Patsy Cline
Click here to see The Music Barn's selection of Patsy Cline recordings for sale
Patsy was born, Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8, 1932 in Winchester, VA. It’s hard to imagine that it was that long ago. We still see her as the vivacious young woman in her late twenties who captured our attention as she belted out ballads the way Kate Smith sang God Bless America. Were she alive today, she would be 67 years old -- hard to imagine, indeed.
Entertaining seemed to be her destiny from the beginning. At first, it was dancing and, at the ripe old age of four, she won a dance contest. Having done that, however, some of the magic must have gone out of dancing for she turned her attention to music. She started playing piano at eight and while still in her teens, she was singing in local clubs. When she was 17 she did an audition and snagged a trip to Nashville and sang in several clubs there. She was actually offered a job on Roy Acuff’s radio show but, at the time was making more money waitressing and working in a drug store so she elected to go home to Winchester instead.
In 1955, she signed a rather limiting contract with Four Star Records. She was allowed only to record songs from one publisher. Although she recorded 51 songs for Four Star, it was a pretty non-productive time. The only hit coming out of the period being “Walking After Midnight,” recorded in 1956 but not released. In ‘57 she appeared on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts show. She did “Walking” and it met with immediate and rousing success and the company decided to release the cut after all. By this time she had acquired the name we know her by. The “Cline” came from her 1953 marriage to Gerald Cline and, although she was known as “Ginny” most of her young life, the “Patsy” was suggested by a friend and mentor (and some say, lover), Bill Peer.
Her contract with Four Star expired in 1960 and she moved up to Decca where she, coincidentally, would record another 51 tracks. All but two of her recordings were produced by the also legendary, Owen Bradley (You’ll be seeing him in this column in the coming months). Together, they became an unbeatable pair and with the “Nashville Sound,” invented by Bradley and by Chet Atkins over at RCA, coming into its own, Patsy was off on a meteoric rise to success.
Her first Decca hit was “I Fall To Pieces,” recorded in 1960. In ‘61, she was given Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” which she didn’t like because of Willie’s oddball timing on the demo. Owen convinced her to “sing it her way” and sing it she did. It became her biggest hit and an all-time jukebox topper. It still gets enough airplay to garner a pretty good royalty check all on its own, even on the cookie cutter, “new country” stations. Patsy was often accused of trying to be “too pop” by die-hard country fans. The truth is, Patsy was as country as they come but that big voice in front of the strings, backup singers and arrangements of Bradley’s Nashville Sound (admittedly an attempt to cross over to the more commercially successful pop market) just came across sounding very pop. Owen Bradley is said to have made the comment that he had to “roughen up” Patsy’s records a bit just to make sure they would still be played on country radio.
In 1956, Patsy was singing at a local dance and happened to meet a man by the name of Charlie Dick. She soon fell helplessly in love with him and divorced Gerald. She and Charlie were married in 1957. There were lots of rocks in the path of that marriage too but they remained together until her 1963 death.
That death nearly came two years earlier. She and her brother, Sam were involved in a head-on collision as they were driving by Madison High School in Nashville. She was thrown through the windshield but miraculously survived. While she was in the hospital recovering, she heard a young girl on Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop radio show doing one of her songs as a tribute. She immediately sent her husband, Charlie, down to ET’s to catch up with that girl and bring her back to the hospital so Patsy could meet her. This was the start of a close friendship that grew between Patsy and the young singer, Loretta Lynn.
After her recovery, Patsy resumed her recording and touring schedule and her steady rise in popularity. Who knows where she’d have gone, what she’d have done and what gems she never got to record because of a fateful airplane trip. On March 3, 1963, she played a benefit concert in Kansas City. She flew there with her manager, Randy Hughes. They were supposed to fly back to Nashville the next day but the weather was horrible and they remained grounded. Dottie West, who also was on the benefit bill, asked her if she’d like to ride back to Nashville with her in the car. She almost went but, just as she was about to go, Randy said the weather reports showed that things were clearing and it would be OK to fly. She got on the plane with Hughes and fellow performers, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins and left the Kansas City airport. (Sort of reminds you of the story about Waylon Jennings giving up his seat to J. P. Richardson, the Big Bopper, on the ill-fated Buddy Holly flight, doesn’t it?). Unfortunately, the closer they got to Nashville, the worse the weather became. Weather generally moves West to East in the mid-section of the country and they most likely overflew the very storm they were trying to avoid. Unfortunately, they weren’t going far enough to get ahead of it before landing. Near Camden, Tennessee, on March 5th, they ended their flight and the lives of all aboard on the side of a mountain.
Fortunately for us, Patsy Cline left a legacy of recordings, of style and classiness that is still emulated today by nearly every aspiring female country singer as well as many in the pop fields as well. She was a groundbreaker. The door had been opened by the likes of Kitty Wells (coming soon to LEGENDS) and the female rockabilly title was being claimed by young Brenda Lee but Patsy was claiming what we would now call the adult contemporary market with a vengeance. She was going toe to toe with Jim Reeves, Ray Price and Eddy Arnold and coming out very well. She was also right in there with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and ol’ Dino Martin and not having any problem at all. And it was she, who in 1973, ten years after her premature death, was the first female ever to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
A recent marketing move to keep Patsy’s name fresh and put something “new” on the shelf after 36 years, is the “Duets” CD. It is, as one would suspect from the title, a resurection of several of Patsy’s recordings with the voices of other artists electronically blended in. Among those singing “with” Patsy are, Bob Carlisle, John Berry, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Glen Campbell, Mila Mason, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Crystal Gayle and Michelle Wright. It’s a great idea and a great effort but to me, there’s one obvious fault. Willie does a great job on “Life’s Railway To Heaven” but wouldn’t it have been a lot more special and intriguing to hear him pair his voice with hers on the song "Crazy," he wrote and she made into one of her greatest hits? Maybe he just couldn’t pick up on her timing.
We wish she could have been with us longer but we’re thankful that she was with us at all. To use the title of one of her smash songs, “Sweet Dreams,” Patsy.
Long before the term, Diva, was being bandied about as it is lately, Patsy Cline defined the word in terms of non-operatic performance. She was a goddess, an idol, and a commanding performer on stage whose voice and delivery caught the ear and the heart of millions of radio listeners and record buyers. She became an icon and truly a legend.
Your Basket - Checkout
FREE MAIL ORDER CATALOG CLICK HERE!
Alphabetical Artist Listing:
