We remember Patsy Cline, who died in a plane crash on this date, in 1963, along with Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and the pilot, Randy Hughes. 

Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8, 1932, in Winchester, Virginia. Her mother was Hilda Hensley (born Patterson) and her father was Samuel Lawrence Hensley.  She began her singing career in the Baptist church choir, and at the age of thirteen she became seriously ill. “I had a serious bout with rheumatic fever when I was thirteen,” Patsy said in 1957. “I developed a terrible throat infection and my heart even stopped beating. The doctor put me in an oxygen tent. You might say it was my return to the living after several days that launched me as a singer. The fever affected my throat and when I recovered I had this booming voice like Kate Smith’s.”

In the beginning of her career she was completely into country music, and recorded mostly up-tempo songs, and sometimes used to yodel and growl when she sang. But later on she more and more ended up singing slower ballads, more pop than country, but she was always making sure that she didn’t get too much “uptown” pop into her recordings, because she was really a country girl at heart.

Jonsson, A Tribute to Patsy Cline

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