My first Capitol session was recorded in the famous Capitol Tower near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. The building had just recently been constructed, and I was fascinated by the iconic round design. Now we’re used to seeing it in every movie that’s set in Los Angeles, but a round building in 1956? It seemed like something from a futuristic science fiction story!
We recorded four songs at the session, three of which were typical country fare of the day. The other selection—“I Gotta Know”—gave me a chance to dip my toes in the rockabilly waters for the first time. The song’s intro sounds as country as cornbread with plenty of fiddle, courtesy of Bakersfield’s Jelly Sanders, and steel guitar, thanks to the legendary Ralph Mooney, who pioneered the distinctive West Coast country sound popularized by Wynn Stewart, Buck Owens, and Merle Haggard. Then I sang the first note, “Well …” With that, the band picks up into a bouncing rockabilly rhythm for the verse, but slows back down into a twangy country waltz for the choruses. Coming out of the second chorus, virtuosic guitarist Joe Maphis played a fantastic rockabilly solo that’s probably my favorite part of the record.
Joe was a big influence on a lot of West Coast musicians, and I just loved him. He played on a lot of my early Capitol sessions. He played lead guitar faster than just about anyone in the world, but he was so laid back. One time he showed up to record and was wearing his house shoes! You didn’t see that kind of thing in the ’50s. He’d sit there. He’d have a cigarette in his mouth, and the ash would get so long on it while we were recording. After a while, he’d look around for an ashtray and would just casually flick the ash in the general direction of the closest one. Someone would finally get an ashtray and put it next to him. He was quite a guy! It’s a shame I didn’t realize how wonderful these musicians were that I was having the opportunity to work with. I recognize it now, but at the time I was pretty young and just took it for granted. At the time, I was wanting Joe to play more like Scotty Moore or Luther Perkins, who, respectively, gave Elvis and Johnny Cash their distinctive guitar sounds. But now I listen to some of the parts Joe was playing on my records and my jaw just drops. I had one of the best guitarists who ever walked the earth!
“I Gotta Know” was written by Thelma Blackmon, who lived in Oklahoma City. I went to school with her daughter, Vicki. After I started performing on KLPR, Vicki’s mom would bring me some songs from time to time. I thought she was really good and I liked the stuff she wrote. She was also tall and dark with black hair and was just a really pretty lady. She was the kind of woman I looked up to. I had recorded a couple of Thelma’s songs on Decca, including “It’s the Same World (Wherever You Go)” and “I’d Rather Have a Broken Heart.” But this one was something special.
At some point I told Thelma about Elvis encouraging me to try my hand at rockabilly music, but I confessed that I didn’t really know how to get into it. I had a dilemma because I wanted to venture into a new realm, but I didn’t want to lose my country fan base. Unbeknownst to me, Thelma took it upon herself to go off and write a song that blended the two styles together. When she brought me “I Gotta Know,” I said, “This is it!” The verses are full of references to “boppity-bopping,” “knocked-out music,” and “rock and rolling,” but it always came back to that country foundation. It seemed like a great way to keep the country fans and attract some new fans, too. It would be a natural segue. I had already jumped into the male-dominated world of country, so it was only natural to take the plunge into rock and roll, too.
“I Gotta Know” was released in July as my first single for the Capitol label. It started climbing the country charts in October and got all the way up to number fifteen in Billboard. It’s kind of funny that Ken Nelson signed me as a country artist, but we got a hit right out of the gate with a song that incorporated a lot of rock elements. You have to remember, though, that rock and roll was a new thing in the mid-1950s, so it took some time for people to realize it was a category unto itself. Sure, there were plenty of blues and R&B elements in rock, but there was a lot of country, too. It wasn’t uncommon for artists like Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and The Everly Brothers to place the same song on the country, pop, and R&B charts at the same time. In fact, even though I was embracing rockabilly, I was named the Best New Female Singer for 1956 in both the Deejay and Readers Poll in Country and Western Jamboree magazine. The best New Male Singer honors went to Elvis.
After “I Gotta Know” became a hit in the fall of 1956, I was invited to join the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. I was faced with yet another decision about whether or not to leave the Jubilee, but this time it was just no contest. I wasn’t interested. I liked being on television, and I loved my Jubilee family. And I have to admit that it felt kind of good to turn the Opry down after my experience there!
In the wake of the song’s success, Thelma Blackmon went on to record a few songs as an artist for the MGM label in 1957. And I would go on to immerse myself in rock and roll, but would continue to record country music as well. Ironically, I wouldn’t get a single on either the country or pop charts in the US for the rest of the 1950s. I would, however, cut some of my most enduring records and unwittingly create a legacy that, though not commercially successful at the time, would earn me generations of fans and plenty of accolades decades after the fact.
When it came time to return to Hollywood for another Capitol session that fall, we started with a newly written song called “Baby Loves Him.” When I say “newly written,” I mean that I literally wrote it on the way to the session because I only had three songs ready, but needed a fourth. That was the first rockabilly song I ever wrote. It was the same session where I recorded “Honey Bop” and “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad.” I knew from the reactions I got from my fellow students back in our high school assemblies that my audience would love that one. Ken wasn’t sure about it, but I knew that the girls like to hear that type of song where the girl’s taking charge. The message was basically telling a guy, “You think you’re so hot? I’ll show you.” There weren’t many songs written like that, and I believed in it. Ken conceded and let me do it.
If you search online you can find some grainy footage of me singing “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad” on a show called Ranch Party that was filmed in Los Angeles. The cast was made up of some of the biggest stars on the West Coast country scene, including Johnny Bond, Tex Ritter, Rose Lee Maphis, her husband, Joe—who played guitar on most of my Capitol sessions in the 1950s—and several others. What you’ll notice about that performance is that when I get to the title line—what they call the hook—I deliver it with a rough growl.
That’s how I intended to sing it on the original session, but it didn’t quite come out that way. Ken had called for a quick break just before we recorded that song. They had a little break room there at Capitol, so I went in with the other musicians. Everybody was drinking coffee, but I got a container of milk. I was chugging that milk when Ken came through the door.
“Wanda,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing? Put that down! Put down that milk!”
I couldn’t figure out why he was so worked up. Did he think the milk was bad or something? It tasted fine to me. I lowered it from my lips kind of sheepishly. I said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Nelson, but I don’t understand. Why?”
“Milk ruins your throat for singing,” he said. “You won’t be able to get your voice to do what you want it to.”
And, boy, was he right! By the time we got back in the studio and started recording, that line came out as a rasp instead of a growl. That could have been the day I unleashed the full Wanda Jackson rockabilly growl on the world, but it would have to wait. You can bet that was the last time I drank milk before singing!
Even though a lot of rockabilly musicians were appearing on the country charts, a growing number of older country fans didn’t care for the new trend. Rock and roll threw the music industry for a loop. It was like a whirlwind had started, and there I was right smack in the middle of it. There was definitely a bac
klash, and we artists had to tread that line carefully. I always thought it was kind of silly. Good music is good music no matter what you call it! Whether it be country, rock, blues, or pop, give me a good song and I’m going to love it. You have to feel kind of sorry for Ken Nelson and Capitol Records, however, in terms of knowing what to do with me. They signed me thinking they had a girl country singer, which they did, but then here I was showing up to my second session with all these rockabilly songs! The great thing about Ken, though, was that he signed artists for their talent and then trusted their instincts. He gave good advice, but he didn’t try to control me or turn me into something I wasn’t. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.
The one country song we did record that day was “Silver Threads and Golden Needles.” That’s one that’s been recorded many times over the years. A British group called The Springfields had a Top 20 pop and country hit with it in 1962. Linda Ronstadt took it to the Top 20 in 1974. It’s been recorded by The Everly Brothers, Janis Joplin, Dolly Parton, Dusty Springfield, and many others. My version, however, was the first. I included the original second verse that most other versions didn’t preserve. I’m not sure why they didn’t, but maybe it’s because that’s how it was done on the best-known version that others began copying. Hank Thompson had that song, which is how I got it. He thought it was a hit, but since it was written for a female, he passed it along to me. Hank was right. It was a hit. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t a hit for me.
My second Capitol single had “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad” on one side, and “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” on the other. For whatever reason, we just couldn’t get airplay for either one. Both songs have always gotten great reactions from audiences, and I still perform them to this day. When I do a country-oriented show now, I use “Silver Threads” as the opening song. Even if most folks know it from other recordings, I’m still glad I recorded it and I still think it’s a great one.
When I got into recording rock and roll, I never abandoned country. I thought of them as different branches of the same tree, and Capitol really latched onto the practice of releasing one of my rockabilly songs on one side of a single and a country song on the other. I give Ken a lot of credit in being open minded to let me try different things. Because of that I was usually willing to try things that he brought to me, even if I was a bit skeptical. Sometimes, however, there were some things I was really unsure about.
One of those songs was “Don’a Wan’a,” which honestly, I “don’a wan’a” anyone to ever hear again. There was a small window of time when calypso music was very popular, thanks to the success of Harry Belafonte. He scored some big hits in the ’50s with songs like “Jamaica Farewell” and “Day-O.” And, of course, whenever one artist gets a hit with something unique, everybody else then tries to do the same kind of song. “Don’a Wan’a” was written by Boudleaux Bryant, who was one of the greatest country songwriters of all time. This is probably proof that even the great ones have an off day. I don’t know how Ken Nelson got the song, but he wanted me to record it to try to get in on the Calypso craze. He suggested I adopt an islander accent, but it sounded like I was mocking that kind of music. I didn’t want to do it at all. I said, “Ken, I feel silly, so it’s bound to sound silly.” I was horrified by the whole thing. Capitol wasn’t great at rushing to get releases out, and by the time they did, the record got no attention. I’m not kidding you, it was almost like the day that song was released was the day calypso died. I don’t know for sure, but I may have been the one who killed it!
Capitol was still trying to figure out what to do with me, but they maintained faith that I could have strong potential in the teen market. One of the singles they released with that aim in mind was “Cool Love,” backed with “You Missed Me.” Neither song had much of a country sound. “Cool Love” was one I’d written with Vicki Countryman, my friend who was the daughter of Thelma Blackmon, who wrote “I Wanna Know.” There was a fairly short period of time that I went to high school with Vicki. I had to walk home pretty often if the weather was decent and I didn’t have a radio show that day. I’d usually walk with some of the kids I was friends with from church and, if I was with them, Mother didn’t worry about me too much.
One day it was just me and Vicki, and I had this idea for a song called “Cool Love.” We couldn’t write anything down while we walked, so we would throw out lines and memorize them as we went. When we got home I sat down at the piano and came up with the melody. That was one of the most unusual songs I ever wrote. It was kind of pop-oriented and just different from the things I usually came up with. When we recorded it, we goosed it up a little bit with a bluesy boogie-woogie-meets-rockabilly approach with Buck Owens on lead guitar. It didn’t do a thing at the time, but I’ve recorded that song in Germany and France, so it turned out to be a good one for me in the long run. The flip side was “Did You Miss Me,” which was a doo-wop influenced record, and the song that Bobby Lord wrote for me at the same time I wrote “Without Your Love” for him.
One of the country things I released in that era was “No Wedding Bells for Joe,” which was written by Marijohn Wilkin. She was another of my friends from the Jubilee. Marijohn later moved to Nashville, where she wrote massive hits such as “Waterloo,” “The Long Black Veil,” and “One Day at a Time.” I wasn’t able to get a hit with one of her songs, but I’m proud to be one of the first artists to record her material.
The B-side of “No Wedding Bells for Joe” was “Fujiyama Mama.” I’d wanted to record that song ever since I heard the original version by a black blues singer named Annisteen Allen. Her record came out in early 1955 when I was in the final stretch of my senior year of high school. I met up with some girlfriends at the drug store in Capitol Hill one day to hang out by the soda fountain and listen to records on the jukebox. Someone played “Fujiyama Mama” and I fell in love with it. There was a good record store in Capitol Hill and they had it in stock. Oddly enough, Annisteen’s version was released on Capitol. I bought it, took it home, and taught myself to play it immediately.
When I told Ken I wanted to cut the song, he was a little worried about me singing those words. For one thing, the lyrics brag about drinking a quart of Japanese wine, smoking dynamite, and shooting out the lights. That wasn’t exactly the kind of thing people expected from a young girl who was best known for singing country music. The sexual innuendo was not only strong, but referenced the destruction of the atom bomb and mentioned Nagasaki and Hiroshima by name. The war was still fairly fresh in peoples’ minds and Ken was concerned. He didn’t think it would be a good thing, but I talked him into letting me do it.
Once we began recording, Ken wanted me to sing it differently than I was doing it. I can’t remember if he wanted me to deliver it softer, or maybe change a line or what. Either way, I was getting pretty frustrated. Daddy finally came into the studio. He usually stayed in the control room with Ken, but he came in there and called me aside. He said, “Wanda, this is your song. You’re the one who wanted to do it, so you need to do it your way. Now you get back over to that microphone, and you just rare back and sing that damn thing the way you want to!”
Daddy’s words gave me the freedom to completely let go. I don’t know where that growl came from, but I tell people the songs themselves bring out things in our voice we didn’t know we could do. Without a carton of milk to thwart me like it had for “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad,” and with Daddy’s encouragement, I finally unleashed my full voice in the studio that I’d been bringing to the stage. And it worked! That record has become a classic and is the one I think of as the start of the fully unbridled rockabilly version of Wanda Jackson that fans know me for today.
Chapter 12
LET’S HAVE A PARTY
In April of 1957 I set out on a month-long tour with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Onie Wheeler, who was recording for Columbia Records at that time. We started off in Des Moines, Iowa, before making our way up into Canada for a series of ten
one-nighters. We appeared in Billings, Montana, working our way back down South, where we all appeared on the Big D Jamboree in Dallas. Forget about the stage, the real show was going on after-hours with Johnny and Jerry Lee. Those guys would tear up hotel rooms like you wouldn’t believe!
Jerry Lee, in particular, was a wild man. If you didn’t watch him, he’d rip up everything in sight! I remember one time we got to a job in the early afternoon. Jerry Lee always went in early to check out the piano. He’d get so mad if it hadn’t been tuned or if a key was stuck or something. We didn’t have riders in our contracts then, so you had to wait until you got to a gig to find out if they’d supplied everything you needed. I was there listening to him try out this one particular piano, and, boy, was he mad. It was an old upright that had seen better days. He said, “Who would bring a piano like this and expect me to play it? I’ll tear this thing up before my show’s over so nobody else will have to use it. I’m gonna put it out of its misery.” And he did, too, boy. He kicked the bottom of it in, put his feet up on those keys and busted as many of them as he could. He kind of frightened me. I didn’t want to be around Jerry Lee too much.
Somewhere along the way on that tour we did a Sunday matinee and didn’t have an evening show. I had seen a little church close by where we were staying. I told Daddy I’d like to go to church that evening, but he wasn’t interested. I said, “I’ll ask if anybody wants to go.” I’m sure he probably laughed to himself at that one since those boys weren’t exactly big churchgoers at that time.
“Okay, but hold on a minute,” he said. “Let me go let them know you have something to ask them.”
He went back where all the guys were hanging out and drinking and doing whatever else those boys were doing that Daddy did his best to shield me from. He cleared the way and made sure everyone was dressed.
Every Night Is Saturday Night Page 12
