Writing anything about Patsy Cline, in this day and age, seems superfluous – everything writable about her has been written. Every candy kiss thrown. Every accolade lauded. Every ounce of praise poured out.
A summary of her contribution to music, and anomalously brief career – as mighty a "blip" on the radar as one is ever likely to witness – can be read elsewhere, in grand fashion. Nothing added here will make a lick of difference. Yet one more relisting of Cline factoids is beyond redundant.
What's more, I wish merely to wax upon what matters to me, about her. Everyone has a unique chemistry regarding their taste in particular artists, and what specifically turns them on – I'm no different; nothing special. If I had met Patsy in person, she'd have signed an autograph and moved on to the next fan.
So this is my take, on the fascination of Patsy Cline. Singer. Trailblazer. Artist. Phenomenon. Woman. 50s American. Post-mortem icon. Badass.
Turn to other internet sources for all the traditional praise of her. I am not an aficionado, per se – just a fan. A very intense fan. Onto her after she was no longer in vogue, distracted temporarily by k.d. lang, then bound to rediscover Cline when her star rose again as pop-culture.
Her voice sounds like life, no matter how dead her remains are. Here is a list of my ponderings on the Divine Ms. Cline.
1. She is not glamourous.
That makes her even sexier. She looks like the universal "someone's mom" – a tough broad – "dolled up" because she works on a stage, in a studio, in that thing show business. Even after she'd gone through a windshield, in a head-on auto collision – with the surgeon's repair efforts still faintly visible beneath the make-up, she dares to shine, in a misfortune-defiant Barbie doll tiara, and a smile that may have been forced for the camera's sake, but nonetheless real. Her near-masculine whimsy, peering into the camera lens, tells the accurate tale of a country gal at home and unintimidated by a (then) male-dominant industry, able to out-cuss most of them, and willing to get rough and dirty if that's what it takes to make her goals a reality. Mid-career, she dressed in styles that would seem frumpy-modest; off-rack JCPenny blouses and past-knee skirts, Sunday School heels, gaudy "pearls," – and baw-gawd, PANTSUITS!* – but had that same understated sex appeal that made Barbara Billingsley an unexpected magnet to teen boys. Every publicity photo, every candid shot, of Patsy – even glaring into the lens with kick-your-ass-in-a-minute sincerity, makes one imagine a long kiss. She was married, but the photo wasn't.
2. She only pretended to be a country star – though she didn't know it.
The county fair cowgirl outfits she wore early in her career were a gimmick she believed she needed; a visual signal that she meant to be "country," on the Opry stage, on the C&W packaged radio and TV shows. A white cowboy hat completed the ensemble in the beginning. Everyone else sang with a nasally, twangy, all-lungs style, of which her own voice was the antithesis; robust, deep both from the bellows and the heart. Sustained – on-key – notes. Cline was definable in operatic terms – a soulful contralto. Traditional country stars of the era generally weren't on that diagram. By the final segment of her career, and life – she only recorded for 6 years – she was singing pop music, with the subtle undertones of her country roots detectable only by her country-ish delivery of a lyric.
3. She could sing anything, but had to be convinced.
Everything, but (only maybe?) Grand Opera, was in her vocal toolset. She sang it all; fiddle-soaked country-n-western, jazzy riff, epic ballads, jumpy pop, gospel, doo-wop, and even rock-n-roll as it existed pre-Beatles. She was too big for one genre, and so became one by herself. 50 years after her passing, she is still a yardstick by which up-and-coming young singers gauge themselves. Her signature tune, "Crazy," penned by Willie Nelson, is still mandatory content on every jukebox playlist, and still brings her to mind no matter who else attempts to record it. The kicker was that she hated everything except country music. Her producer at Decca Records, Owen Bradley, nearly had to resort to career threats, to get selections from non-country songwriters in front of her in the studio. Ironically, she seemed to ramp-up her delivery when angry at Bradley. He used that to an advantage, and managed to sneak a small grouping of Irving Berlin tunes, and at least one by Cole Porter, into her catalog – which today offer a lament of what that terrible plane crash robbed humanity. Had Patsy simply hopped into a station wagon home (which was offered) instead of flying, nagged into doing so over the phone by a husband fed up with babysitting their kids, she would have no doubt been vocalizing the same songbook as Sinatra, Kate Smith, and even possibly adding her take to Broadway selections, movie soundtracks, and who knows what else. She appeared on American Bandstand near her final year, dressed seemingly as a chaperone, but there to render her latest (last) chart-topper "He's Got You."
She did not require a house band to duplicate a studio arrangement when performing on location. They could wing the tune, and still get a full-Cline rendition just as dramatic and impacting as the one on whichever 78 was current. On the Arthur Godfrey show, a full non-country New York orchestra would find itself equally under her spell.
By the time she had graduated to lush strapless sparkling ballgowns, slippers and city-styled hair, she was not redefined by them, but made to fully blossom. She wasn't a transmuted country bumpkin with a uniquely magnificent voice, but a fully formed force of nature emerged from a cocoon that just happened to have been rodeo-themed.
She could be the Belle of any ball, but always remembered that Nashville had been her date to the dance.
4. To Patsy Cline, it's still 1963.
Her wristwatch stopped when the forest floor rose up to claim her and her fellow passengers aboard that ill-fated flight. 6:27 p.m., March 5, 1963. And maybe that's a grand place to exit. She never faded to become an oldies act, as some did, re-recording her old hits into the 80s as neo-disco, or easy listening compost accompanied by synthesized elevator-style backwash. We're denied Cline the pop vocalist crooning beloved standards by Porter and Gershwin and perhaps even Lennon & McCartney… but we have been spared the old warhorse version of herself in fake hair and hoorish lipstick being trotted out on some Opry tribute show. I don't want to think of Patsy Cline as old. Ever. Even if she would be in her 90s now.
I'd also like to think she'd call me "hoss" just once.
*One particular pantsuit even made Eddy Arnold's jaw wag with incredulity on-air. The Opry had a dress code, and pantsuits we're considered nigh satanic.
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