With my first boyfriend, Leonard Sipes, who would later be known as Tommy Collins.
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!
You can imagine that, by the time I started dating Leonard, I was still pretty innocent about the world. But he taught me some things I needed to know. Sometimes we might be parked alone somewhere, and we’d get to kissing and making out a little bit. His hands would start wandering, but then he’d stop after a few minutes.
“Wanda! You shouldn’t have let me do that,” he’d say.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know,” I’d say. And he’d nod his head.
“You don’t let a guy do that. That’s just not the thing to do for a young lady.”
He said he was trying to teach me about how to behave. Of course, I see right through that excuse now! I think he might have wanted to do a little something more than help me learn to behave, but he felt conflicted about it. A few years later, he wrote and recorded a major chart-topping single called “You Better Not Do That.” It was about trying to resist “a cute little gal,” and I always wondered if the inspiration might have gone back to those moments with the two of us alone in his Cadillac—I mean pickup truck.
Even though I dated Leonard for a good while and cared for him deeply, we ultimately wound up more like close friends than a typical couple. Excluding the aspect of our relationship I just mentioned, the dynamic between us was kind of like a big brother and little sister. He looked out for me and helped me understand more about how the world worked. We also enjoyed listening to music and playing our guitars together, which is something I’ll always cherish.
One time Leonard was at the house, and we were telling him how we traveled to Bakersfield just about every summer. He was always talking about wanting to go back to California. I think he’d been there briefly during a short stint in the Marines before he was honorably discharged following a shoulder injury. He didn’t know where in California he wanted to go, but he figured one place was as good as another. Daddy invited him to join us on our vacation and ride out there with us.
I don’t remember much about the drive, but once we got to California we stopped in Los Angeles first. Leonard and I both performed on radio station KXLA in Pasadena. There was a popular DJ at the time named Squeakin’ Deacon who had us on his show. We also appeared on cowboy singer Doye O’Dell’s TV program on KTLA, which was a huge thrill. Probably the most exciting thing for me was getting to go visit Nudie’s Rodeo Tailor, the outfitter to all the Western stars of the day. There was no way either Leonard or I could afford to purchase one of Nudie’s dazzling rhinestone-encrusted outfits, but I remember Leonard paid five dollars, which was no small sum in those days, for one of Nudie’s neckties. I looked at all the beautiful clothes and dreamed about having my own custom Nudie outfit one day.
When we got to Bakersfield, Leonard went off by himself one night to a dance hall called Rainbow Gardens. The singer and band leader who performed at the club every weekend was named Terry Preston. He later became a successful country star using his real name, Ferlin Husky. During one of the breaks, Leonard went up to Ferlin and introduced himself. Before the night was over, Leonard was onstage with the band. Ferlin could see his talent immediately and talked him into staying in Bakersfield to join his stage show and play with his group.
Even though he had planned to return to Oklahoma City with us at the end of our trip, Leonard and his fancy Western tie remained in Bakersfield. He didn’t even go back home to collect his things. He rented a room from my Aunt Electa, who had moved from the cotton patch into town and took in boarders to help make ends meet after Uncle Albert died in 1950. I was sad that Leonard didn’t return home with us, but I was happy knowing he was still part of our family out in California.
What was supposed to be a two-week trip for Leonard turned into twenty years. He got a job as a chemist with Richfield Oil Company and continued to write songs and perform. Ferlin was already signed to Capitol Records and introduced Leonard to his producer, Ken Nelson. Ferlin started recording his songs, and then Faron Young, another Capitol artist, recorded Leonard’s “If You Ain’t Loving, You Ain’t Living,” which became a big hit.
Soon Ken Nelson signed Leonard to Capitol Records, where he changed his name to Tommy Collins and recorded his first major single, “You Gotta Have a License,” in 1953. The lead guitarist on that recording was Ferlin Husky. Within a few months Ferlin and Jean Shepard, another Capitol Records country artist who was signed by Ken Nelson, found massive success with their duet recording of “A Dear John Letter.” The song hit number one on the country chart and even reached the Top 5 on the pop chart. It made major stars of both Ferlin and Jean. Ferlin moved out of Bakersfield soon after.
With Ferlin gone, Tommy recruited Bakersfield’s Buck Owens for his next recording session. It wouldn’t be long before Buck and Merle Haggard would make Bakersfield famous as the country music capital of the West, but it was Tommy who helped pave the way for their success. In 1954 and 1955, Tommy landed half-a-dozen songs in the Top 15 on the national country charts, and I couldn’t have been more proud.
If Daddy hadn’t invited Leonard Sipes to join us on our family trip to California, he might have never met Ferlin Husky, gotten signed to Capitol Records, or given Buck Owens his first real gig as a studio musician. He might not have met Merle Haggard, who always credited Tommy with helping him learn how to be a great songwriter. Of course, Tommy could have just gotten out to California some other way. He was so talented he was destined to make a name for himself. And Buck and Merle almost certainly would have found their way to fame, too. There was just no denying how good they were! It seemed like there was something in the water out in Bakersfield when it came to great music. But sometimes I like to think that maybe the Jackson family had a hand in setting the wheels in motion that gave birth to the Bakersfield sound!
In the fall of 1952 I started tenth grade, which meant leaving junior high and starting a new adventure at Capitol Hill High School. Now that I’d had a real boyfriend, the floodgates opened up. Mother used to say, “Wanda put down her doll, and the next day she started dating boys.” I guess to her it must have seemed that way, but I just enjoyed spending time with Leonard, and I enjoyed getting dressed up to go out. I was fourteen years old and, I was coming down with a bad case of boy craziness.
In many ways, I was turning into a stereotypical teenager. I remember that Mother could not get me to hang my clothes up. I’d throw them on the bed or lay them across a chair or whatever. She was such a “type A” personality that it just drove her nuts. She’d tell me to do it, but when I didn’t she’d come along and hang them up for me. She spoiled me in that way. Daddy finally told her to stop doing that. He said, “Just let it pile up. Let her see how bad it can get.” But I still didn’t hang them up. Then some crisis moment would come where I couldn’t find a particular white blouse I needed to go with a particular skirt or something. Mother would say, “Well, look in that pile,” and I’d find it all messed up and wrinkled. She would keep harping on me to just put the clothes away. Daddy would finally say, “Wanda, go in there and do what you’re being asked to do.” He started by speaking to me about it firmly, but finally had to spank me to get me in line again. He said, “You WILL hang your clothes up. Your mother can’t follow you around all your life.” Daddy was trying to teach me responsibility and help me for the future, but Mother would have just taken care of me and babied me if it was up to her. I don’t know why I was so rebellious about that one particular matter, but that was the last time Daddy ever spanked me. I guess I was rapidly leaving the little girl stage and becoming a young woman.
With Leonard Sipes on his way to becoming Tommy Collins in California, I found myself another Leonard. Literally. My second boyfriend was a guy in school that I’d had my eye on, and his name was Leonard, too. We went out several times and I really liked him. He ended up asking me if I’d be his girl, and he gave me his class ring to wear. That lasted for a little while, but my boy craziness started flaring up, and I got to wondering about my options.
Maybe I was restless or maybe I’d gotten bored, but my time with the second Leonard had run its course. I was tired of him, and I knew it wasn’t right to keep stringing him along if I wasn’t really serious about our relationship. I decided to give him back his ring. I made up my mind to do it after school, and I remember waking up that day just sick to my stomach. I don’t like confrontation, and I can’t stand the idea of somebody being mad at me or me being mad at them. I felt queasy and anxious all day. I told Beverly about my plan to return the ring. I said, “I just can’t stand having to do this and break poor Leonard’s heart. I promise I will never wear another boy’s ring again.” She liked to remind me of that promise a few years later after I met a young man named Elvis Presley. But that’s another story.
I always liked older guys, so once I started high school, if I dated anyone they were usually a senior. That meant I went to three different proms. As a tenth-grader I was invited to the senior prom by a boy named Billy, whose ill-fitting suit was just about falling off him. He must have borrowed it from his father. I still have photos of myself as a teenager going to all these events with different boys. These were usually just school friends or boys I went out with once or twice. I was too wrapped up in my music and too boy crazy to pay attention to any one young man for very long.
That’s not to say I didn’t have a handful of steady boyfriends for short periods of time. I remember a young man named Ronnie Bruce that I enjoyed talking with. He was so cute and was very athletic. There was another boy named A.G. Lane who I really fell for. He was a steel guitarist who was very talented, and I used him on some performances sometimes. We dated for a little while and we went to his senior prom together in 1954. Then there was Raymond Brooks, who was my date to my senior prom in 1955. I went out with him for a while because he was such a good dancer!
I even went to a Christmas dance with Harold Taylor, who was better known as Jody Taylor around Oklahoma City. Jude and Jody were performers who also worked in the furniture business later on. Jody ended up marrying country singer Norma Jean, who was a very close friend of mine. But that was okay because I ended up marrying someone Norma Jean had dated. But that, too, is another story.