PATSY CLINEThe death of 30-year-old Patsy Cline in a plane crash on 5 March, 1963, was to country music what the demise of Buddy Holly was to rock ’n’ roll four years earlier.
She was not only one of the greatest female vocalists of the 20th century, but also a pioneer of the Nashville Sound and the artist behind a string of records that elevated country music to new levels of mainstream popularity.
Virginia Patterson Hensley was born on 8 September, 1932, in the Virginian city of Winchester. During her childhood her family of five moved around the state a great deal until they were deserted by her father and they settled back in Winchester.
During her early years, Ginny, as she was known to her family, was initially obsessed with dancing and idolised Shirley Temple. But after winning a local dance competition she suddenly switched her attention to music, learning the piano, singing with a local Baptist choir and listening compulsively to country music radio.
Her distinctive tones came about after a life-threatening bout of rheumatic fever and a subsequent throat infection when she was 13. "When I recovered," she later said, "I had this booming voice like Kate Smith’s."
This quirk of fate and her determination to be a musician led to her asking a local radio DJ to let her sing on his show. He consented and soon she was a popular regular. She began performing at local clubs and was even invited to an audition in Nashville at 16.
In 1952, she changed her stage name to Patsy Hensley on the recommendation of Maryland band leader Bill Peer with whom she was now performing. She also began dating Gerald Cline whom she married the following year. Thus Patsy Cline was christened.
In 1954, she won the National Country Music Championships in Virginia and this led to a slot on a Washington radio station and a five-year record deal with Four Star Music Sales. But the deal turned out to be a mistake – the company forced her to exclusively record Honky Tonk songs by its own writers, resulting in appearances on the Grand Ole Opry radio show but no chart success.
Her recording career finally took off in 1957 when Decca, which had acquired leasing and production rights to Ms Cline’s music, pushed for a more pop-orientated song. Walkin’ After Midnight reached number 2 in the US Country charts and 12 on the Hot 100 and was a great example of the burgeoning Nashville Sound’s soft string arrangements and bluesy beat, not to mention her assured vocals.
The same year she divorced Gerald Cline after falling in love with Charlie Dick. They had two children, Julie and Randy.
Despite having had one of the first country-pop crossover hits, Ms Cline’s career was still being restricted by Four Star’s insistence on country songs. In 1959 she hired Randy Hughes as her manager and he negotiated a move to Decca’s Nashville arm.
Almost immediately a string of hits followed, including I Fall to Pieces, Crazy and She’s Got You. But another disaster struck when she and her brother Sam were nearly killed in a car crash near Madison High School in Nashville. Ms Cline spent a month in hospital and was left with a visible scar on her forehead which she later covered by wearing wigs on stage.
Between 1957 and her death she recorded three albums – Patsy Cline (1957), Showcase (1961) and Sentimentally Yours (1962) – and a total of 102 songs, many of which were released posthumously. Patsy was famous in the industry for disliking many of the songs she was presented with by Decca – if she disliked the way a number sounded, her producers would urge her to just do it "her way", leading to her establishing such a distinctive sound.
In March 1963 she travelled to Kansas with Randy Hughes and several other country stars for a US Forces benefit concert. Despite suffering from flu, she gave a typically powerful performance to close the show. But on the return trip, the plane, flown by Hughes, encountered heavy weather and crashed killing all on board.
After her death, Patsy’s friends spoke of how, in the final year of her life, she had become increasingly morbid and concerned for her children’s future, convinced that after two near-death experiences, another was certain to come. "The third one will either be a charm or it’ll kill me," she would say.
Her friend and fellow Nashville star Dottie West was among the many musicians to pay tribute to her legacy: "I guess you could say that I’m the luckiest girl because I got to meet my true hero. She was a precious person. She made me a better singer, a better person. She was the consummate artist and human being."
A plaque on her grave in Winchester reads: "Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love."
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