unlike a lot of country nightspots, there weren’t many fights at the Trianon. I think people were afraid they’d fall down those steep steps!
Jay Davis wanted to go down to the show with Mother and Daddy and me, so the four of us rode to the Trianon together that night. It felt good knowing that at least I would have a three-person support team in the audience … if nothing else. We arrived a little early and I found Hank by the side of the stage. He was tuning his guitar and I didn’t want to bother him. He saw me lingering nearby and turned toward me. “Hello there, young lady,” he smiled.
“Hi, Mr. Thompson,” I stammered. “I’m Wanda Jackson.” He put his guitar down and stepped toward me.
“Of course! I’m glad you were able to make it. We’ll call you up in a little while to do your songs.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “When did you want to rehearse?”
He just gave me a wink and said, “You’ll be fine.”
That’s when I discovered that bands didn’t really practice before their gigs in those days. We singers would go out and do our thing, and the musicians were expected to be good enough to follow us. The only problem was that I had never performed with any other pickers before. My radio show was just me accompanying myself on guitar, so when Hank called me up on stage it was a mess. I started into “Blue Yodel No. 6,” but I couldn’t keep time properly and was breaking meter something terrible. Those poor boys in his Brazos Valley Boys band had to try to follow me. At one point the group went into a solo, and I didn’t know when to start singing again. I was panicked. The musicians were behind me saying, “Okay, Wanda. Come on back in.” I was so embarrassed, but when the song was over the audience applauded.
Hank stepped up to the microphone. “How about little Miss Wanda Jackson, everybody?” They clapped even louder. “Wanda, honey, why don’t you do another one for these fine folks?” I gulped hard, smiled, and tried not to look terrified. I launched into “Jambalaya,” which was a new song at the time, but was already very popular. I was about two bars into it before the band even realized I’d started playing. And, of course, I didn’t mention to them what key I played it in. There was a little scrambling there for a moment, but Hank’s band members were real professionals, so once they got a handle on what I was doing they fell into place real quick. Audiences have always loved “Jambalaya,” and still do to this day, so by the time I finished that second song, I’d won them over. It probably helped that I was a cute little girl with my great big guitar and cowboy boots. A lot of them knew me from the radio, too. Quite a few people complimented my voice.
Even though I felt self-conscious about letting Hank see how green I was, he was enthusiastic. “You did real good, Wanda,” he said as I left the stage. “Just don’t forget to have fun.” I was pretty serious about performing and I might have been a little uptight. But, then again, I was a fourteen-year-old girl onstage in a big dance club for the first time—and with my musical hero watching my every move. I’m just glad I didn’t pass out or fall off the stage!
Even as bad as I was that first night, Hank wanted me to come back. He saw the potential in me and, despite having the top country band in the nation and scoring hit after hit, he was still kind enough to be interested in my career. Almost every time he was in town, he’d have me come sing with him. I was still in school, so I couldn’t go on the road, but it got to where I worked with him pretty regularly when he played local shows. I’d forget my lyrics, continue to break meter, and make all the mistakes that a person makes when they’re learning to work with a band. I had a lot to figure out, but Hank was gracious enough to let me make my mistakes. He gave me the space to mess up because he knew I was serious about getting good, and he knew that every misstep was a learning experience. He stuck his neck out for me by letting me get on his stage when I wasn’t ready, but it was the finest education I could have asked for. Hank was a true friend and mentor, an
d I can’t possibly overstate how much he did for me.
After performing with Hank for a while, I was becoming more confident on stage. Before long, I auditioned for Merl Lindsay, an Oklahoma City—based Western swing bandleader who had a regular Saturday radio show that was broadcast from the Palladium Ballroom. Merl wrote “Water Baby Boogie,” which became a country standard. He also recorded as an artist for the MGM and Mercury labels in the early 1950s. His band, The Oklahoma Night Riders, was a popular and well-respected group in the area. When I found out they were looking for a girl singer, I decided to try out.
Fortunately, Lindsay was already familiar with who I was from my radio show, and he liked my voice. I got the job, so I started working with them regularly and appearing on their radio show. I would just sing a few songs throughout the night, but I stayed up on stage the whole time. I’d clap or dance along a little bit. One of the guys in the band taught me to play a little percussion. It was a good experience to spend entire nights on the bandstand where I could study what everyone was doing, watch how audiences reacted, and observe the nuances of how to properly interact with a crowd. I felt like I was going to country music college, but my professors were the Oklahoma Night Riders and Brazos Valley Boys. I couldn’t have asked for better teachers.
Believe it or not, I’d never heard a recording of my own voice up to that point. I knew what it sounded like in my own head, but all the radio work I’d been doing was live, so I’d never had a chance to actually listen to myself objectively. Even though Merl Lindsay’s show was broadcast live on Saturday nights, the radio station would replay it on Sundays. Soon after I started performing with Merl, I wanted to listen to the re-broadcast. The only problem was that it conflicted with church. One week Mother said that if I went to Sunday School first, I could go out to the car and listen to the show while she stayed in the church service.
I was out there listening to the show by myself, but when I heard my own voice I froze. It sounded nothing like I thought it did! I didn’t like what I heard at all, and I began sobbing in the car. I couldn’t believe it. I said out loud to nobody, “I can’t be a girl singer. I’m not any good!” That experience really threw me for a loop. I thought, Boy, what am I going to do if I can’t be a singer? It’s all I ever wanted. Looking back, I don’t know if I was actually bad and got better, or if it was just the shock of hearing what my voice sounded like to other people. Either way, Mother and Daddy came to my rescue. I told them I didn’t think anyone could possibly like my voice, but they reminded me that all those people who listened to me on KLPR liked it. They pointed out that Merl Lindsay liked it enough to hire me, and that Hank Thompson seemed to think it was good enough to stake his reputation on. I was almost ready to quit, but my parents knew where my true love was, and they talked me through it. And I’m sure glad they did.
Chapter 5
With my first boyfriend, Leonard Sipes, who would later be known as Tommy Collins.
LOVIN’ COUNTRY STYLE
In 1981 Merle Haggard had a Top 10 country hit with a song he wrote about a young entertainer who found fame as a singer and guitarist before going on to experience some ups and downs in his personal life. It was a true story. Haggard was paying tribute to his old friend Tommy Collins, who, as Merle sang, helped teach him to be a songwriter and even bought him some groceries when he was a struggling musician in Bakersfield, California. Before he was known by the stage name Tommy Collins, he was an Oklahoma boy named Leonard Sipes. That’s why the song was called “Leonard.” What you don’t learn from the lyrics, though, is that Leonard Sipes was also my first love.
Merle started his song with the phrase, “When Leonard finally came to California …” In real life, when Leonard came to California he was riding with me, Mother, and Daddy. When we lived in California, Mother and I would travel back to Oklahoma each summer to visit family. Once we moved back, we’d travel out to the West Coast most summers to visit our friends and family who were still living out there. One year, Leonard decided he’d come with us.
I had first become aware of Leonard at KLPR, where he was part of the rotating cast of local talent that appeared on Cousin Jay Davis’s daily show. Even before I was performing on the show, I would see him performing when my school friends and I would go sit in the small studio audience. I was just thirteen the first time I saw him, but Leonard was already a college boy studying chemistry at what’s now known as the University of Central Oklahoma. He was good looking and well dressed. Almost as soon as I first spotted him at the radio station, I had a big crush on him.
By the time I was making my own appearances on KLPR, Leonard and I both enjoyed hearing each other perform. He was a step or two ahead of me in terms of his singing career, and had even released a couple of singles. Apparently, someone representing the Morgan Records label out of Fresno, California, had heard Leonard on the air in Oklahoma City and offered to sign him. I’d never known anyone who had actually made a record before, so it was pretty fun to see that label with the words “Leonard Sipes and his Rythmn Oakies.” So what if the label didn’t know how to spell Rhythm Okies? I didn’t care anything about spelling in those days anyway. But I definitely cared about records, and, thanks to Leonard, I was quickly discovering I cared a lot about boys, too!
Eventually, Leonard asked me out for a date in early 1952. I hadn’t ever been on a date before, and my parents were pretty concerned about the idea of their fourteen-year-old daughter going out with someone who was already in college. After Daddy met him, he said, “Okay, Leonard’s a nice young man. You can go out with him if you want to.”
I was pretty excited about getting to spend time alone with him. I thought Leonard was funny and cute and well-mannered. I wasn’t very interested in the boys my own age, and Leonard seemed more grown up. As I mentioned, I never felt much like a kid, even when I was one, so the idea of dating a good-looking guy like Leonard seemed natural to me.
On the Saturday we were scheduled for the date, I spent most of the afternoon getting ready. I picked out a pretty dress and took extra time to curl my hair just right. I imagined what it would be like when Leonard arrived. I visualized him opening the door to his nice car for me, like a proper gentleman.
My heart might have sunk just a little when I heard someone pull up and looked out my bedroom window to see an old pickup truck out front. It wasn’t exactly a chariot waiting to whisk me away to romantic bliss—or even a nice car—but I still felt pretty giddy about going out on the town with a handsome young man.
He knocked on the front door and Daddy invited him in. I remember the two of them sat in the living room talking and laughing. It was probably just a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I was ready to get out of there and throw myself into the exciting world of dating. I kept thinking, Come on, Daddy. Can’t you just let us go already? But, of course, I just sat and smiled politely while they chatted.
Eventually Leonard said we better get going. He shook Daddy’s hand, thanked Mother for the glass of water she’d given him, and we headed outside. He helped me up into that old truck, which I pretended was a Cadillac for the sake of my fantasies about the glamour of dating. We drove over to Capitol Hill, near the radio station, and saw a movie together. I don’t know why he would have even wanted to go out with me, since I was still so young, but we had a good time talking about movie stars, music we both liked, and other topics I can’t recall because I was too distracted thinking about how handsome he was.
Before long, Leonard was coming around the house pretty frequently. Not only was he my first boyfriend, but he also became a good friend to our family. Daddy and Leonard talked a lot and had a good time together. Leonard and I dated for several months, and I learned a few things about being a young lady as part of that experience.
In those days people didn’t talk much about sex. Mother and Daddy never explained the birds and the bees to me, and it wasn’t something that was discussed in school at that time, either. Whatever you knew you either picked
up from other kids or figured out by stumbling into it on your own. My body began to develop pretty early, but I knew nothing about puberty, or what it meant to transition from girlhood to young womanhood. It was Aunt Flossie who finally sat my mother down and said, “Nellie, get that girl a brassiere!” Mother didn’t even want to think about it. “She’s only eleven years old,” Mother shot back. Flossie just shook her head. “I don’t care how old she is. She needs it, and she can’t keep going around without one!” I guess the message must have gotten through because I got my first bra soon thereafter.
You can imagine that if my mother didn’t feel comfortable talking about bras, she certainly didn’t know how to discuss menstruation with me. One day I was in class during middle school when I almost doubled over in pain. I had the most awful cramps, and they kept hitting me in waves throughout the day. I went to the school nurse, who gave me an aspirin, but that didn’t help. I was pretty sick, but I had no idea what was wrong with me. After school, I boarded the bus for home, feeling terrible the whole way as waves of pain gripped my midsection. When we arrived at my house, I began walking down the aisle of the bus toward the exit when I heard snickering behind me. I turned around to see kids pointing and laughing at me. I wasn’t sure why until I looked down and saw that I had blood all over me. I ran off that bus with tears streaming down my face. I was embarrassed, but I was even more concerned that maybe I was about to die.
I fumbled for my key and finally got into the house as the bus pulled away from the curb. It seemed like I could still hear that laughter echoing in my head, even though the bus was rapidly pulling away from ear shot. I ran to the phone and dialed Mother, who was still at work. I was crying hysterically. I told her I was dying and needed her to come home right away. “Calm down, Wanda,” she said softly. “I think I know exactly what’s going on. You’re not sick and you’re going to be just fine. Get yourself cleaned up and we’ll have a talk when I get home.” When Mother got to the house that evening, she took me into her bedroom, where Daddy wouldn’t hear us talking. She explained a few things that I immediately wished I’d known earlier that day!
Every Night Is Saturday Night Page 5