Honky Tonk Angel (18 page)

Patsy was a quick study and always came to work prepared. But, as in everything else, she had a mind of her own. Since she had good instincts, Bradley
listened when he felt Patsy was right but had no problem telling her when he felt she was wrong.

“Patsy was the high-strung type,” Bradley declared, “constantly on guard and ready to show you who was boss. She was, of course! To hear her tell it, anyway. You wouldn’t have to tell Patsy anything about this women’s lib business. She could’ve taught them a thing or two.

“No matter what I’d do, I couldn’t please her. She’d start in, ‘Owen, I want to do it this way.’ And I’d say no. Nothing would stop her. She was always trying to get her way. It was ‘Owen, honey,’ then ‘Owen, please,’ and when she got desperate it was ‘Hoss, damn it!’ But I had the same reply. I kidded her that she was responsible for my first gray hairs. Every once in a while, I’d try and keep her happy by saying maybe. I never showed weakness. That would’ve been all she needed. Finally, Patsy’d listen. I soon discovered, I had to place myself firmly in control or she’d take right over.”

Bass fiddler Lightnin’ Chance found that when it came to producing Patsy, Bradley was “one smart cookie.” “We musicians often were amazed at Owen’s knack of keeping Patsy in tow. Sometimes she’d want to yodel and he wouldn’t hear of it. Patsy’d slip it in occasionally, for no other reason than to say to herself, ‘My ass! Owen’s not controlling me.’ It was a cat and mouse game, and Owen ended up being top cat. When she gave him a hard time, he stood up pretty well. And he had this unique ability of doing it tactfully—until it got right down to the nitty gritty. Then he let Patsy or whomever know who wore the pants.

“Patsy was a hell of an artist. I liked her, sometimes in spite of herself. She was such a dynamic personality, you never tended to harp on her idiosyncrasies. Like her smoking, language, and hot temper.”

Trudy Stamper, then WSM-Grand Ole Opry public relations director, and a long-time friend of Patsy’s, said, “From the female viewpoint, Patsy didn’t mind being pushed, but she wouldn’t let you step on her. When things went against her, she didn’t take it lying down. Her defense mechanisms shot into play.”

Don Helms, Hank Williams’s steel guitarist, who played on many of Patsy’s sessions, asserted, “Patsy was picky about what she wanted. She had her ideas about tempo and arrangements. Patsy could be stubborn, especially when she saw something a certain way. She was on the I-know-what-I-want side, which I respected. It might be embarrassing, but she was usually right.

“She and Owen had friendly disagreements. I never remember the situation between them getting belligerent. But she’d stop right in the middle of everything and say, ‘What’s this? What’s he doing? Y’all wait a goddamn minute while I have a little discussion with Mr. Bradley!’ It was never anything that couldn’t be ironed out.”

Neither Bradley nor the sidemen had had a woman artist tell them what she wanted and how to play.

Helms told the Country Music Foundation’s John Rumble: “Patsy’d say, ‘Give me a C chord and let me show you how this goes.’ If she had a demo, she’d play enough to give me an idea of the chord change. Then she’d sing so we could hear her phrasing. Owen was very knowledgeable and a very good musician. He’d sit down at the piano and say, ‘This is what we’re trying to do. This is the way it goes.’

“Patsy’d sing some and he’d play some and say, ‘I think it oughta be about
this tempo. Grady [Martin, electric guitar and fiddle], what do you think?’ And he’d say, ‘Well, I don’t know. Tommy [Jackson], what do you think about a fiddle intro on this?’ Grady knew how to get what Owen wanted out of the musicians.”

When Bradley was ready, he’d give the command. “Okay, let’s take one. Let’s see if we can get lucky.” Then they’d run through a number as many times as required until they got it right.

At 9:30 A.M. May 23 Patsy began recording six tunes. The material, as was often the case, reflected the turmoil and joy rampant in her life. They started with a remake of the unreleased “I Don’t Wanta,” then cut new songs “Ain’t No Wheels on This Ship,” “That Wonderful Someone,” “I Can’t Forget You,” “Hungry For Love” and “(Write Me) In Care of the Blues,” the last two by Eddie Miller with an “assist” from W. S. Stevenson. In a nod to New York, Bradley brought in the Anita Kerr Singers to provide backup vocals.

Immediately after the session, Patsy returned to Winchester to celebrate Charlie’s twenty-first birthday. The celebration ended on a low note, as Patsy saw him off to Fort Bragg. Mrs. Hensley recalls she and Patsy spending the evening sewing new cowgirl costumes. Patsy also packed her bags again.

On the morning of May 25, she stacked the trunk of her dream car, a big, white, albeit used, Cadillac. She and a companion left on a personal appearance tour. Patsy was still riding high with “Walkin’ After Midnight” and, on May 27, Decca released a 45 rpm of “Today, Tomorrow and Forever” with “Try Again” on the flip side. The new record was heralded with a full-page ad in
Billboard.

On the tour, Patsy shared billing with Brenda Lee and Porter Wagoner. The stars trooped from city auditorium to high school auditorium in a cavalcade of cars, usually Cadillacs and Chryslers, a station wagon for the band, and a trailer for instruments and equipment.

During the tour, according to lanky blond singer Porter Wagoner, roots for another long and endearing friendship were laid. “You might say we were lonely and Patsy and I had a brief road fling.”

“I was almost thirteen,” Brenda Lee reminisced. “I’d been signed to Decca by Paul Cohen when I was nine. I had records, but this was before I had any big ones. We had done a show in this tiny Texas town somewhere between Amarillo and Lubbock. I don’t remember who else was on the bill, and it’s best that I don’t.

“People in the business back then tended to take advantage of you. I was a kid and didn’t have a manager. It was just Mama and me. That night I didn’t get paid. The promoter skipped. That was a common thing. The performers who went to the front before the show got paid. The ones who didn’t know better got left out.

“We were left stranded without even a dime to call home. Patsy heard from someone what happened and took me by the hand and scolded, ‘Don’t you ever let this happen again!’

“Mama told Patsy we were depending on the money to get to the next town. Patsy came to the rescue. She fed us and put us in the car with her mother Hilda. It was a wonderful gesture that drew me to her. In spite of the differences in our age, we became fast and very close friends.”

On the road, as the mothers slept in the back, the stars in the front seat talked a blue streak.

“You make sure you get your money before the show and in cash, no matter what the promoter’s excuses are. You tell him, no money, no show, you hear?”

“Okay, Patsy. Sure thing. We sure do appreciate you doing this.”

“Ain’t nothing.”

“You could have left us stranded, considering—”

“Considering what?”

“That you don’t like me.”

“Who told you I don’t like you?”

“The Opry gals said you were fuming mad about me being on so much.”

“That was politics! Red Foley brought you from the Ozark Junior Jubilee to the Opry and when you moved to Nashville last year, he pulled strings to have you on every week. There wasn’t room for the rest of us. We gals got to stick together. This business’s big enough for everybody.”

“I’m sure happy about your record.”

“Well, thanks, but damn it, it ain’t doing me no good.”

“What do you mean, Patsy?”

“It’s a big hit for everybody but me.”

“Gosh, what are you talking about? You got a record on the charts. Decca’s always been honest with me—”

“Brenda, Four-Star’s making a bundle on the publishing rights and leasing ‘Walkin’ After Midnight’to Decca, who’s wiping up with the sales. So far, I ain’t got nothing but excuses. It’s that damn McCalll He’s keeping me under his thumb and won’t let me record anything I want.”

“Well, now you have a new record.”

“It’ll be the same. That bastard!”

Patsy rode in the Warrenton, Virginia, Fourth of July parade wearing one of her sexy “New York originals,” a strapless, sequined cocktail dress with a sash made of yards of tulle. The banner on her convertible had the legend: “Walkin’ After Midnight . . . Patsy Cline . . . Decca Recording Artist & T.V. Star . . . A Winner All the Way!”

Melody Boys musician Roy Deyton saw Patsy dressed in one of her colorful cowgirl outfits that weekend at the Warrenton park where she’d won the country music championship three years before and had since returned annually for an appearance.

“Patsy and I talked about my marriage and her relationship with Charlie. I asked how things were now that she had a hit record and she told me, ‘Financially, they’re bleak. I haven’t made any money to speak of from the record. Not many royalties and lots of deductions.’ Then she went into a tirade about McCall and how he was cheating her.”

Two weeks later, the Wilburn Brothers and Don Helms, now guitarist in their band, played Watermelon Park near Berryville, Virginia. “Patsy and Charlie came to the show and visited backstage,” recalled Teddy Wilburn. “She was upset we hadn’t called her.”

“Y’ll know I been cooking all day,” admonished Patsy. “Supper’ll be on the table as soon as we get there.”

“You don’t have to bribe us to sing a number on the show,” joked Doyle.

Patsy lit into him. “Y‘all better take me serious! Charlie’ll tell you, I’ve been cooking since early morning and y’all are coming to eat.”

“Honey, it would be nice,” explained Doyle, “but we’ve already checked into the motel. And tomorrow morning we leave for Pennsylvania.”

“Well, you can just check out of that damn motel. You don’t seem to understand. I’ve got this big ham in the oven and I’ve made my famous mashed potatoes. You can’t let it go to waste.”

“Teddy, why are we standing here arguing with her?” said Doyle, shaking his head. “We ought to know better. Ain’t nothing gonna do her till we check out of the motel and follow her home.”

“Goddamn right, Hoss!”

“Okay. You win!”

On the show Patsy did “Walkin’ After Midnight,” and the musicians gathered their belongings and drove to Winchester. After supper, they sat up into the wee hours talking shop. Teddy told Patsy about a song, “Dakota Lil,” he’d written but never recorded. It was about an outlaw and done from a female viewpoint. She wanted to hear it, so Teddy sang it.

Patsy loved “Dakota Lil” and had Teddy sing it over and over. “I’ve got to record it! Get me the lead sheet as soon as you can.” According to Doyle, Patsy probably thought she could yodel on the song. “On her stage shows, Patsy’d tear the house down when she yodeled, but doing it live and putting it in a record groove are two different things. That little hiccup growl that she loved to do drove Owen up the wall. He didn’t think Patsy had a country voice. He considered her pop. She had an unusual voice, but it wasn’t as sterile as most pop voices. When she sang, I heard heart, soul, and tremendous feeling. To me she was country. She was a country girl, country onstage and country at heart.”

She took “Dakota Lil” to Owen Bradley and was set to do it when McCall intervened. “You know if it isn’t a Four-Star copyright,” he told Bradley, “she can’t do it.” Patsy broke down and cried when she heard the news.

Decca released her first album, titled simply
Patsy Cline,
on August 5. There were twelve tracks, including “Walkin’ After Midnight.” Patsy’s second EP was released the same day. The covers of both packages show a bobbysoxer Patsy Cline in a colorful sweater and white blouse.

Patsy appeared with Red Foley at the August 10 Ozark Jubilee, broadcast as “Country Music Jubilee” on ABC Sunday nights. She sang “Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray),” which she announced was the single (backed with “A Stranger in My Arms”) from her new album.

Decca’s full-page
Billboard
ad read: “The ‘Walkin’ After Midnight’ Gal has 2 New Smash Songs!”

The deejays didn’t buy the hype, and the public didn’t respond.

Four days later in Winchester, it was a time for celebration. “For Patsy’s twenty-fifth birthday, September 8, the weekend before their wedding, we were in high spirits and partied at the Moose Club,” said Dale Turner. “Between the birthday and nuptial toasts, I got a taste of the games success plays. Patsy was the home town girl but a star. Her friends kept asking her to sing. She got furious and said, ‘You’d think they’d leave me alone and let me have some fun.’ This was an invasion of her privacy.

“I tried to calm down Patsy, saying it wasn’t worth getting angry over. I told her, ‘When you’re well known you don’t have any privacy. That’s the price you have to pay.’ When Bill Peer called Patsy onstage that night, she went but not without telling him and the audience off.”