Even though the recording session only took a day, we spent a couple of weeks in Germany. I played shows at several military bases, and we had an opportunity to see the country. All that rich German food wasn’t our thing, so we lived on soup, ice cream, Jack Daniel’s black label, and Coca Cola. We got through it, but it took some getting used to. We were at our hotel one night and went down for dinner.
“No, you cannot eat here,” we were told. “The gentleman must have a dinner jacket and the lady must be wearing a dress.”
They said they wouldn’t seat us. Wendell blew up. “We’re tourists,” he said. “We’re staying in the biggest suite in your hotel. We are going to eat here, so you’ll have to figure out how.” They finally set up a little hidden-away table where nobody could see us and let us eat.
After our stay in Germany, we headed to Paris, where I performed on a package show with Roy Orbison at the storied Olympia Hall. I don’t know if they’d had bad experiences with other artists, but the promoters, for some reason, said, “Whatever you do, don’t talk onstage. The audience doesn’t understand English. In fact, the band they provided for me didn’t speak English, either. When I rehearsed with them I had to tell them the key for each song using the old “do-re-me-fa-so-la-tido” scale. It was pretty tough communicating with them! In addition to the ban on speaking, the promoters warned me that the audience would throw things at me if they didn’t like my performance. By that point I was scared to death. When it was time for the show, I went out and did several songs in a row without saying a word. Finally, I said to myself, “By golly, I’m the entertainer here. Who are they to tell me how to relate to an audience?” The more I thought about it, the more it just kind of made me mad. So I started talking. I don’t know what they thought of it, but, by the end, I got two standing ovations.
After “Santo Domingo” was so successful in Germany, Electrola Records was eager for me to record some additional sides. In October of 1965 Wendell and I returned to Cologne, where I recorded four more German language songs. Immediately afterward, I headed to Amsterdam, where I recorded two songs in Dutch. I might have thought getting the German words right was a tough job, but it was nothing compared to singing in Dutch! That was probably the most difficult recording session I’ve ever experienced.
For whatever reason, I was suddenly in demand to record in various languages. In February of 1966, I recorded “Oh Blacky Joe” and “Santo Domingo” at Capitol’s studio on West 54th Street in Manhattan. That was the only time I ever recorded in New York City and, though I’d cut both songs in German the previous year, this time I recorded them in Japanese. Of all the languages I’ve sung, Japanese was the easiest. The words are comprised of short and simple sounds that I was easily able to learn. Of course, I had no clue what I was actually saying, but I enjoyed doing it anyway!
It’s a funny thing to record songs in a language you don’t speak, but I got to where I really liked it. German was the one that ended up being the most successful for me. Between 1965 and 1970, I recorded nearly twenty German-language songs, four or five of which hit the German charts. None of the others were as successful as “Santo Domingo,” but I grew to really enjoy the country and its people. I got to where I could sing the guttural German sounds so well that they had to calm me down a little bit. “You don’t have to be that guttural,” they’d tell me. I thought that was pretty funny. I guess that nasty rockabilly voice served me a little too well at times!
On one of our trips to Germany, we had a day off, and they asked if we’d like to go into East Berlin. With fear and trembling we said, “Okay.” An Electrola promotion man arranged a car and driver and accompanied us across the border. When we arrived at the crossing at Checkpoint Charlie, we had to get out of the car so the guards could search the vehicle. They opened the trunk and the hood and practically tore the car up to make sure we weren’t smuggling anything in. Once we were on the other side of the Berlin wall, I was shocked at what I saw. The buildings looked like they had been bombed twenty days before, rather than twenty years before! It was as if someone just pushed back the piles of rubble and left them there. They showed us the bunker where Hitler died and pointed out the “No Man’s Land” on either side of the border where you’d be shot on sight if you attempted to approach the wall. We were told to keep our passports close. I nearly squeezed mine to death!
When you crossed the border going in, you had to buy five East German marks, which you were required to spend there. You couldn’t bring any of the money back out with you. After some sightseeing of opera houses and libraries and things, the driver decided we needed to go ahead and spend our money before returning. We went to the restaurant of a nice hotel for lunch. When it was time to go, we hadn’t spent all that money, so we just piled it up on the table and left it as a tip. The driver said, “You probably just gave that waitress six months’ salary!” I’m really glad I got to have that experience because it reminded me to never take for granted the freedoms I enjoy as an American.
One time when we were working in Germany, we got a phone call from our friend Jude, who owned a furniture store and performed as one half of the local Oklahoma country duo Jude and Jody. When Wendell answered, Jude said, “Hey, it’s Jude. What are you doing?”
“Are you drunk?” Wendell said. “It’s the middle of the night in Oklahoma. Why are you calling us now?”
Jude laughed and said, “No, I’m in the lobby of your hotel.”
We invited Jude and his wife, Carol, to come up to the room. They were good friends of ours, and we couldn’t believe they happened to be in Germany at the same time we were. She had a brother who was stationed there, so they made a detour to see us while they were visiting him. We got a chance to spend some time sightseeing with our friends, which was a lot of fun. Jude was a big guy and Carol was a big woman who wore furs and gloves and diamonds. She was very flamboyant. Everywhere we went people assumed that she was Wanda Jackson and I was her assistant.
By that point, Wendell and I had gotten pretty comfortable in Germany, so we decided to play a little joke on Carol. Wendell said, “You know, since you’re visiting the country for a little while, you should learn a few words in German, like ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ which the locals really appreciate.” Carol smiled broadly.
“Oh, that would be a wonderful idea,” she replied. “Could you teach me?”
“Sure, I’d be happy to,” Wendell said. “‘Thank you’ is pronounced ‘ochsen scheisse,’ and any time you can say ‘thank you’ in German that will go a long way.”
Of course, “ochsen” is German for the English word “oxen” or “bull.” You can probably figure out what English “S” word would typically follow “bull.” We went all around Germany with Carol dressed, fit to kill, in all her finery. Someone would open a car door, and she’d get out with a big smile on her face and nod, “Ochsen scheisse.” Wendell and Jody and I could barely contain our giggles.
On some of our later trips to Germany I would sing on television. I couldn’t believe they wanted me to lip sync the words to these songs I’d painstakingly recorded line by line. I practiced those songs over and over, trying to make sure I knew how to mouth those words so I wouldn’t embarrass myself on TV. Wendell was really patient and helpful in coaching me. I remember there was one line where I would always get tripped up on when we were practicing. Finally, he said, “It sounds like ‘fish sticks Magoo.’” After that, I never forgot that line. I think Wendell wound up learning most of those German songs, too, just from having to hear them over and over and over helping me memorize them.
One of the big German TV shows had booked me to appear, but our plane was eight or ten hours late, so we had to go straight from the airport to the television studio. I had my suitcase in a room upstairs with my clothes and makeup. They had some kind of choreography in mind, so I was being pulled in one direction and then another as they showed me the moves. Then the director would say, “Wanda’s hair is not showing up. We need to brighten it!” I had no id
ea what they were doing, and I couldn’t speak to them in German. A great big woman who looked like a boxer grabbed me by the hand and took me to the hair and makeup area, where she took a can of silver spray and coated my hair with it. We returned and the director decided he didn’t like that. She took me back again and she sprayed a can of black stuff all over my hair. By that point, I had all kinds of gunk built up! Then, they decided they weren’t happy with my shoes. I went back to my room and found this big gal pawing through my suitcase, which made me mad.
“You will wear these,” she said as she pulled out a pair of flats.
“Oh no. Those are just the flats I wore on the plane. I have heels with rhinestones on them that I brought for the show.” But, no. They wanted me to wear those flats. But then they decided the flats weren’t shiny enough, so they got some kind of strips to apply to the toe. By then I was tired, jetlagged, and had had enough. I was upset, so I finally let loose. I learned that Germans can be a little headstrong, but if you make a stand or blow up at them, then you become pretty good friends!
In recent years, it has been a German label, Bear Family Records, that has done the most to preserve my legacy. In 1992 they released a deluxe CD box set called Right or Wrong that collected all my Decca and Capitol recordings from 1954 through 1962. It was the first time many of my songs appeared on CD, and I was thrilled for them to be digitally preserved and collected in one place. In 1998 they released a second box featuring the rest of my Capitol recordings through 1972. Richard Weize, who founded the label, has always championed my music, and even released a CD of all my German language recordings. In October of 2002, Richard and Bear Family threw me a 65th birthday party in a German castle. It was a really spectacular affair, and it gave me an opportunity to reflect on how thankful I am for finding a second home in Germany during the 1960s, much as I found one in Japan in the ’50s.
Chapter 19
KICKIN’ OUR HEARTS AROUND
Wendell was my soul mate and the love of my life. We were together for over fifty-five years. And when I say together, I mean together. We worked together, parented together, grandparented together, took care of life’s responsibilities together, vacationed together, shared all our joys and sorrows together, and did just about everything else you can think of together—twenty-four hours a day—for almost six decades! It was hard to tell where one of us stopped and the other began. We were always a team. All the girl singers that I worked with over the years were envious of me over Wendell. They’d say, “Do you even realize what you have?” To have someone who is a cheerleader, supporter, best friend, and ardent defender in your corner is a beautiful thing. And, yes, I always realized what I had. We always said that divorce was never an option for us. Murder, maybe, but never divorce!
When Wendell and I began our lives together, it was almost as if we were two pieces of the same puzzle that finally came together as they were meant to be from the beginning of time. But that didn’t mean we didn’t have some rocky times early on. When we got married I’d been living with my parents and he’d been living with his. Neither one of us had had a ton or life or relational experience, so we both had some growing up to do.
One of the things that proved a difficult adjustment for Wendell was the way the male fans interacted with me at my shows. It was pretty common for a guy to want to get a picture with me sitting on his lap. Maybe someone would get a little pushy about buying me a drink. Sometimes, if a fan had a few more rounds than he should, he might get a little handsy and refuse to take “no” for an answer. When Daddy was traveling with me, he’d always keep an eye out for that kind of thing, but he’d usually do it from across the room. If a guy got a little belligerent, Daddy would let me handle it. I was pretty good at diffusing those situations with a well-timed comment, but every now and then Daddy would have to step over to intervene. At that point, the guy would almost always back off and we wouldn’t have a problem. Wendell handled those situations differently. He had a temper, so he would see that kind of thing and get really jealous. He wouldn’t let me handle it calmly, but would step in right away and sometimes cause a scene.
I appreciated that Wendell wanted to leap to my defense. What girl doesn’t love a knight in shining armor? But he didn’t understand that being a woman in the public eye is different from what most women experience in their day-to-day lives. In the early years of our marriage, his jealousy would spark anger, not only toward some male fans, but also toward me. He didn’t like it when I’d take pictures with men who came to the shows. If they put their arm around me a little too tight, I’d catch hell for it later. I’d say, “Wendell, I’m not the one who did anything. I was just standing there trying to keep it all together and be a professional. That just comes along with the territory, and you need to step back a little bit.” But that would just get him angrier.
We would sometimes get in serious fights about my appearance. There are a couple of pictures of me on the cover of the Two Sides of Wanda album that are pretty tame, but some of the outtakes from that photo session showed me in a sexy low-cut sweater that revealed plenty of cleavage. The pictures weren’t scandalous and, though a little seductive, were certainly tastefully done. But when Wendell saw them, he nearly exploded. “I don’t need every man in America ogling pictures of my wife half-naked,” he roared as he slammed them down on our kitchen table.”
“Wendell, if I didn’t look like that, you wouldn’t have paid a bit of attention to me when we first met! What do you want?” Boy, I took all kinds of grief for those photos. Sometimes those arguments about what I was wearing or how I presented myself would escalate. Wendell physically tore dresses off me, and there were a lot of fireworks before we learned how to work out problems like adults.
Everything came to a head one night when we were at the Palladium Ballroom in Oklahoma City. I wasn’t singing that night, but Wendell and I were there with my parents. At one point, Daddy and I headed out to the dance floor. I always loved to dance with him because he was a great leader and, frankly, we looked good on the dance floor together. When the song was over we didn’t return to the table where Mother and Wendell were waiting. In fact, we kept dancing for a couple of more songs. Finally, Wendell came over, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me away. “That’s enough,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Come back to the table now.” I could understand why he might be upset about me dancing all night with a strange man, but with my own father? Wendell’s possessiveness was getting out of control. I was hurt and very embarrassed that my parents saw him behave that way. I didn’t say much to anyone for the rest of the evening for fear of bursting out in tears.
Later that night we were driving home when I said, “Wendell, stop the car.” He looked puzzled.
“What for?” he asked.
“Just pull over,” I said, raising my voice. He could tell I meant business as he steered the car over to the shoulder. I shifted in my seat and turned toward him. “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “I can’t live with you watching over me and counting the number of times I do this or that. You’re too controlling, and I can’t stand it. I don’t want a divorce, but if this kind of behavior continues, that might be where we’re headed. You’re going to have to let me talk to other people. You’re going to have to let me sign autographs and take pictures with fans. You’re going to have to understand that when we’re out in public, we’re going to get interrupted from time to time. And you’re damn sure going to have to let me dance with my own daddy if I want to! This has all gone too far!”
Wendell was quiet for a long time. He stared at the steering wheel, shaking his head. “I understand what you’re saying,” he finally answered, “but I don’t like sharing my wife with the whole world. I’m just an ol’ boy from West Texas and I’m not used to all this. Where I come from, if a guy has a girlfriend who goes over and sits on another guy’s lap and is talking and giggling with him, then you have to do something about it.” He said he didn’t want to hurt me and that he would try to
be more understanding about the demands of my career.
After our conversation that night, I was able to understand Wendell’s perspective, and he was able to understand mine. He agreed to work on his jealousy and I agreed to be better about communicating. Instead of just walking off to go talk with male fans, I would let Wendell know where I was going and what I was up to. After hearing each other out, we were both willing to make some changes. One thing I’ve learned in my years of marriage is that it’s good to discuss your problems instead of letting them build up and fester to the point where you wake up one day and discover you don’t even like the other person anymore.
One of the hang-ups that took a little longer for Wendell to overcome was my relationship with Elvis. If I talked much about Elvis in an interview, I’d have hell to pay for that, too. I’d say, “Honey, I can’t help it. They’re asking me questions about him, and I’m just giving them an answer. I don’t care if I ever hear his name again, but I can’t just ignore the interviewers.” I suppose I can understand why it bothered him. Most people don’t necessarily want to hear their spouse talk about their teenage flame, but how often would that naturally come up for the average couple? Because of my job, it came up pretty regularly for us, so I see that it was an unusual circumstance. Not only did Wendell have to hear me talk about a previous relationship, but it just so happened to have been with a guy who is universally regarded as one of the most iconic sex symbols of all time. I was never a jealous person. I knew nobody was going to take Wendell from me because I had him, and I was going to keep him. I knew how to do it, and I did. But I guess if Wendell had dated Marilyn Monroe and I had to hear about it regularly, I might not love it. At the time, though, I just could not understand why it bothered him to hear me talk about Elvis. At one point, Wendell told me he didn’t want to ever hear Elvis’s name again.
Every Night Is Saturday Night Page 19