Honky Tonk Angel (17 page)

The
Winchester Evening Star
of Thursday, April 4, 1957, had a front-page story that was full of surprises. Under the headline “Patsy Cline Plans Recording Session in N.Y. After Tour,” Lulu McDaniel reported:

The article went on to officially announce Patsy’s engagement to Charlie and gave details of her background and climb to stardom. In mentioning her extended appearances on the Godfrey morning show, it was noted that Patsy “wouldn’t be back on Arthur Godfrey for several weeks.” McDaniel reported that mail had been pouring into Patsy’s fan club in Telford, Tennessee, and that Patsy had been told by Decca’s Paul Cohen that she “was outselling The Platters, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bill Haley and the Comets.”

Contained in the piece was a paragraph with statements Patsy would soon very much regret making:

The story reported that Patsy’s salary had increased from the ten dollars a night she was once paid by Bill Peer to approximately a thousand dollars weekly for her Godfrey appearances. Patsy explained that she was going to “stick with western and semi-popular music,” but, except on smaller shows, discontinue “wearing her fancy western duds.”

The feature was illustrated with two large photos of Patsy at home, reclining in front of a fireplace, autographing pictures and answering the phone, which “these days,” she claimed, took up the better part of her time.

On April 24 and 25, with Patsy in New York to do a Godfrey appearance, McCall took her into the studio with Paul Cohen. Things would be done “his way.” Gone were Owen Bradley and the Nashville musicians. Godfrey regulars the Anita Kerr Singers provided backup, almost drowning Patsy out. And, in a hint of things to come, there was an innovative first for a female country singer: She was decountry-fied and steeped in hollow pop arrangements.

Patsy evidently didn’t fight the decision. She was in top vocal condition and, on the uptempo numbers, belted more than energetically. Among the songs—“Today, Tomorrow and Forever”; “Fingerprints,” which Donn Hecht cowrote; “Try Again”; “Then You’ll Know”; “Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray),” cowritten by Eddie Miller; “Too Many Secrets,” which boasted a full brass section; “A Stranger in My Arms” and another song she’d co-written, “Don’t Ever Leave Me Again”
¹²
—there are some fine ones. “Angel,” the song mentioned in the
Star
article, wasn’t recorded.

The major problem this time wasn’t in the material but in the vacillation between a Hit Parade and country/rockabilly sound. “Try Again” and “Fingerprints” are lyrically quite lovely; and the uptempo “Too Many Secrets” is a romp.

“Don’t Ever Leave Me Again,” an uptempo ballad, sizzles with a twangy guitar and a honky tonk piano. Patsy’s sultry voice, unencumbered by background vocals, ranges from her growl yodel to a smoky saloon quality à la Mae West or Sophie Tucker.

When Bradley accidentally received the New York tapes in the mail, he became livid and demanded an explanation of Cohen. He was told the session transpired
because of extreme pressure and dissatisfaction from McCall. In the future, he was assured, Patsy Cline would record in Nashville under his auspices.

Patsy began making regular appearances on the Don Owens music variety TV show in Washington and Richmond’s “Old Dominion Barn Dance.” She maintained her friendship with Winchester disc jockey and bandleader Joltin’ Jim McCoy, for whom she had first sung as a child, and he frequently put together shows headlining her.

When he could, Charlie commuted the 350 miles to Winchester to be with Patsy. Free again on most Saturday nights, Patsy paid a surprise visit one weekend with him to the Brunswick Moose Lodge. It was a reunion of sorts. Besides Bill on this particular night, Gerald was present with his fiancé, Geraldine Hottle.

“I saw all the gang,” Fay said, laughing, “and held my breath. But Pat and Charlie were cordial to everyone. Bill even seemed happy to see Pat and asked her to sing. I don’t think it was a matter of his wanting her back, just that the audience wanted to hear Pat. I thought he was pretty big about not letting his feelings show. That Gerald was just as happy-go-lucky as always. It seemed like another experience to chalk up.”

Patsy sang “Walkin’ After Midnight,” then hushed the crowd. “Thank you all very much,” she said. “It all started right here and I’d rather be right here singing for you than running all over the place doing this TV show and that one.”

Joseph Shrewbridge, Peer’s new fiddle player, recollected, “Some people made some loud and rude comments, things like, ‘You don’t expect us to believe that, do you, Patsy?’ And a couple of ladies booed. Other times when Patsy would show up, I don’t think Bill was that thrilled to see her, but he asked her onstage because the folks at the Lodge bugged him.

“When I heard Patsy sing live, I didn’t feel she had a real smooth voice, but she could take a tune and keep it moving. We might be dragging along and Patsy’d come up and set everything on fire. She’d turn and say, ‘Now, you got it, dogies. That’s it! Keep it going.’

“What made Patsy stand out was the way she dressed. The things she wore—tight-fitting dresses, dangly earrings, and those spike heels—were the type a loose woman’d wear. And the way she painted her lips red! A lot of men and women thought she was sexy.”

The men sold the records, had the reputations, and drew the crowds. But there were popular female performers. Kitty Wells’s 1952 hit “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels,” a slap at male attitudes of the day, allowed her to emerge from the act with her husband, Johnny Wright, on the Johnny and Jack (Anglin) Show. She signed with Decca and soon became the reigning Queen of Country Music.

There were others: Barbara Allen; yodeler Rosalie Allen; Charline Arthur, Molly Bee of TV’s “Pinky Lee Show”; Pearl Butler, who sang with husband Carl; Judy Canova, the movies’ “Wabash Cannonball”; Martha Lou Carson, perhaps the first Queen of Country Music; Maybelle Carter of the A.P. Carter family; Wilma Lee
Cooper, who performed with husband Stoney; Texas Daisy; Skeeter Davis, who emerged solo from the Davis Sisters; Cousin Emmy; Connie Hall; Goldie Hill; Wanda Jackson, who toured with Hank Thompson and Elvis; Norma Jean, who teamed with Porter Wagoner; Judy Lynn, a Miss Idaho and Miss America runner-up; Rose Maddox, vocalist in her brothers’ hillbilly band; Rose Lee Maphis, singing with husband Joe; Louise Massey; Patsy Montana, the first country female singer with a million-seller, still performing in 1992 at age seventy-three; Molly O’ay; Texas Ruby Owen, wife of fiddler Curley Fox; Bonnie Owens, Buck’s first wife and a yodeler; Linda Parker; Cindy Walker, Chickie Williams; Lulu Belle Wiseman, a duo with husband Scotty; Del Wood, the pianist whose recordings, such as “Down Yonder,” were popular with Opry audiences but sold MOR; and Marion Worth.

They were rarely record stars, however, or had their names emblazoned on posters for touring shows. For the most part, these women were Opry, Louisiana Hayride, Ozark Jubilee, or regional favorites.

Del Wood asserted, “The gals were window dressing to keep the men on the edge of their seats. Patsy was the first to make them do more than breathe hot and heavy. Some of the male stars who put together the package shows had other things in mind. They’d audition anything in skirts. If they liked how you harmonized their body, quick as a wink you were at a mike. It wasn’t everyone, but there were plenty.”

Patsy Cline, because of her stardom and pop crossover, changed the entire perception of women in country music.

She didn’t have to beg for a slot in the Grand Feature Parade of the Apple Blossom Festival on Friday, May 3. She was a star and they begged her. In honor of her national fame as a TV and recording star, the Lion’s Club, which organized the parade, provided a brand-new convertible for “Winchester’s singing gal.” After the parade, Patsy grabbed her suitcases and headed for the airport. The next night she was headlining another big-paying one-nighter, a sold-out concert under the baton of popular bandleader Tony Pastor in Dubuque, Iowa. She noted in her diary: “Plane ticket $120 . . . [got] paid $700.”

On her return, Patsy attempted to secure a loan from a local bank to buy a car, but was turned down. Her friend Perry Painter, who’d gone from selling cars at Schutte Ford to becoming “a big-time operator” with his own used-car company on Valley Avenue, arranged direct financing for a late-model Cadillac.

On May 15, she was in Washington, where her chart success brought radio work singing on a series of commercials. Eight days later, Owen Bradley had Patsy back in his studio. Paul Cohen’s boast to McCall that Nashville had the finest musicians was the truth. These men, some poorly educated, lived their music and knew every element through experience. Singers recorded live with the musicians, as opposed to today, when musical tracks are laid and the singer comes in to “track” vocals into an isolated microphone. With singer, producer, and musicians together, a take could be accomplished in thirty to forty-five minutes. Usually it required six to eight takes to get it right—especially if things became heated between “the Cline” and Bradley.