What is it about Patsy Kline that is so good, even after all these years?
Was it just her voice? The arrangements? The choice of material?
There is something so hauntingly beautiful and yet sad every time I hear one of her songs.
I know describing talent is like nailing pudding to a wall, but what is it about Patsy Kline that makes her songs seem both a relic from the past, and yet ageless at the same time?
Patsy Cline.
I think it’s a combination of all of those things - choosing good songs from established songwriters, and working with incredibly talented arrangers and session players.
One thing that makes her appeal endure is that her voice isn’t as “country” as someone like Loretta Lynne or Dolly Parton; she feels more in line with someone like Rosemary Clooney or even Billie Holiday than she does with them. Since many people seem to have some sort of natural aversion to “twang” (i believe because they associate it with the terrible country music of the 80’s and beyond), her more natural, “classic” voice goes down smoothly. Ditto for her arrangements - which often lean closer to more MOR pop than the “hard country” of her peers.
[QUOTE=Freejooky]
Patsy Cline.
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Dang…and I even Googled it and found lots of sites with spelling of Kline. At any rate, that is a good point.
I forgot to ask, but is it true that “Crazy” is still the Number 1 played song on jukeboxes across the USA?
I wouldn’t doubt it. Regarding that song, I take it Willie Nelson’s original was very peppy and upbeat. The story I heard was that Patsy HATED it that way and decided to change it, When she slowed it down and put almost a blues spin on it, it turned from an average pop country song to pure magic.
For what it’s worth Willie Nelson’s version of “Crazy” is on the GTA: San Andreas soundtrack. It’s pretty slow and not all that upbeat. Maybe it’s just another recording he made?
Marc
A lot of the credit for her longevity should probably go to producer Owen Bradley who invented the more pop country sound. According to her biography Patsy hated the arrangements for all her post 1960 hits, including Crazy. She wanted a traditional country sound with fiddles and steel guitars and continually resisted Bradley’s take on songs.
Sorry to sound so cynical, but I think that her dying in a tragic plane crash has a lot to do with it. If she was schlepping “Crazy” in some barn show in Branson, I don’t think we’d think she was so magical.
There was a smoothness to Patsy Cline. Listen to the way her voice flows from one note to another. Her contemporaries had smiley faces and twangy voices. Patsy Cline’s chemistry was like adding a half a bottle of scotch to the music.
There is a lot of emotion in Patsy’s songs, and it feels uncontrived. When I listen to her, it’s like listening to someone who feels real joy in the music, and wants to share it with you.
It’s the sharing, I think.
k d lang has that quality too, and the stuff she did with Owen Bradley is also pretty wonderful.
I think it’s because she sang for grown-ups. At the start of her career, the charts were full of girl pop singers with songs about crushes on boys and “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,” and so on. Cline and Bradley gambled that something more substatntial would find an audience outside the world of jazz, dismissed as just hillybillies and tennyboppers.
For me, it’s her voice and phrasing.
I love the way she sings the phrase ‘You don’t love me, it’s plain to see’ in the song *Sweet Dreams (of You). * And the way she sings all of I Fall to Pieces.
You either respond to a voice like her’s at a gut level or you don’t. If you don’t, you think she’s OK. If you do respond to her at a gut level, you get goosebumps when you hear her sing. Lots of people love Frank Sinatra’s voice. Me, I just don’t get it.
Patsy Cline was born Patsy Kline, but changed it to Cline when she began her singing career. Kline was a German name. It was just after WWII ended and there was still strong anti-German sentiment in the US.
Her voice, how she used her, her selection of songs, her arrangements.
I went to a Christie’s auction recently that contained a lot of her clothing, and damn, she was a fashion plate! Dresses and hats and accessories you’d think “Jackie Kennedy,” not “Patsy Cline.” And she had quite a lovely hourglass figure, judging by some of those dresses.
Just another fan chiming in to agree with the others. She was magical. Somehow, her exeptional class as a person came through in her voice. I’ve always described her voice as having “musical authority”.
Maybe it’s just the photographic style or the old style b&w tv cameras, but she always looked to be far older than her age (she was 30 when she died).
I’ve never heard Nelson sing Crazy upbeat or peppy. Shoot, does he really sing anything “upbeat and peppy”?
Patsy looked mature, not old. Adults didn’t dress casually in the sixties for the most part. Patsy didn’t dress like a teeny bopper which makes her appear far older than her age to some modern eyes. Heck, I remember my mom dressing like that in her mid '20s.
Patsy Cline was a torch singer who grew beyond her country roots. I never knew that her producer worked with k.d. lang. I can’t think of anyone better to pass the torch to.
Another fan here! Just about every song she did was great, but I can see why Crazy might be the most-played jukebox song. There’s that little catch in her voice, just once, that always breals my heart.
I guess the same would apply to Hank Williams. I recently saw the only known clip of him performing on TV. He was probably 24-25 and looked like he in his 40’s. Hard living may have played a part of that.
Shadowland is the CD to get – I don’t know if she worked with Bradley again or not. Lang’s first group was called The Reclines, if I remember right.
And right-o about how we dressed in the 50’s and 60’s. We dressed from the children’s department until the age of 12 or so, and then it was right to the same stuff your mom wore. Straight skirts, sweaters, nylons, blouses – you had to have at least three or four white blouses. The dry cleaners made a fortune and everyone owned an iron and knew how to use it. I’m getting all verklept here.
We were watching Blood Simple tonight and Sweet Dreams was playing on a jukebox.
My favorite Patsy Cline song is Faded Love. When her voice breaks, you stop breathing.
I agree, with Patsy, the attraction for me is the emotion. What I don’t agree with here is “the joy in the music” part. There isn’t a lot of joy in most of Patsy’s songs. There’s a real palpable sense of heartbreak that she conveyed better than just about anyone I can think of.