When I first met Elvis, I was seventeen years old and had just graduated from Capitol Hill High School a few weeks earlier. As you know, graduation couldn’t come soon enough for me. It was hard to devote myself to my studies when I was putting records on the charts and playing at the legendary Grand Ole Opry. Even if it hadn’t exactly been an ideal experience, it was still a big deal. I earned $1,126.56 that month alone from record royalties, publishing income, and a handful of live shows with Hank. That was some serious money for a seventeen-year-old girl in 1955. We’re talking about what would be the equivalent of more than $10,000 by today’s standards.
I knew the only thing I was interested in was being a singer, and I bring up those accomplishments only to make the point that I seemed to be finding success doing just that. I didn’t see much reason to be in school, considering that my career was already well underway. I never stopped begging Daddy to let me just drop out and hit the road for an extended tour, but he wasn’t having it. He said, “You graduate first.” That was so important to him. My dad’s father was a sharecropper and their family was almost literally dirt poor. Mother’s people had a farm, where they raised pigs, grew gardens, and pretty well provided for themselves. Daddy finally earned his high school diploma at the age of twenty-one after having to regularly take time off school so he could work picking cotton to contribute to the basic survival of his household. With that kind of background, you can bet he wasn’t about to let his only child throw away an opportunity for an education. But that didn’t stop me from asking, begging, pleading, whining, pouting, and stomping my feet. I wanted out.
I can remember several of my girlfriends crying on graduation day because they felt like the best years of their lives were over. I loved my friends, so I hugged them tight and did my best to console them. Inside, however, I was bursting with joy. I was finally free to make music without any other responsibilities to hold me back. Sure, I would miss seeing Beverly and the girls every day, but so many adventures were calling me, and I couldn’t wait to get started.
Now that I had my diploma firmly in hand, Daddy was as excited as I was to hit the road and help me take my career to the next level. He was a wanderlust at heart, and was ready for whatever adventures awaited us on the road. By that point most of my professional work had been with Hank Thompson. I had appeared as a single performer on a handful of out-of-town gigs, but not many. One that stands out in my mind is the famous Big “D” Jamboree, which was broadcast on KRLD from the Dallas Sportatorium every Saturday night. The facility was best known for hosting professional wrestling matches, and the round wrestling ring in the center of the arena doubled as the stage for the Jamboree shows. They drew thousands of audience members every weekend, and it was a thrill to perform for those loyal country fans. I enjoyed being the focus of the audience on that stage, and I knew that if I wanted more experiences like that, I would need to become more than the girl singer with Hank Thompson’s show.
Daddy knew it, too. What we didn’t know was how to get a manager, or what a manager even did. There was no roadmap in that era for how to build a country music career, but I knew that’s what I wanted to do, and Daddy knew he wanted to help me. Soon after I graduated, he went downtown to the newsstand and picked up a copy of Billboard magazine. Don’t worry, we paid for it. My criminal days were long behind me by that point! Billboard was the premier source of information about the entertainment industry back then, and it continues to be well known today for its charts that track the popularity of music in various genres.
Daddy brought the magazine home and was thumbing through it at the kitchen table when he spotted an ad for the Bob Neal Talent Agency in Memphis, Tennessee. “I think I’ll just give him a call and see if he’d be interested in booking you,” Daddy shrugged as he got up and moved to the living room. I followed, watching him closely. I sat at the edge of the couch, pulling my legs up underneath me without breaking my gaze on Daddy’s face as he picked up the telephone receiver.
“Mr. Neal? My name is Tom Jackson and I’m calling from Oklahoma City regarding my daughter, Wanda Jackson, who records for Decca Records.” I studied Daddy’s expression as I tried to imagine the other side of the conversation. “Oh, you’re familiar with her? That’s great. The truth is we’re looking to book some more shows for Wanda, and we thought you might be able to help.” Daddy reached for a pencil and a piece of paper and began scratching down some notes. “Elvin Presley, you said? Oh, I’m sorry. Elvis…. No, I can’t say I’m familiar with him…. Next month? That sounds good to me…. Yes, that will be fine. We’ll see you then, and I thank you, sir.”
Daddy set the receiver down with a straight face and pretended as if nothing had happened. He liked to tease me like that. “Well, Daddy, what did he say?” He finally gave me a wink.
“Good news, honey. You’ve been getting some good airplay in Memphis, and Mr. Neal knows who you are. He said our timing is perfect because he’s booking a young man who is apparently getting popular really fast down there. He was actually already looking for a girl singer to join the bill on a few of his performances, so we’re gonna meet up with them in Missouri for a show on July 20th.”
“It sounded like you said his name was Elvis,” I laughed. Nobody around Oklahoma knew who he was because they weren’t playing his records there yet.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Daddy smiled.
“Well, that’s just about the strangest name I ever heard,” I giggled.
“It’s a little different,” Daddy nodded. “But they’re gonna pay you $50 for each show, and that’s more than twice what you’re making with Hank. I think this could be a good thing.”
Daddy wasn’t about to let me go out on the road with a bunch of guys. He said, “Wanda won’t take care of business, and she’s got no business being out there with a bunch of men going to a different town every night.” Mother and Daddy put their heads together. She had the better job at home. Daddy was still driving a cab, but he gave it up to become my manager and driver. I don’t know how they made it work financially in those early days, but I didn’t care. As long as I got to sing and play guitar I was happy. Daddy took a percentage, but he didn’t rob me or anything. I always had the money I needed, and we were in it together.
Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is about six hundred miles northwest of Oklahoma City, so Daddy and I set out in the very early morning before the day of the show. This was before we had interstate highways, so road trips were kind of slow going in those days. It was still dark when we left the house, so I lay down in the backseat as Daddy headed out of town on Highway 62. I catnapped for a little while, but I remember waking up as the sun began to appear on the horizon. I felt happy. I had my guitar. I had my daddy. And I had an audience on the other end of that road that was going to listen to me sing my songs. It’s funny now to think we’d drive hundreds and hundreds of miles on those old two-lane state highways to earn $50 for sharing the bill with a singer with a funny name we’d never heard of. But Daddy and I felt like we were living our musical dream.
After a long day of driving, we stopped for the night in Pocahontas, Arkansas, to get some rest. The next morning Daddy was up early. He slipped out of the room to grab a newspaper and came back with a cup of coffee from the diner next door. I like to stay up late at night, so I’ve never been a morning person. I was already on rock-and-roll time before I ever knew there was such a thing as rock and roll. “We’d better get on the road pretty soon, Wanda,” Daddy said quietly. I pulled the covers over my head and groaned. “Here, I got this for you,” he chuckled as he set the coffee cup on the nightstand. “You’re gonna have to develop a taste for it if this is the life you’ve chosen. Now come on and let’s get moving.”
It probably sounds old fashioned now, but in those days there was just no such thing as rolling out of bed, throwing on sweatpants and flip flops, and shuffling to the car half-asleep. Daddy certainly would have never allowed it, but I wouldn’t have allowed it for myself, either. Presentation was�
��and still is—very important to me, both on and off stage. I really do believe that a lady should always look her best. I see some of these gals go onstage today wearing an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and I just can’t help but wonder if they’re getting ready to entertain an audience or if they forgot to change clothes when they got done cuttin’ the grass! I guess things are just different now than they used to be, but I still kind of like the old way of doing things.
Daddy headed out to the car to read the paper while I got ready. I applied a fresh coat of fingernail polish, put on my makeup, and slipped on the three-quarter length yellow skirt I’d laid out the night before. I had a cute matching yellow short-sleeve blouse, which I accented with a black rose pin. I strapped on my heels and opened the door to the motel room to let Daddy know I was ready. “Finally,” he smiled. “I think the show’s already over by now!” I rolled my eyes and flashed him a big smile.
Four hours later I was standing in that radio station lobby shaking hands with the humorously named new singer. Once all the introductions were made, Elvis and I headed into the studio for our interviews while Daddy went out to the car to listen to the broadcast on the radio. Thanks to my daily show on KLPR back home, I probably had more live radio experience at that point than Elvis had. I wasn’t nervous as I answered the deejay’s questions, but I was a little distracted. It was hard for me to take my eyes off this new singer from Memphis. I found him very attractive, but he also seemed a little strange in a way that fascinated me. I was certainly drawn to him—and I hadn’t even heard a note of his music yet! He had an undeniable charisma, but he wasn’t like anyone I’d encountered before. He seemed like a confident man, but also had a boyish charm and slight shyness about him that made for a peculiar mix.
After the radio appearance Elvis and I headed out to the parking lot and said our goodbyes. I told him I’d see him at the show later and headed across the parking lot. I slid into the passenger seat of our Pontiac where Daddy was waiting. I pulled the door shut, but Daddy didn’t say anything. He was staring straight through the windshield shaking his head from side to side. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that,” he clucked as I followed his gaze and spotted Elvis, with his yellow coat and funny hair, sliding behind the wheel of a bright pink Cadillac. A man driving a pink Cadillac in 1955? This was before there was such a thing as Mary Kay Cosmetics, and nobody had ever so much as heard of a pink Cadillac. Elvis might as well have been getting into a rocket ship! Daddy just about drew the line there. “You might should stay away from that one, Wanda,” he said flatly. “I think this Elvis character could be a nut!”
Chapter 9
ROCK YOUR BABY
My first show with Elvis was at the Cape Girardeau Arena Building, and was a benefit for the Southeast Missouri Chapter of the United Cerebral Palsy Fund. Tickets were only a dollar each. Dancing started at 8:30, with the stage show scheduled to start at 10:00. Several of us were on the bill, including Little Willie Bryan, Johnny Daume and the Ozark Ridge Runners, and Bud Deckelman. The building held a few hundred people, and it was pretty crowded by the time I took the stage. I went on just before Elvis closed the show. At the time, it was just Elvis on rhythm guitar, Scotty Moore on lead electric guitar, and Bill Black on the upright bass. This was before DJ Fontana joined them on drums. Based on his instrumentation I figured Elvis was probably just another good-looking country singer, even if his style was a little eccentric.
I wanted to hear Elvis’s set, but when I left the stage I headed back to the dressing area to freshen up and rest for a moment first. Daddy and I were alone back there when suddenly we heard all this screaming and carrying on. It was like the whole place was in upheaval, and it pretty well scared us half to death. Daddy said, “My gosh, Wanda. I wonder if there’s a fire? You gather your things up and sit tight, but get ready to go quick if we need to get out of here. I’ll check it out and be right back.”
A couple of minutes later Daddy came back with a grin on his face. He leaned against the wall and started laughing. “What is it, Daddy,” I asked, “Is there anything wrong?”
He shook his head. “Wanda, you are not gonna believe this. Come on, you’ve gotta see for yourself.”
I followed him out the door, but it seemed like the screams had gotten louder. Daddy led me to the edge of the stage, and I suddenly realized that there was, in fact, a fire. But it wasn’t a literal fire consuming the building in flames. It was the heat of Elvis Presley drawing the girls from that audience into the fiery furnace of rock and roll that he was inventing before their very eyes. Those girls were pressed up against the bandstand as Elvis moved and gyrated across the stage, keeping each and every one of them right in the palm of his hand. He knew how to flirt with his fans, and I was fascinated. On top of that, he had such a great voice!
I immediately understood why Elvis made those girls feel the way they felt, but it was still quite amazing to witness it in person. We hadn’t seen anything like that before. Frank Sinatra was a heartthrob, but the girls in his audience just fainted. They didn’t lose their minds and fling themselves in a hysterical fit toward the stage. My jaw dropped in awe of both Elvis’s performing style and the reaction of the crowd. I stayed on the edge of that stage and listened to every last note of the rest of Elvis’s performance. His uncanny and seemingly contradictory mix of swagger and shyness cast a spell on everyone. It was almost as if he knew his natural tendency to be bashful was attractive, so he mustered up the courage to harness it with confidence. There was nobody else like him. Performing with this guy is going to be really nice, I thought to myself. I couldn’t wait to get to the Silver Moon Club in Newport, Arkansas, where I was scheduled to appear with him again the following night. I glanced over at Daddy standing next to me. He didn’t look as excited as I felt.
The next day we set out on the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Cape Girardeau down to Newport. The radio was on and neither of us had said much. I was just beginning to doze off somewhere around the Arkansas-Missouri state line when Daddy’s voice jolted me awake.
“That boy’s got to get his show in order,” he stated confidently.
“What boy is that, Daddy?” Of course, I knew exactly who he was talking about.
“That Elvis. He’s all over the stage messin’ around. And he’s got to stop slurring his words, too. Nobody can understand him.”
I smiled. “Well, I can understand him.” Daddy just shook his head. I don’t think they had a term for it yet in those days, but it was on that car ride that I first understood the concept of a generation gap.
Newport, Arkansas’s Silver Moon Club was a honky tonk, but it was a nice one. They had an elevated stage that could hold well over a thousand people. The place sold out that night with a crowd that was even larger than the one we’d played for in Cape Girardeau. Once again the girls screamed, squealed, and swooned. It was almost kind of frightening to experience, but seeing what kind of power a performer could have over a crowd intrigued me. Something was stirring within.
When I got home after those first two appearances with Elvis, I was just like every other teenage girl in America who was quickly coming down with a severe case of Elvis fever. I immediately went out and bought his records, and started counting down the days until I’d see him again.
On the first day of August, I was back on the road playing a series of shows with Elvis that had been packaged by Bob Neal. Elvis fever was spreading rapidly. In fact, he had spent the previous week on a tour through Florida headlined by comedian Andy Griffith. There were several other country performers on those shows, including Marty Robbins, Ferlin Husky, Jim Reeves, Jimmy Rogers Snow, and my old boyfriend, Tommy Collins. There’s a line in that song Merle Haggard wrote about Tommy that says he once followed Elvis Presley. That’s the truth, but you can bet nobody wanted to follow Elvis by the end of that week!
Three days before I saw him again, Elvis was mobbed for the first time at a baseball stadium in Jacksonville. The audience busted through police barri
ers and chased him to the locker room, managing to get away with his shirt, coat, shoes, ring, and watch. All he was left with were his pink pants, and even those were pretty well ripped to pieces! The Andy Griffith tour wrapped up in Tampa the night before Elvis and I played together once again. That Tampa show was where they took the famous picture of him and his guitar onstage that you see on the cover of his first album for RCA. It’s the one that says “Elvis” in pink lettering down the left side and “Presley” in green letters across the bottom. If you can picture that image, then you know exactly what Elvis looked like the day after it was taken when we reunited once again. And if you can’t picture it, I’ll just tell you. He looked good!
The first show of our package tour was in Tupelo, Mississippi, which was Elvis’s hometown before the Presleys moved to Memphis. It was the first time he’d played there since his recording career began, but the headliner for the tour was actually country star Webb Pierce. Elvis received second billing, above Red Sovine and then me. There were a half-dozen or more additional performers on the bill, including Bud Deckelman, who’d been with us in Cape Girardeau, Charlie Feathers, and quite a few local and regional acts. Elvis was dressed in black pants and a light-weight pink coat. He was probably only on stage for about twenty minutes, but we were playing at the fairgrounds, and the crowd was enormous. By the time Webb Piece took the stage to close the show, most of them were gone. And the ones that were left were too excited to concentrate on anything else but what they’d just seen. Webb had been drinking and he was a little off his game that night. But it hardly mattered. He’d already lost that crowd before he started. When Webb finished his set, he made it clear that he would never follow Elvis again. As far as I know, he never did. The remaining four shows we played on that tour all concluded with the rising king of rock and roll closing the proceedings.
Every Night Is Saturday Night Page 9
