With Otto Demler (left) and his engineer at Electrola Studios in Germany.
After “If I Cried Every Time You Hurt Me” faded from the charts in 1962, I couldn’t get back into the Top 40 to save my life. Capitol released several singles, including “I Misunderstood,” “The Greatest Actor,” “One Teardrop at a Time,” “But I was Lying,” “This Should Go on Forever,” and “Let Me Talk to You.” None of them, however, hit the Billboard charts.
I was just coming off my most successful couple of years as an artist, but I was having a lot of trouble holding on to it. One of the big reasons that it often felt like an uphill climb for me was because I chose to remain in Oklahoma City. I knew the best songwriters were in Nashville, and I knew how they operated. If they wrote a great song, they wanted someone to record it immediately. Why would they be motivated to sit on a potential smash hit by holding it for me when there were plenty of popular singers right there in Nashville who were available to record it right away? The harsh reality is they couldn’t get those songs to me, and if they could get them to me, I couldn’t set up a recording session on short notice. The other girls who were based in Nashville got the first crack at the best songs. I often got the dregs, and I probably missed out on some hits because I wasn’t in the middle of the action. As they say, you must be present to win.
I have to admit that moving to Nashville was pretty tempting, but there was no way we could do that. We had our family nearby to help take care of the kids, which we wouldn’t have had in Tennessee. Wendell and I discussed it on several occasions, but choosing not to go to Nashville was a sacrifice we decided to make for our family. Our children’s lives were unstable enough as it was. We weren’t about to rip them from the only consistent support network they had and throw them into an even more chaotic life. It wasn’t an easy decision, in terms of my career, but I have no doubt it was the right decision for us and our family.
I finally caught another break in 1965 and found myself back on top with another number one single. But I had to go outside the Nashville system to make it happen. In fact, I had to go pretty far. Capitol Records asked me if we’d be willing to go to Germany to record some songs for Electrola Records, which was their German distribution partner. To make matters more interesting, they told me they wanted me to sing in German. I’m a country girl from Oklahoma, so I have enough trouble with English! I said, “How in the world am I going to sing in German?”
I was told that Electrola was interested in working with me because my voice was “very pleasing to the German ear.” The idea was that they would write material especially for me and then coach me on how to sing it. I was pretty intimidated at the prospect and, even though I’ve faced plenty of challenges, sometimes my first instinct is to run the other direction. I was wary, but Wendell talked me into it. We decided it would be a good opportunity to travel together on someone else’s dime. We’d never been to Europe. In fact, at that point, Wendell had never left the US, and the only international trip I’d ever taken was my tour of Japan. Plus, we figured there was nothing to lose in giving it a try.
In March we flew to Cologne, where Electrola was based, and where they had their big pressing plant. When we went to the studio we met Otto Demler, an Austrian producer who was assigned to oversee the sessions, as well as a German vocal coach who was recruited to help me with my pronunciation. They hadn’t sent me the songs ahead of time, so I was feeling pretty uneasy. “Where are all the musicians?” I asked after we spent a few minutes getting to know one another.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Otto smiled. “We’ve already recorded the instrumental tracks for you. We’ll just add your vocals.”
By that point I was getting really nervous. I said, “How in the world can you have an arrangement made and the tracks recorded when you don’t know what key the songs should be in for my voice?”
Otto chuckled. “Oh, we’ve done our homework,” he said. “Our writers studied your recordings and they know your vocal range.”
I shot a glance at Wendell. He nodded reassuringly, but I could tell he was feeling a little uneasy, too. “Ken Nelson usually counts on me for the tempo of the songs,” I added. “He’s always told me not to let the band set the tempos.” Otto put his hand on my shoulder.
“Trust me,” he smiled. “We have just the right tempos for you.” I finally decided to just go with the flow.
Otto had four songs prepared, starting with “Santo Domingo.” I had to write out all the words phonetically in order to know how to deliver them correctly. We’d record two or three lines and then we’d stop so I could look over the next couple of lines to make sure I could pronounce them right. The vocal coach would get exasperated, grab my chin, and try to move my mouth right. He was giving me fits! I kept getting the words wrong and was getting incredibly frustrated. I would get really mad, start crying, and run out of the studio to the ladies’ room. Wendell would have to come in and give me a pep talk to keep me going. I spent six hours at the microphone for “Santa Domingo” alone. There were over thirty musicians on that recording, including the string section, four backup singers, and an opera singer from Berlin who they recruited to sing those high notes. Once I got through my part, the final record just gave me chills. In terms of production and technology, the Germans were ahead of us at that time. It was definitely the most lavishly produced record I’d ever been a part of up to that point. When my part was finally completed, however, we still had three more songs to go!
A long day stretched into a long night, but I got through it. I felt silly most of the time because I didn’t really know what I was singing about. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be sad or happy. One song had a recitation, so that was an interesting moment! In the end, they said I did an excellent job and that my German sounded natural. Of course, I have no way of knowing if that’s true or not, but when they released “Santo Domingo” as a single, it became a Top 5 hit on Germany’s national chart and reached number one in Bravo, which was the country’s preeminent teen magazine. I think it’s really interesting that the only two number one records in this Oklahoma country gal’s career came about in Japan and Germany!
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 idea 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.