In my opinion, many have tried to sing like Patsy Cline, but few have ever come close to matching that beautiful voice. She was born Virginia Patterson Hensley, on September 8, 1932, in Winchester, Virginia. From humble beginnings and through a relatively short but sad life, this lady gave us wonderful music that is still popular over fifty years after her death.
Her mother, Hilda Patterson, was sixteen when she married 43-year-old Sam Hensley. Sam Hensley was a blacksmith, singer, and pianist. He lost his family’s land during the depression. Sam returned from active duty in WWII and began to drink excessively, which worsened his already-explosive temper and depression. He deserted his family in 1947, leaving them to live on Hilda’s meager salary as a seamstress; Patsy was 15 years old at the time. Sam died in 1956 of lung cancer.
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Patsy quit school and began to use her musical abilities to earn money to help support the family. She had taught herself to play the piano at age eight and attributed her extraordinary vocal skills to a long bout with rheumatic fever when she was 13. She said, “The fever affected my throat, and I had this booming voice when I recovered.”
Her marriage to Gerald Cline began in 1953 and ended in divorce on Independence Day in 1957. Six months after the divorce from Cline, she married Charlie Dick. Charlie was a linotype operator for the local newspaper, the Winchester Star. They had a son and a daughter. The marriage was turbulent, and they separated several times.
Patsy Cline was concerned about how Charlie Dick would carry out his role as a father should something happen to her. She penned her last will and testament on Delta Airline stationery, stipulating the children should live with her mother, Hilda Hensley until they reached the age of 18. She added that their dad could visit. All of her royalties were bequeathed to her mother to provide for her son and daughter. However, a couple of years after Patsy’s passing, Charlie Dick became the National Director of Promotion for Stardust Records, remarried, and his two young children, Julie and Randy, moved to his home.
Patsy Cline’s 1st performance on the radio was in 1947. In 1955, she made her debut on the TV version of the Grand Ole Opry. Two years later, she auditioned for Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts program. The staff talked her into wearing a cocktail dress instead of the cowgirl outfit her mother had sewn for the audition. She sang a song she didn’t want to record because, as she put it, it was just a pop song. That song was “Walkin’ After Midnight”; it reached #2 on the country charts and #16 on the pop charts. The talent show was successful for Patsy, and the song made her the first country singer to crossover into the pop genre. In 1960 she signed with Decca Records and, in the same year, became the first person to be accepted into the Grand Ole Opry upon her own request.
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In 1961, Patsy Cline and her brother Sam were involved in a head-on collision. Patsy suffered a broken wrist and a dislocated hip and spent a month in the hospital with a jagged cut across her forehead, where she was thrown into the windshield. During her recovery period, she performed on crutches. She sang a song by Willie Nelson, “Crazy,” and received three standing ovations at the Grand Ole Opry.
Patsy Cline was the first woman in country music to perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall and the first woman in country music to headline her own show in Las Vegas. She was a feisty lady known for her mantra, “No money, no show.” Simply put, she demanded her pay before she went on stage.
In March of 1963, Patsy Cline’s last performance was a benefit in Kansas City, Kansas. The weather was terrible; Dottie West offered Patsy a ride home in her car. But she declined, choosing to go home by plane. On the way home to Nashville, Tennessee, the aircraft crashed, killing Ms. Cline and the pilot, who was also her manager, 34-year-old Randy Hughes. Two other passengers were listed as fatalities, Harold Franklin (Hawkshaw) Hawkins and Loyd Estel (Cowboy) Copas, the pilot’s father-in-law.
Earlier that day and after leaving Kansas City, the pilot landed in Dyersburg, TN, to refuel and to check the worsening weather. Due to low visibility, an employee of the FAA, Leroy Neal, recommended that the pilot not continue. At 5:05, determined to move on, Hughes asked if the Dryersburg runways were lit at night in case weather forced them to return; the answer was yes.
Hughes told the FAA employee that he intended to fly east toward the Tennessee River and navigate (Hughes was not instrument-rated) to Nashville because he was familiar with the terrain. He expressed concern to Neal about a 2,049-foot-high TV transmitting tower North of Nashville. Before takeoff, Hughes requested another weather report. Still receiving a bad weather report, the piper Comanche took off at 6:07 p.m. There was no further radio contact.
A witness reported hearing a low-flying aircraft on a northerly course. The engine noise increased, and a plane was seen descending at a 45-degree angle through the fog. The last sound was a dull-sounding crash. The crash site was found 90 miles from Nashville in a wooded and swampy area. As I read the FAA’s accident report, I couldn’t help but think of the terror the passengers of that plane experienced in those few seconds before impact.
