Honky Tonk Angel (36 page)

In the October 31 issue of
Billboard,
Patsy was named Favorite Female Vocalist in the country deejay poll for “I Fall to Pieces.” It was the first time Kitty Wells wasn’t given the honor in nine years. Bradley was chosen Country and Western Man of the Year while Harlan Howard was picked as Favorite Songwriter (for that year’s body of work). Patsy was thrilled for Loretta, who was named Most Promising Country Female Artist.

During the WSM Country Music Festival, or D.J. Convention, that began November 2, Patsy was named
Cashbox
’s Most Programmed Female Vocalist and
Music Vendor’s
Female Vocalist of the Year along with four other awards. “This is my second record hit now,” she said at the ceremony, “and I never thought I’d be able to get the first one, let alone the second one. Thanks to all you nice folks, you’ve made my ‘I Fall to Pieces’ number one.”

Songwriter Justin Tubb recalled, “During the D.J. Convention, I was driving down Broad Street to Tootsie’s. I met Patsy and Charlie coming the other way. We stopped right in the middle of the street. She was riding high and happy as all get out.”

Patsy got out the passenger side and yelled, “Hoss, follow us to the hotel. Decca’s got us fixed up for the night.
And
bring your guitar. I wanna hear that song.”

Tubb had written “Imagine That” and had sung a few lines to Patsy previously.

“That’s it?” she wanted to know. “Where’s the rest? I wanna hear the whole thing.”

“Hon, I don’t have time right now,” Tubb replied.

But, that night, Patsy had him captive, and he played the song for her, Charlie, and their friends. “I don’t know how many times I sang it,” he laughed. “She got so excited. She felt like I did about it when I wrote it. When you give up a song you’ve written, it’s kinda like giving up a baby for adoption. You know the artist will love it as much as you and take good care of it. So you let it go, knowing your song’s in good hands.”

On November 13, “Crazy” entered the
Billboard
country chart, followed the next week with its debut on their pop chart. A week later, Patsy’s second album,
Patsy Cline Showcase,
was released, with the Jordanaires receiving featured billing. The twelve tunes also included “I Fall to Pieces,” and the songs recorded at the August sessions. The three missing—“Strange,” “Who Can I Count On,” and “You’re Stronger Than Me”—were to be released as B-sides of singles.

“Crazy” wasn’t lagging behind, trying to find acceptance, as happened with “I Fall to Pieces.” It was skyrocketing up the other trade magazines and country radio charts and making strides in the pop arena. Most impressive was public response. Patsy Cline became the rage.

. . .’Cause if you weren’t
there to share my love,
Who cares if the sky
should fall?
For anyone can see
How much you mean to me.
You’re my life, my love,
my very all . . .

—“Today, Tomorrow and Forever” by M.G. and
W. Burkes (© 1955, Four-Star Music Company;
Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.)

P
atsy was invited to appear on the Grand Ole Opry at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the first full-fledged country production at that cultural bastion of classical music. Among the forty performers were Minnie Pearl; Faron Young; Jim Reeves, the male pop crossover champion; Marty Robbins; Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass; and Grandpa Jones.

Country music in New York was a novelty, though star “spectaculars” played Madison Square Garden annually. But if the event on November 29 wasn’t enough in itself to become a cause celebre among transplanted Tennesseans and southerners, the controversial and smug Dorothy Kilgallen made it one. The
Journal-American
columnist, who wrote the syndicated “Voice of Broadway” and was featured with Arlene Francis and Steve Allen as a panelist on CBS’s
What’s My Line?
, made cheap shots almost daily at the coming of the “Carnegie Hallbillies.”

Onstage in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on November 25, Patsy had a few words for Kilgallen or, as she called her, “Miss Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the East.” “We’re gonna be in high cotton next week—Carnegie Hall in New York City. That ole Dorothy Kilgallen in the
New York Times
[Patsy got the newspapers confused] wrote ‘everybody should get out of town because the hillbillies are coming!’ At least we ain’t standing on New York street corners with itty-bitty cans in our hands collecting coins to keep up the opera and symphonies.” [The show was a benefit for the pension fund of the Musicians Aid Society.] Miss Dorothy called us Nashville performers ‘the gang from the Grand Ole Opry—hicks in the sticks.’ And
if I have the pleasure of seeing that wicked witch, I’ll tell her how proud I am to be a hick from the sticks!”

Kilgallen was one of the most powerful and reviled reporters of the time. A sentence in her column could make or break reputations. She was addicted to music—except country, which she despised.

WSM’s Trudy Stamper wrote in a newsletter: “At first it looked as if just everybody and everything was against us. New York folks who were supposed to know said, ‘Nobody will come! We’d just make fools of ourselves.’ One of the wheels called the Thursday before our Wednesday date and said he’d heard we’d called it all off. You can imagine what Mother told him! Anyway, we were scared. Ott Devine, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry, and Bob Cooper, the WSM general manager, and me—we couldn’t sleep, eat—are completely minus of fingernails—thought seriously about slitting our throats. We had practically no advance ticket sale. Thought maybe nobody would come.”

What no one counted on were the fans of Patsy Cline.

Phil Sullivan reported from New York for the November 29 morning edition of the Nashville
Tennessean:
“Several extra clerks were put on at the hall yesterday to take reservations and answer questions from callers. The 2,700-seat hall was half-reserved last night, but for every reservation made there were ten calls asking for information, according to Nat Posnich, treasurer of the hall.

‘“We’ll come within an ace of selling out,’ he said. ‘This is an entirely different type of crowd from what we have been accustomed to. These people don’t ordinarily make reservations. They just call up for information, then hang up and show up for the program.”’

On her turf, the hillbillies outfoxed the Wicked Witch of the East. Trudy Stamper’s “small-town public relations sense” helped provide the last-minute rush. Somehow she got Jack Benny to come to Carnegie Hall on Monday and stand in line as if to buy a ticket. While all the photographers clicked away, Benny quipped, “I should be buying a plane ticket to Nashville. I’m paying seven-fifty here for what would cost me one-fifty there!” The photo appeared in all the papers the following day, even the
Journal-American.

Almost all of the stars, including the Jordanaires, Ben Smathers and the Stony Mountain Cloggers, and fiddler Tommy Jackson arrived via a chartered TWA aircraft dubbed “Grand Ole Opry Liner.” There were two exceptions: Minnie Pearl, whose husband, a commercial pilot, flew her up Sunday in order to appear on the “Tonight” and “Today” shows; and Marty Robbins, who took the train because of his fear of flying.

Cousin Minnie was at LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday to welcome the Opry plane and to pose for WSM—Grand Ole Opry photographer Les Leverett on the stairway ramp of the plane with Grandpa Jones, Bill Monroe, Jim Reeves, Faron Young, and Patsy. That afternoon the Opry stars gathered at City Hall to receive a gold key to the city from Robert W. Watt, director of commerce, standing in for Mayor Robert Wagner. After a brief ceremony, the stars moved outside to the steps of the historic lower Manhattan site for more pictures. A lavish press party followed at Carnegie Hall. The gilded bar of the hall was a mob scene of pushing, shoving photographers and reporters from the local and Tennessee press, wire services, WSM, and industry trades. Patsy was riding high in the country and pop charts.
Everyone wanted her picture and an interview. Trudy Stamper attempted to introduce Patsy to important writers and executives but could hardly reach her.

Patsy made an early getaway to the Barbizon Plaza Hotel at Central Park South, where she spent time with her mother, whom she’d flown up.

The Carnegie Hall program stated: “Over seven million people have traveled to Nashville to see WSM’s live Saturday night radio show, Tennessee’s largest tourist attraction. Someone has said, ‘More people go to more trouble to see the Grand Ole Opry than any other show in the world.’”

Upon arrival for the sound check, Patsy and Randy and Grandpa Jones and his wife, Ramona, were awed by the great four-decked auditorium, which had recently been redecorated in white and lively reds. “This is the prettiest hall I’ve ever been in,” Patsy exclaimed. Playing Carnegie Hall was a moving experience for her. She and Randy toured the backstage area extensively.

Patsy described her feelings to Dottie: “As I walked to the stage up this flight of stairs, all I could think of when I touched the railing was of all the famous, fantastic people—singers and musicians of all kinds—who had walked up those stairs to the stage. I got a rush when I walked on to this cheering mob. I could feel the good vibes as I moved to the microphone. The acoustics are so good, you don’t need a mike! You can just stand there and be heard even way up yonder in the last row of the uppermost balcony. They call it the gods ’cause that’s how high it is!”

She wore a black-and-gold brocade cocktail dress pinned with a huge white orchid. Randy stepped into the house band that night to play guitar on Patsy’s segment.

Bobby Sikes, a guitarist and backup singer with Robbins, observed, “She just about blew the end of the building out when she sang. For Patsy, especially, life was to be enjoyed. She was vibrant, bouncy. She took life with a grain of salt and it came over in her performance. The musicians have to get most singers cooking and driving, but with Patsy it was the opposite. She cooked and drove the band. You felt like playing up a storm when she was in the studio or onstage with you. That’s the way it was that night.

“Nothing scared Patsy and, onstage, she was willing to try anything once. That night was a success. From looking, there was no way you could tell all those folks were hillbillies! They’d turned away hundreds and people were hanging from the rafters. They stood in their seats and filled the aisles, yelling and screaming for more.”

A writer interviewing Patsy was so impressed, he raved: “Patsy Cline comes over like Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, and Gina Lollobrigida all rolled up in one!”

Like back home, fans in everyday bargain-basement clothes and western wear freely roamed up to the stage to take flash pictures. Bill Monroe, cutting an imposing figure in his snow-white twelve-gallon hat, raved about the audience, “They’re amazing, ain’t they? You get a cross-section of people here that I don’t think you’d find anywhere else in any kind of music. There’re people from Japan, Europe, country folks, tarheels, rednecks, college graduates, doctors, lawyers. And yet they all mix without friction. It goes back to the music. What we do—bluegrass—is honest music. It feels good to play and it feels good to listen to.”

Phil Sullivan critiqued the evening: “For one who knew Carnegie Hall only
through reading of the great princely affairs that have gone on there, it was novel to see tattooed snakes moving down the halls on bare arms. It was that kind of crowd. Leather jackets mingled with mink stoles and clerical vestments.”

New York Times
reviewer Robert Shelton wrote: “It was an unusual sort of opera.... Its musical score was very much in the American idiom; its libretto was casual and folksy. Most of the recitatives were delivered by a radio announcer and there wasn’t a coloratura or a basso in the house.”

“They did come . . . they heard . . . they loved it.... Nashville conquered New York,” wrote Trudy Stamper in her newsletter. “The hipsters in New York knew that the Grand Ole Opry is the Big Time, and with the Good Lord willing, we’ll go on forever.”

After the show, the stars, musicians, and dancers quickly returned to the hotel to get their bags. At 2:00 A.M. they boarded a bus for LaGuardia Airport and, at approximately 3:30, departed for Nashville. “It was quite a night,” Sikes reported, “so coming back we broke out the booze. There was enough energy on that plane to provide the fuel to fly us home. It was a real high. Everybody was having a big time. Roger Miller [still one of Young’s Country Deputies] ran up and down the aisle mugging it up just like J. Fred Muggs, the ‘Today’ chimpanzee. Faron was flying the plane! That was reason enough to have a stiff drink.”

Young explained, “I had a pilot’s license for my Piper Cub, but this was a big four-motor job. It was a festive mood and Captain Sam Lucky and I had gotten to know each other pretty well. He ran me up to the cockpit and let me have a look-see. I sat in the copilot’s seat and as I discussed the controls, Captain Lucky said, ‘Sheriff, you want to take over?’ Well, I guess I could’ve gone through the roof. I was like a child with a new toy. It was only for a few minutes, and under Captain Lucky’s watchful eye. But, from what I heard, you woulda thought once I took over the crew had to prepare everyone for a crash landing!”

Charlie was tending shop in Nashville. Patsy and Randy sat together. A popular and still prominent Nashville reporter who was on the scene commented that artist and manager “were so lovey-dovey, all snuggled up, that no one had to wonder about their relationship. A picture was worth a thousand words. A couple of us wondered to each other, ‘Who do they think they’re fooling?”’

On December 2, Patsy played Atlanta’s “Dixie Jubilee,” a weekly program broadcast locally. “Crazy” was number one and getting strong country and pop airplay in Atlanta, so there was an enthusiastic welcome. Patsy opened her segment with “Come On In.”

“Oh, I tell you, you’re sitting up tonight!” she said. “Oh, dogies [directed to the band], you sound like Pappy [Bob] Wills on them good fiddles. Never heard such a swinging beat in all my life. Howdy, everybody! You having a good time? Well, let your hair down and let’s see what you look like. We’re having a ball. Here’s one that’s a kinda true-to-life story.” With the crowd in the palm of her hand, Randy auditioned a key for her. “Leave it right in the same gear as that, Hoss, and we’ll see what damage we can do to it.”

Patsy did “A Poor Man’s Roses (or a Rich Man’s Gold).” Carnegie Hall was still very much on Patsy’s mind. “This ain’t like New York, but it’s uptown! Talk about a hen out of a coop! I really felt like one up there. I’m a telling you! But you know what? We made ‘em show their true colors. We brought that country out of ’em if anybody did! They was sitting up there stomping their feet and yelling just like a bunch of hillbillies. Just like we do! I was real surprised. Carnegie Hall was fabulous, but, you know, it ain’t as big as the Grand Ole Opry. You couldn’t get ‘em in there! We were awfully proud of having the opportunity to go that far up in high cotton. Well, I guess, I’d have to say that’s the cream of the crop. And, believe you me, it really did my ole heart good because little did I know who was sitting in the audience a-watching me. ’Cause if I had, I wouldn’t been able to go on, I’ll guarantee you!