Becoming Patsy Cline
Haunted by her early experiences, the teenaged Cline directed herself toward a career as a singer with unbending single-mindedness. She sang in juke joints in the Winchester area and performed a nightclub cabaret act reminiscent of Helen Morgan, the tear-stained pop chanteuse of the 1920s said to be one of Cline’s primary influences (along with Kay Starr, Kate Smith, and Charline Arthur). Cline also appeared in amateur musicals and talent shows, and on local radio station WINC.
By age twenty, Cline connected with local country bandleader Bill Peer, an association that nurtured her desire to become a country music star. She adopted the name “Patsy” after her middle name, Patterson, possibly in a nod to singer Patsy Montana, whose feisty cowgirl persona anticipated both Cline’s spunk and early stage costumes. She married her first husband, staid Gerald Cline, on March 7, 1953, but found the relationship unfulfilling. They divorced four years later.
During this period, Cline made inroads into the thriving Washington, D.C., country music scene masterminded by country music’s “media magician,” Connie B. Gay. Beginning in the fall of 1954, Gay spotlighted Cline as a featured soloist on his Town & Country regional TV broadcasts, which included Jimmy Dean as host, along with Roy Clark, George Hamilton IV, Billy Grammer, Dale Turner, and Mary Klick.
Through her web of Washington contacts, Cline landed her first recording contract in September 1954, with Bill McCall’s Pasadena, California–based 4 Star Records, an association that lasted six years and was to become the single greatest hindrance to her career. Cline alleged that McCall swindled her out of record earnings and gave her substandard material to record.
Cline’s debut single, the country weeper “A Church, a Courtroom and Then Goodbye,” sold poorly after its release in July 1955 on the Decca label’s Coral subsidiary (by lease arrangement between McCall and Decca A&R man Paul Cohen). Cohen turned production over to his protégé and eventual successor, Owen Bradley, who became Cline’s guiding light for the duration of her recording career.
An Up-and-Down Career
Cline’s first four singles flopped, but the “hillbilly with oomph” act she developed on TV and in personal appearances earned her regional fame. Her recording stalemate ended when she made her national TV debut on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on January 21, 1957, singing “Walkin’ After Midnight,” which hit #2 on the country chart and #12 on the pop chart.
Cline rode high on the hit for the next year, doing personal appearances and performing regularly on Godfrey’s weekly CBS broadcast, Arthur Godfrey and Friends, and on ABC’s Country Music Jubilee, but there were no follow-up hits. Her September 1957 marriage to her second husband, Charlie Dick, resulted in a tumultuous relationship glamorized in Sweet Dreams, the 1985 film about Cline’s life starring Jessica Lange. By the end of 1957, Cline had retreated into semi-retirement.
After giving birth to a daughter, Julie, in August 1958, Cline moved to Nashville and signed with manager Randy Hughes, who attempted to revive her stone-cold career by booking one-nighters across the country and helping her ride out her 4 Star contract. Back to working $50 gigs, she was at the nadir of her career when the Grand Ole Opry belatedly made her a member on January 9, 1960.
That summer, Cline signed with Decca, and Bradley began to direct her toward becoming a leading exponent of the emergent Nashville Sound, beginning with her recording of the Harlan Howard-Hank Cochran tune “I Fall to Pieces.” Cline initially fought Bradley’s lush arrangements, which featured backings by the Jordanaires.
Cline gave birth to a son, Randy, in January 1961 and survived a near-fatal car accident in June as “Pieces” slowly started its climb up the charts, reaching #1 on the country chart in August and #12 on the pop chart eight months after its release. She maintained her chart momentum with the Top Ten hits “Crazy” and “She’s Got You,” and with albums including 1961’s Patsy Cline Showcase and 1962’s Sentimentally Yours.
Other highlights included appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, and on Dick Clark’s network TV program American Bandstand. Cline joined The Johnny Cash Show as the touring group’s star female vocalist in January 1962, and over the next fourteen months she played about fifteen or twenty dates with Cash’s “family,” which then included Don Gibson, George Jones, Carl Perkins, June Carter, Barbara Mandrell, Gordon Terry, and Johnny Western.
