In March of 1972 Capitol Records released my 20th album, Praise the Lord, featuring a cover photo that was, ironically, taken of me onstage in Las Vegas. Oddly enough, I’d begun recording it in January of the previous year, several months before I gave my life to Christ. I finished up the sessions in December, where I recorded an original song, “My Testimony.” I’d never written a gospel song, but I just opened my heart and shared what happened in my life. It’s one of the strangest songs I’ve ever written in terms of the feel and the structure, but it’s also one of my favorites because it’s pure autobiography.
There’s nothing like the zeal of a new convert. After I surrendered my heart to God, I was very enthusiastic. I was so full of joy because I’d found a very real peace in my spirit. I’d come to realize that everyone needs Christ. He died for everybody, but it’s up to each person to accept or reject His offer of love. I was ready to tell that “good news” to anyone who would listen, and, frankly, my zeal probably got to the point of annoying a few people. My heart was in the right place, and I never meant to be pushy, but looking back I realize I could have toned it down a bit. I confess I was a little impatient when others didn’t immediately share my enthusiasm. Ultimately, my new faith impacted my relationship with Capitol Records in unexpected ways.
After the Praise the Lord album, Capitol released a secular LP called I Wouldn’t Want You Any Other Way. It included the songs “Back Then” and “I Already Know (What I’m Getting for My Birthday),” both of which had been Top 40 country singles for me the previous year. They had enough material in the can to round out the album, so I wasn’t back in the studio until October of 1972. As I was preparing for the session, I told Ken Nelson I wanted to do another gospel LP. “No,” he said. “We can’t have that. Capitol’s not in the gospel field and, once we’ve done a gospel record with an artist, that’s all we need.”
Around that time I was approached by Word Records. They said they wanted to record my gospel material. I still had two years before the end of my Capitol contract, so I asked Ken if I could sign with Word to put out gospel music on their label while fulfilling my contractual obligations to Capitol by releasing country music for them at the same time. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t really work that way. You can’t be signed to two record labels at the same time.” We had several conversations about it, but he wasn’t changing his mind. I kept hounding him to at least let me record gospel for Capitol if he wouldn’t let me do it for Word. The answer was always, “No.” We were on the phone one afternoon when Ken finally said, “I think I know where your heart is, Wanda. You should pursue a company that specializes in gospel music so you can do what you want to do.” Even though I had two more years on my contract, Ken arranged for Capitol to let me out of the deal after recording one final album.
My last Capitol LP was Country Keepsakes, which was recorded during two trips to Nashville in late 1972 and early 1973. George Richey produced the first session, while Joe Allison finished the album. Capitol released two singles, “Tennessee Women’s Prison” and “Your Memory Comes and Gets Me,” but neither appeared on the charts.
In between the two final Capitol sessions I recorded my debut Word album, Country Gospel. All my Capitol recordings since the start of 1970 had been cut at Jack Clement’s studio in Nashville, which is where we did the Word album, too. In fact, many of the musicians who played on my Capitol recordings were there for the Word sessions, including guitarists Billy Sanford and Ray Edenton, and steel guitarist Weldon Myrick. There were several new faces, too, including Billy Ray Hearn, who was my producer and A&R man at Word.
There’s a perception that I turned my back on secular music in the 1970s, but that’s not true. Shortly after my conversion I was playing at a little club in Omaha on a double bill with Hank Thompson. Hank was a pilot and flew himself to most of his shows, but his band’s bus broke down en route to the performance. I was on first, so I stalled while Hank and one of his musicians, who flew with him, grabbed a couple of guys from the warm-up band and put together an impromptu version of the Brazos Valley Boys. I had already played a full ten song set by the time Hank figured out his plan, so I went back out and played another half dozen songs while he ran through the set list backstage with his new recruits. It wound up becoming a pretty informal performance while I was stalling, and it was actually a lot of fun. I was chatting with the audience members and I told them, “Write your requests down and pass them up to the stage. If we don’t know ’em, we’ll just make ’em up!”
I realized at that moment that the Lord was giving me a forum to talk about Him with my audience. I loved singing and sharing my story in churches, but I didn’t want to run the risk of just preaching to the choir. I also wanted to get out where folks who might never set foot in a sanctuary would have a chance to hear about God’s love. I continued to play country music in theaters and club venues, but wanted to avoid the honky tonks and bars where audiences were more rowdy and there was a lot of drinking going on. Wendell and I had given up alcohol in our own lives. When someone experiences such a dramatic conversion, the pendulum can swing in the other direction before striking a balance in the middle. That was true for us, but we also felt like God was calling us to that radical change of direction in our lives at that time. We knew it was a big adjustment, but we wanted to be faithful.
At the same time, the church was becoming more open to fresh ideas and recognized that it needed to change some things if it was going to reach a new generation. When I was growing up there were very strict rules about how one dressed for church and those kinds of things that can become legalistic. The 1970s saw an openness to modern life and a concerted effort to be more welcoming. I remember when I started wearing pants to church instead of skirts or dresses. Daddy, even though he wasn’t religious, could not believe it. He was running the Trianon Ballroom at the time and they had a strict dress code. Daddy said, “I’m not having any woman come into that club in pants, and you’re wearing them to church!” He didn’t understand that the world was changing. When Wendell and I became Christians, Daddy didn’t find us much fun to be around anymore. He was happy for us. He knew it was a good thing, but he still didn’t think it was for him.
In that same spirit of openness, I didn’t see any conflict with recording and performing both secular country music and gospel. In fact, that was my plan all along. If Ken Nelson had allowed me to record both styles for Capitol, I would have stayed as long as they’d wanted me. One of the things that attracted me to Word was that the owner came to our home and told us, “It’s a wonderful time for you to sign with us because we want to expand and start doing some country music, too.” That sounded good to me. I was voted Scandinavia’s most popular female singer in 1971. A country music promotional organization called “The Nashville Sound of Puerto Rico” named my Salutes the Country Music Hall of Fame album the “best of the decade” in 1972. That same year I embarked on an international tour as a UNICEF ambassador along with several country stars, including Tex Ritter, Connie Smith, Freddy Weller, Tom T. Hall, and Leroy Van Dyke. I knew people were still interested in hearing Wanda Jackson sing country music, and Word was filling our heads with thoughts of grandeur. We could do both country and gospel and work some big shows. They had all kinds of things in mind.
Just before we signed with them, Word opened a subsidiary imprint called Myrrh, which is probably best known as the label that launched Amy Grant’s career. The idea was that my gospel records would be released on Word and my country records would come out on Myrrh. In 1974 I released my debut country album for the new label, which was called When It’s Time to Fall in Love Again. The label released two singles, the title track and “Come on Home (to This Lonely Heart).” The first didn’t hit the country singles chart at all, and the second one just barely crept into the Top 100, peaking at number 98. It would be the last time one of my country singles would chart in Billboard.
Around the same time they released my country album, Word signed country legend Ray Price to their Myrrh imprint, too. Ray scored a Top 5 country hit with “Like Old Times Again,” so I had faith that the label could keep me on the country chart once we hit our stride together. I looked forward to trying again, but it turned out that I’d never get another chance to record country for them. The ABC/Dot label purchased Word in the mid-1970s and, after the sale, the folks at Dot didn’t know what we were talking about in terms of recording country. Dot was having tremendous country success with Roy Clark, Donna Fargo, Don Williams, and Tommy Overstreet, so they were doing just fine in the country market. They were more interested in Word for the gospel material, so I fell through the cracks once again. Whereas Capitol indulged me with one religious album and insisted I focus on country, the Word/Myrrh folks, after the sale, felt like they’d indulged my one country album and wanted me to focus on gospel. I was stuck, once again, being pigeonholed.
Between 1975 and 1978 I released three more albums for Myrrh, or Word, all of which were gospel. Now I Have Everything, from 1975, included “Jesus Put a Yodel in My Soul,” while neither Make Me Like a Child Again or Closer to Jesus are particularly memorable to me. We thought our deal with Word was going to be great, but the ABC/Dot purchase threw a wrench in the plan. At that point I wanted to be a big duck in a little puddle, but Dot had such a powerful roster that I felt like I was getting lost. I just didn’t feel at home there.
I had always been outside the mainstream of the country music world in Nashville, and the gospel music community wasn’t much different. The Dove Awards, which are the Christian music industry’s equivalent of the Grammys, never recognized me in any way. It didn’t really hurt my feelings, but it did make me a little mad. Just because I didn’t live in Nashville and go to one of the churches there doesn’t mean they couldn’t have invited me to sing on some program during their annual convention. But I never heard anything from them. At some point I decided, “Okay, I’ll just stay out west and do my thing.” I was already used to that anyway.
By the late 1970s the Word deal was over, and Wendell and I felt like we needed a change. We started to wonder what God’s plan for our lives would be going forward. We were praying about it a good bit, and Wendell felt like God was telling him that it was time for us to quit traveling and quit show business altogether. We were friends with Manley Beasley, who was a prominent Southern Baptist evangelist in Dallas, as well as with an Alaskan businessman named Jerry, who had sold a large piece of property and wanted to use the money for a new ministry endeavor. Wendell, Manley, and Jerry felt God was leading them to build an office building in North Dallas that would be leased to various ministries that could share resources, such as a printing department, marketing department, and office equipment as a way of uniting together and saving operational resources that could be directed into their direct ministry efforts.
Ever since Wendell and I met him, we tried to do what God wanted us to do, and, in 1979, Wendell discerned that this was God’s plan for our family. I wanted to be faithful to God’s leading, but I didn’t want to leave Oklahoma. When the time came, however, we bought a house in the North Dallas area and headed for Texas. There were a lot of tears accompanying our departure. It was especially tough for our kids. Gina was a junior in high school. She was a popular cheerleader with a lot of strong friendships, and it just broke her heart to think that she wouldn’t be able to join her classmates for their senior year.
Adjusting to life in Texas was a challenge because we didn’t know anyone there. If we needed a doctor or a dentist, for example, we had no idea where to go. Soon, however, we joined the First Baptist Church of Euless, Texas, where Jimmy Draper was the pastor. He was a great preacher and became a close friend. We had a beautiful home down there and, for the first time in my life, I had the experience of being a stay-at-home mom. I got into exercising during that period and also started cooking. I had put on a few pounds in the ’70s, but having the time to focus on my physical well-being resulted in a good health kick for our whole family. That part was fun, but I grew restless pretty quickly. All I’d ever known was travel and acclaim and getting patted on the back. Suddenly, all that was gone.
Everywhere I went in Oklahoma City people would know who I was, but that wasn’t the case in Dallas. I’d write a check at the grocery store and they would ask to see identification. I recall one time I was in a health food store talking with a girl who worked there. I mentioned that I was a singer.
“Oh, have you been on the Grapevine Opry?” she asked.
That was a local show that featured amateur talent. I said, “No, I haven’t.”
“Well, honey,” she said, “you can go up there and audition, and they might let you on the show!”
Well, that just about did it for me. I can’t even remember how I responded, but I know I didn’t like it. I knew that my identity was rooted in God’s love and not at the bright end of a spotlight, but I also enjoyed the accolades. I don’t know if it was ego, but I struggled with not being known because that meant I wasn’t out there connecting with audiences. I loved performing so much, and I began to feel like I wasn’t living up to the full potential of the talents God had given me.
Meanwhile, every time Wendell would find a piece of property for the Dallas ministry, there would be one hitch or another. It began to seem like Jerry, who was the primary financial backer, vetoed every option, and we began to wonder if he might be regretting getting into the venture for one reason or another. He had not moved from his home in Anchorage, and our other partner, Manley, already lived in Dallas. We were the only ones who’d uprooted our lives for the endeavor, so we bore the brunt of the pressure to see something materialize. We never lacked anything we needed, but these were leaner times for us than we were accustomed to. We had to rob Peter to pay Paul and shuffle funds around to keep our household going. God blessed us and met our every need, but we had to really trust Him. It didn’t come easy.
Wendell finally took a job with a ministry of the Baptist Sunday School Board that brought teaching via satellite TV to every church that had the connection. They used the technology to teach the local Sunday school teachers during a weeknight to prepare them for their classes that coming Sunday. He had to do some traveling for that job, and I was longing to go with him. I didn’t like it when he was away, plus I was itching to be back out there on the road, too.
After several months, Wendell and I were left scratching our heads. Why did God lead us to Dallas if the ministry opportunity was going to fall apart? Were we missing something about His plan for our lives? We were frustrated and confused, but wanted to hang in there if that’s where God wanted us. We fasted and prayed for three days to seek God’s direction. He seemed to be telling us both the same thing, which was, “I really don’t care where you live as long as you continue to serve me.” That gave us the freedom to go home to Oklahoma, which we did in 1980. Wendell used to say we “got out after eleven months on good behavior.”
When we came back to Oklahoma, we built a house in the same neighborhood where we had been living before we moved. In fact, the house we built upon our return is where I still live today. We got back into doing church appearances, but we were also selling Amway products, which is a pyramid sales program. If Wendell and I got into something, we got into it all the way. We’d invite people over for coffee, have meetings at our house, and try to interest them in the program. That experience taught me that I’m not a salesperson. I’m an entertainer!
In the early 1980s I cranked out some country releases for the budget labels Gusto and K-Tel, but they weren’t particularly inspired. The material was mostly comprised of re-recordings of earlier hits or covers of songs that had been popular by other artists. I also recorded a couple more gospel albums for a small label called Vine Records, but they didn’t get much attention. By the mid-1980s I hadn’t had a Top 40 hit in nearly a decade and a half. I wasn’t even fifty yet, but I felt like I’d been forced into an early retirement as time had passed me by. It wasn’t a good feeling, but I tried to adjust to my new reality and appreciate the fact that I still had the opportunity to sing for church audiences.
Then the strangest thing happened. Wendell and I had gone out of town to perform at a church. We were staying in a hotel suite with a separate living area so I could have an afternoon nap before the evening service, while Wendell got some work done in the other room. At one point he came into the bedroom just as I was waking up. It’s hard to describe, but there was almost a glow around him as he walked by the bed. It was so beautiful, but so startling that I couldn’t even say anything. Later he said, “Wanda, when you were taking a nap I was praying, and I had an experience that was almost like a waking dream or a vision. It was like our lives were a line. The line was going one way with your country music career, but then it took a ninety degree turn. That represented gospel music. I don’t know what it means, but the line continued on in that gospel direction, before taking an abrupt turn again. I don’t know what to make of it.”
I didn’t know what to make of it either, but I knew a change was coming. And I knew that God knew exactly what was in store for us.