Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline's too-short career produced a stack of country classics and made her a permanent role model for women in country. Born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Winchester, Virginia, she had perfect pitch and displayed an early aptitude for church singing. In 1947 when Cline was fifteen, she talked her way into a country show on radio station WINC; her appearance was a hit and she began a string of radio performances. In 1954 rising star Jimmy Dean got her added to the roster of "Town & Country Jamboree," a popular show on larger station WARL.

She signed the following year to the Four Star Label (affiliated with major label Decca). Unfortunately the contract tied her to recording songs provided by their in-house publishing company, and there were few hits in the batch. The exception was "Walkin' After Midnight" which Cline herself didn't like, considering it more pop than country. She introduced the song on Arthur Godfrey's CBS-TV show on January 21, 1957. It was an immediate hit and Cline was proven somewhat right, as the song hit both the country and pop charts.

Yet it proved the only hit out of the 50 songs she recorded during her five-year tenure with Four Star. Followup success had to wait until 1961, when the Four Star contract had expired and she was able to sign to Decca and work with producer Owen Bradley who'd already scored hits with Brenda Lee and Loretta Lynn. Bradley redesigned Cline's sound, smoothing out the rockabilly flavor of the Four Star record and framing her rich contralto voice with lush strings and steel guitars-a prototype of the now-trademark Nashville sound. Their first collaboration, "I Fall to Pieces," was the kind of torch ballad that would become her specialty.

Now in her second marriage (to non-musician Charles Dick), Cline showed an affinity for vulnerable heartbreak songs, notably "Crazy" (an early success for the young writer Willie Nelson) and "She's Got You." But behind the scenes she was tough and confident, becoming one of the first female singers to manage her own career. She approached the Grand Ole Opry herself and asked to become part of the cast, was accepted and became one of its most popular headliners. Despite being badly injured in a car crash in June 1961 she was back onstage a month later (the first show was released on CD, Live at the Cimarron Ballroom, three decades later.

By 1962 she was headlining her own tours, also a first for women in country, and evincing a more glamorous, less Western image. After playing two sold-out shows in Kansas City, Cline took a private plane to her next tour stop; the plane hit heavy weather and she died in a crash on March 5, 1963. One of her last recorded songs, "Sweet Dreams," became a posthumous Top Ten hit. Cline's legend would endure for decades afterward, getting a strong revival in the '80s through artists like Emmylou Harris and k.d. lang (who named her band the reclines in Cline's honor). Jessica Lange portrayed the singer in a hit film, Sweet Dreams in 1985.