On the set of my TV show, Music Village.
While my priorities were admittedly out of whack for much of the 1960s, I experienced successes and achieved career milestones in that era that I’m still very proud of. One of my personal highlights was when Buck Owens scored a Top 10 country hit with a song I wrote for him called “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around.” Buck was one of my buddies, going all the way back to when he played rhythm guitar on my first Capitol sessions in the ’50s. That was long before he signed his own artist deal with Capitol and, though I liked everybody I was working with in the studio, there are certain folks you just have a rapport with. Buck was one of those guys.
After my first Capitol session in 1956, I was still hanging around the studio after we finished recording. It was the first time I’d ever met Buck, but I felt so sorry for him when I saw him putting his guitar in an old case with broken latches. He’d wrapped white surgical tape around it to hold the case shut so his guitar wouldn’t fall out. When he picked it up he had to put it under his arm because the handle was broken. I thought, “Gee, I hope that guy can make enough money to get himself a decent guitar case one of these days.” In addition to going on to write and record an endless list of hit records, Buck would become a savvy entrepreneur who bought and sold radio stations, real estate, and various businesses. I once read that his net worth was over $100 million, so I guess he could have bought every guitar case on the face of the earth if he wanted to!
I remember another time we were in the studio and Ken Nelson was wanting me to do something with my vocal performance, but I couldn’t understand what he was trying to get me to do. He was trying to change my approach to the song. I went over to Buck, who was stationed nearby, and said, “Buck what does how I’m doing it sound like to you?”
He got a huge grin on his face and replied, “You sound like Wanda Jackson.”
I laughed and replied, “Thank you, then I’m going to sing it my way!”
I wrote “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around” in Nashville when I was in town for the big DJ Convention they used to have every year. I was in my hotel room one night with nothing to do but flip through a movie magazine. There was an interview with Joan Collins, who was talking about her relationship. She said something like, “I told him we’ve got to stop kicking our hearts around because we’re just hurting each other.” When I saw that I thought, Man, what a title! I got out my guitar, a pen, and some paper. As I’ve mentioned, I always liked to have another artist in mind when writing. I thought, Who would sound good singing those words? Buck, who had already had several hits by then, just popped into my head. I’d decided I’d make it nice, clean, and simple and hope that Buck would record it.
Not long after, Buck and I were on the same bill for a show somewhere. I told him I had written a song for him, played it backstage in a dressing room, and gave him the lyrics. He said he really liked it and wanted to record it. When I got home I made a recording and sent it to him, but I didn’t hear anything else about it.
One day Wendell was outside cleaning the cars at the first little house where we lived. Suddenly he called through the kitchen window, “Wanda, get out here quick!”
I thought something was wrong, so I ran out as fast as I could. I didn’t even notice that he had the radio playing. “What is it, Wendell?” I asked breathlessly.
“Listen! Isn’t that your song?” he said.
Sure enough! There was Buck on the radio singing his new single, “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around.” That was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life to have somebody in mind when writing a song and then have them sing it exactly the way I wrote it. Buck didn’t change a single line or make the slightest adjustment to the melody at all. I was so happy with that. It’s been a great song in my career, and I’m sure glad I didn’t have anything else to do that night in Nashville but read magazines!
In 1970 I joined Buck, his son Buddy, the Hager Twins, Billie Jo Spears, and Tex Ritter on the Country Caravan Tour, a string of European dates intended to promote Capitol Records. By that point Buck was the biggest star in country music and had been named Capitol’s Artist of the Decade. It was a thrill to get to spend some time with him again. I’m grateful to have had the chance to have Buck play on my early records and to have contributed a song to his impressive string of hits. They might just be a couple of pieces of a very large puzzle, but it means a lot to me to know I had the chance to contribute to Buck’s development on his way to superstardom.
In 1966 Buck Owens launched his own TV show called The Buck Owens Ranch Show that predated his duties co-hosting Hee Haw with Roy Clark. Buck’s show was produced by Bud and Don Mathis, furniture dealers in Oklahoma City with whom Wendell and I socialized. The Mathis brothers had a show of their own called Country Social that I appeared on several times. A year before they teamed up with Buck, I partnered with them to launch a syndicated program of my own called Music Village. We launched the show in the fall of 1965 and managed to place it in several national markets. Other country artists had their own syndicated TV shows at that time. While Porter Wagoner’s was the most popular, there were others hosted by Bill Anderson, Arthur (Guitar Boogie) Smith, Ernest Tubb, Flatt & Scruggs, Billy Grammar, and even my old friend Bobby Lord. As far as I know, mine was the only syndicated country music television program hosted by a woman.
The stage set was designed to look like a little town. We had storefronts and a little church down at the end of the street, like you see in the old cowboy movies. I would perform with my band; Bud Mathis would appear; we had a bluegrass gospel group called The Black Mountain Boys; we’d have guests on almost every week; and we even had a comic character, like every country show in that era. We couldn’t think of anyone to play the rube, so Wendell decided he’d be the comic relief. He wore overalls and portrayed Lenny, a dumb farm boy, whose character was inspired by Jonathan Winters, who used to play a similar role.
We had six or seven workable sets on Music Village. We always started down at the honky tonk and ended up at the church. I particularly liked the introduction. We had a real stagecoach that we got from an amusement park called Frontier City. We’d have everybody line up on one side of the stagecoach with the camera at just the right angle so you couldn’t see the line. It gave the impression that we were all packed into this little stagecoach and were emerging, one at a time, like clowns from a tiny car. One time we brought in live horses, but only once! The crew put down some plastic around the set in anticipation of the inevitable. What we didn’t count on was how bad it stank under those hot lights!
We had fun on the show, but it was hard work. When we syndicated it we sold it to furniture companies in various markets. I would talk about furniture and then we’d go to the break. The local furniture company would then splice in their own promos. In other words, it was designed specifically for furniture stores to sponsor, since that’s what the Mathis brothers did. We’d mail out these huge two inch tapes on a reel to the various markets, but would rotate them. We’d send a tape to market one, and then it would go to market two the next week, and on and on. Once it went to the last market they would return it to us.
Eventually, we ran into some disagreements with Bud and Don. When they started doing Buck’s show, it was basically the same kind of show we were doing. It was shot on the same stage and competed for the same market. There was a falling out and we ended up erasing all those tapes! Boy, I sure wish I could have them again. I’d love to see some of that footage after all these years, but it’s gone. As tensions escalated with our partners, Wendell and I realized that the show was taking us away from our touring business anyway. It was time to refocus. Eventually, we decided to agree to disagree with Bud and Don and separated as friends. All in all, Music Village lasted no more than a year, but I’m proud to have been a female pioneer in country music television.
Our friends Jude and Jody, who were in the furniture business but also worked as entertainers, started out working for the Mathis Brothers before they struck out on their own. Jude and his wife were the ones we had some fun with when they showed up unexpectedly in Germany. Jody, who I went to a dance with in high school, ended up marrying Norma Jean. Wendell and I actually hosted their wedding in our home. It’s kind of funny to think that my best friend ended up marrying a guy I’d dated in high school, and had the ceremony in the home I shared with my husband, who was her former boyfriend whom I’d effectively stolen. She wound up with the guy I’d dated first, and I wound up with the guy she’d dated first. Then my husband and her husband became hunting buddies! Plus, we’d all been in business with Bud and Don Mathis. The local entertainment world was like our own little soap opera, so I guess that was the country music version of Peyton Place in Oklahoma City!
One of the things I’m grateful for is that Capitol gave me the chance to record often, so I built up a substantial body of work in the 1960s. In 1964 I released the Two Sides of Wanda Jackson album, which featured country on one side of the LP and rock on the other. One of the songs I recorded for that project was “Honey Don’t,” by my old friend Carl Perkins. I worked with Carl a lot in the ’50s and I always enjoyed watching him because he was such a good entertainer. The Beatles also recorded the song, but I latched onto it before they released their version. I guess you could say the Fab Four and I both had good taste when it came to picking songs.
The Beatles, of course, changed everything in the 1960s. The British Invasion marked a turning point in rock and roll as all these bands that had been influenced by Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and my fellow American rockers expanded on what we created and took the world by storm. Suddenly, it was hard for us original rockers to compete. Music tends to experience waves of popularity. There have been times when early rock and roll was in vogue, and times when it seemed hopelessly outdated. The same can be said for country. For six decades I’ve seen these cycles come and go, and was always grateful that my diverse musical interests helped me ride out some storms that might otherwise have been a big challenge to my career. As the 1960s progressed, I became increasingly identified as a country artist, which, of course, was a return to my roots.
In 1966 Capitol released “The Box It Came In,” which was my first Top 20 country single since 1961.
That was one Ken Nelson was a little worried about because of the subject matter. The lyrics are written from the perspective of a woman who’s been abandoned by her man. He even took her wedding dress, leaving only “the box it came in” in her closet. He gave the dress to another woman, so the lyrics describe that the box he’ll soon be in will be lined with satin. I thought it was great, but Ken was always a little scared of courting controversy. I always liked feisty songs, so I convinced him we should do it. The gamble paid off, resulting in a hot streak. Twenty of the next twenty-two singles I released hit the charts, and more than half of those broke into the Top 40.
One that only got up to number 46 was “This Gun Don’t Care,” which had me warning a woman who might take my man that a gun doesn’t care who it shoots. That was another feisty one, which might have reinforced my reputation as the sweet lady with the nasty voice. Wendell and I really thought that one would be a big hit. We flew to Hollywood just to do a photo session of me holding two pistols. Capitol used the photo in an ad in Billboard, but it didn’t become a big hit. I was surprised when the follow-up single was the one to hit the Top 10. “Tears Will Be the Chaser for Your Wine” was a great song, but I really thought “This Gun Don’t Care” would be the one to take off. You can never predict what will or won’t catch on, but I was carving out a voice in that era for songs from a strong and fiery female perspective. My rock-and-roll attitude was informing my country success.
Shortly before that streak of hits began, I’d released an album called Blues in My Heart. That was my first LP that appeared on the Billboard country chart, and it’s one of my personal favorites of my albums. I got to sing The Delmore Brothers’ “Blues Stay Away From Me” and Marty Robbins’s “Don’t Worry About Me.” I loved those kinds of songs. I had great vocal backing by The Jordanaires and my old friend Marijohn Wilkin from the Ozark Jubilee. I look back very fondly on recording that album in Nashville.
By 1969 I was deep into a string of successful country singles that included “Both Sides of the Line,” “A Girl Don’t Have to Drink to Have Fun,” “My Baby Walked Right Out on Me,” and “My Big Iron Skillet.” That one came from a guy named Bryan Creswell who had gone to school with Wendell. We would see Bryan and his wife, Wilda, at reunions and that kind of thing. We socialized with them occasionally, but when Bryan told us they had written a song I thought, Oh no. Everybody’s got a song. I braced for the worst. But it turned out it was a good song, so I recorded it. I still perform “My Big Iron Skillet” in my shows. Even though the rock audience doesn’t know it well, I just mention that you can’t understand the full scope of my career if you don’t know about the country years. Plus, I love to do that one for the girls, who always enjoy it.
I was enjoying my success in the late 1960s, but Wendell and I were always looking to try new things and push my career into new territory. I had been releasing a steady stream of studio recordings for the better part of two decades, but always felt like I was at my best on stage. One thing I’d never attempted was a live album. In 1969 Ken Nelson and I decided to give it a shot. We booked two nights at a club called Mr. Lucky’s in Phoenix, where I always had great crowds. I remember it was the same week that the astronauts first walked on the moon, which everyone was talking about. I brought my own band, but we also added some Nashville musicians, including guitarist Fred Carter and drummer Willie Ackerman, to enhance the sound. Willie was a studio player and was not used to pounding the drums the way I wanted them in a live setting. I want the drums to kick me in the butt! He played his heart out, but we felt sorry for him when he showed up on the second night. His hands were all wrapped with tape because he’d gotten blisters from playing so much more aggressively than usual. I said, “Oh no! Willie, I’m so sorry about your hands.” But he didn’t care.
“Wanda, I’ve never had this much fun in my life!” he said. “I don’t normally get to cut loose like this.” He was so happy. And so was I.
The only thing I wasn’t happy about, in terms of my career, was that I was working with Ken Nelson less and less in that era. He came and produced the live album at Mr. Lucky’s, but for the two years prior to that, I’d been assigned to producer Kelso Hurston. I had always been so comfortable with Ken and trusted his judgment, so it was a big change to get used to someone else being in charge in the studio. I liked Kelso fine, but, to me, Ken Nelson was Capitol Records.
By 1970 it seemed that Capitol was regularly changing A&R men on me. I never knew who was going to be overseeing my sessions. After Kelso, George Richey became my producer. He’s best known for writing songs like “The Grand Tour” by George Jones and “Till I Can Make It on My Own” by Tammy Wynette. He later married Tammy and became her manager. George was a hot producer in the early ’70s, but I felt like he was more interested in the musical tracks than in my performance. He wasn’t making any suggestions, paying me any attention, or giving me any feedback. That just made me mad. Even though I had a Top 20 single with “A Woman Lives for Love,” a song George produced and co-wrote, I said I didn’t want to work with him anymore.
After George I was assigned to Larry Butler. He produced several of my sessions, including the one that spawned “Fancy Satin Pillows.” It fell just shy of the Top 10 and was my last country single to land in the Top 20. Larry was talented, but it was a struggle to recapture the feeling I had working with Ken. Maybe the times were changing and producers, in general, were becoming stars in their own right, but it wasn’t the world I was used to. Ken Nelson had faith in every artist he worked with and let us shape our own destinies in terms of selecting and arranging songs. He listened to us because he trusted our instincts. He had an uncanny knack for signing artists for who they were and letting them follow their own voice. That’s why he had so much success with Hank Thompson, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and so many others.
I might have been mourning the loss of working with Ken on a regular basis, but I was being recognized by the industry during the 1960s in a way that was gratifying. In 1965 I was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Country Vocal Performance for the Two Sides of Wanda Jackson album. My second Grammy nomination came several years later for “A Woman Lives for Love.” I had the chance to perform at the show in March of 1971. That was really exciting. I got a beautiful gown, and Wendell and I went to Hollywood for the live telecast. Charley Pride had the male nomination, but they had me perform his song and him perform my song. I was disappointed. I did, however, enjoy getting to meet some of the other celebrities there. John Wayne was a part of the show, as was Aretha Franklin. I remember meeting The Jackson 5 backstage. When I found out their name was Jackson, I had to meet them. That was the day the future King of Pop met the Queen of Rockabilly! Though I was riding high with my career, a big change was coming later that year that I could never have imagined.