Every Night Is Saturday Night Read online

  EVERY NIGHT IS SATURDAY NIGHT:

  A COUNTRY GIRL’S JOURNEY TO THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME

  Copyright © 2017 by Wanda Jackson Goodman. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, with the exception of brief passages embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover design by Becky Reiser, Rabar Productions

  Book production by Adept Content Solutions

  Photo Credits

  Photo of author Wanda Jackson by Jeff Fasano.

  Photo of author Scott B. Bomar by J. Wiley.

  Photo of Wanda and Elvis Costello by Chris Holding.

  Photo of Wanda and Roy Clark courtesy of Thomas Sims Archives.

  Back cover photo courtesy of Third Man Records.

  All other photos included in Every Night Is Saturday Night are from the personal collection of Wanda Jackson Goodman.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

  ISBN: 9781947026018

  Published by BMG

  www.bmg.com

  CONTENTS

  Foreword

  Preface

  Chapter 1 — Back Then

  Chapter 2 — California Stars

  Chapter 3 — No Place to Go but Home

  Chapter 4 — Turn Your Radio On

  Chapter 5 — Lovin’ Country Style

  Chapter 6 — You Can’t Have My Love

  Chapter 7 — Tears at the Grand Ole Opry

  Chapter 8 — I Wish I Was Your Friend

  Chapter 9 — Rock Your Baby

  Chapter 10 — If You Don’t Somebody Else Will

  Chapter 11 — I Gotta Know

  Chapter 12 — Let’s Have a Party

  Chapter 13 — Fujiyama Mama

  Chapter 14 — Both Sides of the Line

  Chapter 15 — Right or Wrong

  Chapter 16 — You’re the One for Me

  Chapter 17 — A Woman Lives for Love

  Chapter 18 — Santo Domingo

  Chapter 19 — Kickin’ Our Hearts Around

  Chapter 20 — Tears Will Be the Chaser for Your Wine

  Chapter 21 — I Saw the Light

  Chapter 22 — My Testimony

  Chapter 23 — Rockabilly Fever

  Chapter 24 — Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

  Chapter 25 — Thunder on the Mountain

  Chapter 26 — In the Middle of a Heartache

  Chapter 27 — Treat Me Like a Lady

  FOREWORD

  Elvis Costello

  The legend has it that Pete Seeger was so horrified by Bob Dylan’s electric set at the Newport Folk Festival of 1965 that he had to be restrained from cutting through the power cables with an axe. I have my doubts about this story, having seen a much older Seeger, swinging a jackhammer at a railroad spike, while singing a work song on the stage of Carnegie Hall. If he’d intended to stop the music, he could have done so easily.

  But here, in the summer of 2011, was that same erect, still resolute frame standing just a few steps ahead of me in the wings of the Newport stage as that darn rock-and-roll music rolled out again into the afternoon. Did he look like he was about to do something rash and bring the music to a halt?

  Not a chance….

  I eased myself level with the great man and saw that he was beaming broadly at the sight and sound before him: Wanda Jackson leading her band from country ballad to rockabilly rave-up in a set that lit a fire in the sunlit crowd.

  It was the music of American folk, as this is ALL American music.

  That it took a few years for Wanda Jackson to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a disgrace that once cast a shadow of credibility over that little boys’ club.

  She’s in there now where she belongs, having broken down a fair few doors along the way, and rolling out the red carpet for young women with guitars who may not even know her name.

  Within these covers you’ll read the names of many great American musicians: Wanda’s teachers, friends, contemporaries, and acolytes along with all the incidents, triumphs, and sorrows of her incredible career in music.

  The last time I sang with Wanda was on the stage of the Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa—one of America’s finest musical addresses.

  We gathered in the dressing room beforehand. “Just what I needed in my life, another Elvis,” said Wanda’s gentleman husband, Wendell, repeating a joke that he’d cracked at our first meeting regarding people’s enduring curiosity about his wife’s earlier friendship with The King.

  We introduced Wanda to the kind of ovation that starts in Oklahoma and can be heard for states around, before singing the Buck Owens hit, “Cryin’ Time.”

  Wanda took her bow and flashed those green eyes in my direction mischievously. As she passed behind me into the shadows, I swear somebody pinched my cheek, and I don’t mean the one below my eyes.

  She’s just what we needed in our life, The One and Only Wanda …

  PREFACE

  Big Daddy

  “Wanda? Oh, Wanda…. Are you tired? You need to wake up, honey!” Daddy was insistent on getting my attention, but I was silently praying he’d leave me alone. I knew he wouldn’t. This was the kind of thing Daddy never let slide. It was 1956, and we were in my Pontiac Star Chief barreling down a two-lane highway between a town I can’t remember and another one that’s just as hazy in my mind. I was eighteen years old and had only been out on the road as a professional singer for a short time. Those days often run together in my memory as a blur of motels, dance halls, long stretches of blacktop, late-night diners, cheering crowds, friendly autograph seekers, and music, music, music.

  Daddy was my traveling companion, manager, chaperone, sounding board, guidance counselor, teacher, and, in many ways, my best friend. He was also my protector. Maybe my over-protector sometimes. “Wanda? Did you hear me? It looks like you’re getting pretty tired there.” Daddy was driving, and I was sitting next to him in the middle of the bench seat. On my right was a good-looking young singer who was headlining the tour. When we traveled from town to town, Daddy would let guys ride with us, but I couldn’t go with them. I had my car and that’s the way I traveled. Daddy’s rules. Sometimes I’d get sleepy, and my head would lean over onto the shoulder of the guy who was riding next to me. As soon as he saw it, Daddy would pull over and tell me to get in the backseat. “If you’re tired,” he’d say, “you can stretch out and get some good rest back there.”

  “WANDA!”

  I knew I couldn’t pretend any longer. “What is it, Daddy?” I tried to play innocent.

  “Sweetie, I think it’s time we pull over so you can get in the back. I’m sure Elvis doesn’t need you leaning all over him. We want our passengers to be comfortable, don’t we?”

  Of course it wasn’t just that I was tired. This wasn’t any old musician who decided to ride along to the next gig with us. This was Elvis Presley. Several months earlier I’d never even heard of him, but now I really liked him. And not just his music. Every teenage girl liked his music. But I liked being around him. I liked the way he made me feel. And he liked me, too. Soon after, he would give me his ring and ask me to be his girl.

  At that moment, though, there was no getting around Daddy’s watchful eye. I couldn’t put my head on someone’s shoulder. I couldn’t sit on a guy’s lap. A lot of guys would want me to sit on their knee to take a picture after a show, but I couldn’t do that, either. Daddy was very quiet, but he was always watching. If he needed to intervene, he would. If I forgot the rules, I definitely heard about it later. It was important to him that I maintain a good reputation. I learned a lot from Daddy, and I realize to
day how important a good reputation is. Even if I was pouting in that backseat after he banished me from Elvis’s shoulder.

  I’ve always been a lady. That was instilled in me by both my parents from an early age. But they also taught me that it’s good to be different. “You don’t want to be like everybody else,” Daddy used to tell me as we traveled those long lonely roads through countless dark nights from one show to another. We might be sharing the bill with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, or Elvis at an auditorium or dance hall somewhere in Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, or wherever the work took us. As a single young woman—still in my teens and just barely out of high school—there was certainly no way Daddy was going to send me out on the road alone with the boys. That’s not the kind of thing a lady did in the mid-1950s.

  With Daddy by my side, I had a front-row seat to the early rumblings of what was soon to erupt as a cultural phenomenon. I sang strictly country in the very beginning, which was known as hillbilly music at the time. Boy, that term always just upset me. I didn’t like it. Elvis didn’t either, but he was known as the hillbilly cat. Whatever you called it, our music was mixing with the blues to give birth to the early strains of what we now call rock and roll. Daddy and I both saw that something new was happening. We heard the screams of the girls that lifted the rafters with every movement of Elvis’s hips. We saw the ecstasy on the faces of young people who were beginning to feel like they had a new kind of music they could call their very own. Though I’d started as a country singer, I soon joined the rock-and-roll party, with Elvis’s encouragement, and made sure I was able to rock just as hard as the boys. In recent years people have looked back on that era and started calling me the “sweet lady with the nasty voice.” I like to joke with people when they use that term, and ask, “Whoever said I was sweet?”

  While my folks never failed to remind me to conduct myself with dignity and class in all situations, I didn’t exactly fit the mold of the typical girl of the 1950s. Some people thought I was too strong. Others thought I was too wild. That never bothered me or my parents because I was taught that you can be different; you can break away and do some crazy stuff, as long as you stay a lady about it. And that’s exactly what I did. I was like a prim little lady, but fiery. I had a burning fire in my bones when it came to making music, and I could not be stopped.

  There are probably two Wanda Jacksons. Actually, there are at least two Wanda Jacksons. Some of my fans might be surprised to learn that, offstage, I’m really a traditionalist. I’m a wife, mother, and grandmother (and recently became a great-grandmother!) whose grandkids call her “Ma.” I never thought I’d be called Ma, but my first grandbaby couldn’t say “Grandma,” so that’s just how it came out. And it sure sounds awful sweet when they say it. I was married to the same man, Wendell Goodman, for more than fifty-five years, until he passed away in 2017. After we married, Wendell stepped in and took over the role my father had before him. He took care of the business, and, frankly, I’ve always felt like I needed a good man to take care of me. I was never taught to have responsibility. Daddy handled everything, and then Wendell took it from there. Thanks to them, I actually could be the sweet little girl (nasty voice and all) who didn’t have to fight her own battles. I would tell them my problems, and they took care of it. I let them be the “bad cop” and be perceived as hard to get along with, when it was usually really me all along. Because of them, I didn’t have to worry about anything but the music. I’ve been well protected in that respect, and it has allowed me to successfully navigate my way through a long career without ever really butting heads with anyone.

  I’ve been asked if I’m a feminist, and I’ve been told I’m a hero to feminists. But I don’t put myself in that category. People have always thought I was the woman who stood up against the man, but I was never that way. I understand that some women have to take a leadership role when their men won’t, but women who just want to rule the roost and put men down so badly? That bothers me. I guess I just love and respect men. I don’t want to fight them. I suppose I would if I got really mad or something, but I honestly prefer the company of men to women. Their conversations are much more interesting to me. At parties, I would always migrate over to listen to the men talk. Women would talk about their kids and their school and all that, but I didn’t relate to it. The bottom line is I highly respect men, and I always depended on a man, whether it be Daddy or Wendell.

  And then there’s another Wanda Jackson. The one the public knows. I probably never had as much self-confidence or self-esteem as people thought, but if you watch old videos of me performing, it’s the absolute picture of confidence when I’m on stage. Once I got onto that stage, I was able to become something else entirely. I almost unconsciously flipped a switch. The stage is where I’m the Queen. Always have been. I enjoyed shocking people a little bit, but that was the only place I’d do it. On the stage is where I sometimes made Daddy nervous with my sexy outfits and shaking hips. On the stage is where I would let out my trademark growl and express the raw power of music that lived deep in my soul.

  When I’m onstage I hear everything the band is doing. I’ve always been good at that. During a show, I’ll call the bass player over and say, “You’re playing 4/4 time all the way through. I don’t want that.” Or I might tell the guitar player, “Hey, cut the volume down,” or maybe, “Turn it up!” And drummers? So many drummers rush the beat. It’s hard to find a good drummer who will lock into the right tempo, but I push them to be their best. I control the stage. The stage has always been mine. People couldn’t put purses or coats or drinks down on it. If some guy was sitting on my stage, I might just step on his hand, or if people set things there, I might just kick them off. I can’t do that anymore at my age, but I could get pretty feisty when protecting my domain in my younger years.

  The reason that stage is so important to me is because I know that everyone who comes to see me perform wants to have a good time. And that’s what I want to give them. Every night that I entertain people and watch them have fun, it reminds me of being a young girl growing up in California when Mother and Daddy would take me to Western swing dances. I’d stare up at the stage at those musicians in their beautiful, sparkling outfits. I was mesmerized.

  I grew up thinking that music was happy and that it would always make me feel great. I associate music with fun and laughter and warm feelings. Going to those Saturday night dances with my folks was a wonderful time in my life. I didn’t want Saturday night to end. I just had to figure out how I was going to live my life in a way that made that feeling last. Sometimes I chased the wrong things in that pursuit, but I never lost sight of throwing a party for my fans at every show. I don’t care if it’s a Tuesday or a work night, or a school night; if you come to a Wanda Jackson show, every night is Saturday night.

  I never thought of myself as a great singer, but I thought I was good, and I knew how to entertain people. After being in this business for over sixty-five years, I still love getting in front of an audience as much as I ever did. Once I come down from that stage, however, I’m not particularly outgoing. Some fans have described me as mysterious because there are things I don’t talk about, and I’m not one to assert myself too much. I guess this book is my chance to talk a little more than usual. This is my opportunity to let you a little deeper into my life.

  The truth is, much of my life revolves around my career. I’m an only child, which meant I got all the attention. I was smothered with a lot of love and a lot of help when I was starting out, and that has continued all the way until today. My career wound up becoming a family affair, and it still is. Whether it was Mother designing my stage outfits, Daddy taking care of the details on tour, my granddaughter Jordan managing my social media accounts, or Wendell taking care of all my business, my life has been a Cinderella story. I even got the handsome prince!

  As we all know, even Cinderella stories include a mix of challenges, joys, and frustrations along the way. I’ve learned a lot of thin
gs in my life about music, love, and what really matters. I’ve learned what it means to find peace and meaning, sometimes in the face of adversity. I’ve learned to find my grounding in a good man, a good family, and, most importantly, in a good God, who is the source of all light and truth. These are the influences that have allowed me to keep the musical party going for decades. I’m glad to have you at my party, and I hope you enjoy reading about my life. Just remember to have fun along the way. It is Saturday night, after all!

  Chapter 1

  BACK THEN

  My mother was born Nellie Whitaker on December 19, 1913, in Hickory, Oklahoma. Her parents, William and Grace, both hailed from Denton, Texas, but were married in Rush Springs, Oklahoma, in 1909. They moved to the town of Roff, Oklahoma, around 1916, where my grandfather worked as a farmer.

  My father, Tom, was born on March 24, 1915, in Texas. His parents, Will and Maud, were from Missouri and Texas, respectively. My paternal grandfather only made it through the fifth grade, and the Jackson family really struggled financially. Mother used to say that when she first realized how hard Daddy had it growing up, she felt sorry for him. They were as poor as people can possibly be, but one thing Daddy did have was a deep love for music. He began playing guitar and fiddle from an early age.

  Mother was still living in Roff as a young woman in the early 1930s, but, at some point, she traveled to Maud, which is about sixty miles east of Oklahoma City, to visit her sister, Edna. Even though my aunt’s name was Edna, everyone called her Polly. That’s the thing about country people. You have to work to keep up with all the various names! I haven’t even told you about my Aunt Electa yet. But we’ll get there eventually.

  The little city of Maud was established in the late 1800s and straddles Pottawatomie and Seminole Counties in central Oklahoma. I’ve been told that it was on the dividing line between Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, and that a barbed-wire fence once ran along Broadway to keep the Indians from crossing that border. The town was named for Maud Sterns, who was the sister-in-law to the owners of the local general store. By the early 1900s there was a post office, a train station, and a newspaper. When oil was discovered in the 1920s, Maud became a boom town, and the population of a few hundred residents soon swelled to as many as 10,000. By the time Aunt Polly was living there, things had settled down considerably, and the population was less than half what it had been in its heyday.