Honky Tonk Angel (22 page)

U
ncle Sam gave the Dicks an unexpected helping hand. As Charlie has reported, “the army made a big boo-boo.” Patsy’s allotment checks kept arriving. It was a windfall they hadn’t counted on. Patsy wanted to cash the first check, but what if the army realized their foul-up? Finally, after much consternation, she ventured to the bank. She could always say they assumed the money was due them. When nothing happened, she cashed six more checks of $137 each.

With the army surely hot on their trail, what else could they do but move? It was Nashville or bust!

The façades stand in Music City, but a unique world has disappeared. The warehouses in the shadow of the Cumberland River that symbolized Nashville as the leading furniture, printing, and Bible publishing center of the Southeast are haunted by decades of ghosts.

All streets led to lower Broadway. The hub was the Ryman Auditorium, whose ancient walls were shook by the Grand Ole Opry. Stars and fans mixed at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Linebaugh’s Cafeteria, the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, and every hillbilly palace where a guitar picker found work.

On dark side streets, in parking lots or roadside parks such as the one in which Virginia Hensley once slept, loyal fans ate waxpaper-wrapped sandwiches from home and out of store-bought canned goods. Boarding houses and greasy spoons, such as the Trailways bus station coffee shop, were filled with a tough breed of young and not-so-young struggling musicians from all points.

Patsy and Charlie arrived in late August 1959. They rented a two-story house at 213 East Marthona Drive off Old Hickory Boulevard in Madison, north of town. Just across the street, they had a famous neighbor, Hank Snow. Until their furniture arrived, they stayed at a motel and looked up old friends.

Opry star Carl Butler and his wife, Pearl, who then lived in south Nashville on Twenty-seventh Avenue, were at the top of their list. “We met Patsy a couple of times,” Pearl recalled, “on the ‘Town and Country Jamboree.’ While Carl sang, I palled around with everyone backstage. And, one night, there she was decked out in one of the cutest cowgirl outfits I’d ever seen. Patsy came up and said, ‘Hi, Pearl. I’m Patsy Cline.’ It was love at first sight. Patsy had this black address book and, before we left, she took down our address. She said, ‘Someday I’m gonna be coming to Nashville and I’ll look y’all up.’ I replied, ‘Y’ll be sure ’n’ come see us! If you don’t, we’ll feel mighty hurt.’”

Those were Pearl’s favorite words. She made the statement to everyone and meant it. Carl was a hillbilly singer in the truest sense. He had a loyal following and
a successful recording career. Pearl, who loved to talk and cook, went everywhere he did.

WSM-Grand Ole Opry photographer and raconteur Les Leverett recalled, “It wasn’t uncommon on Sundays, after church, to find almost as many cars at the Butlers. The artists discussed the road and, most of all, ate. You’d think Pearl had been in the kitchen for two days. Toward late afternoon or early evening, someone would break out their guitar and we’d sing. By then, the house was packed. A couple of times Carl leaned over and asked, ‘Hey, who’s that over there?’ I had no idea. Neither did anyone else. It’d turn out to be some fan who came backstage after their show to whom Pearl waved, ‘Y’all be sure ‘n’ come see us.’ And they did.”
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In October, there was a knock at the door. “Why, my God!” Pearl exclaimed. “Oh, my gosh. Carl, it’s Patsy, Charlie, and their little girl! Y’all come in here out of the cold.”

“You mean, you’re gonna invite us in?” Patsy asked.

“Of course. Y’all can stay if y’all want. Our home is your home.”

“We’ve been to see a lot of people who told us to look them up if we ever came to town and not a one invited us in.”

“Hon, we ain’t nobody but us.”

“It’s sure nice of you.”

“You’re friends, ain’t you?”

The Dicks and Butlers spent the day together, talking shop, cooking, eating, and Pearl carrying on over Julie. That night, Pearl walked Patsy and Charlie to their car. Returning inside, Pearl noticed Patsy had dropped her address book. She kept it a few days, then called the motel. The Dicks had checked out. She tried to call, but they didn’t have a phone.

Charlie went to work almost immediately, as a Linotype operator at the Curley Printing Company. Patsy, now that she’d done what everyone told her she had to do, was determined to hit it big again. If she couldn’t do it recording Four-Star’s songs, she’d hit the concert trail. After all, she was a known commodity.

Pearl saw Patsy three weeks later in the Andrew Jackson Hotel at the WSM Birthday Celebration and D.J. Convention.

“Hon, did you lose something?” she asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, don’t worry. I found it. But y’all don’t have a phone.”

“That’s all right, Pearl. Now that we know you and Carl, I don’t need that address book anymore.”

Pearl claimed, though she and Patsy weren’t intimates, that welcome at their home sealed the bond between the Dicks and Butlers.

“Whenever we saw each other at the Opry,” she related, “it was like old home week, exchanging stories and talking about the children. Patsy made several road
trips with us. Carl would do the driving and Patsy and me’d stretch out in the back seat and gossip. It was rough on everyone in those days, but the women had it especially bad. We’d commiserate.”

“Of all the people who say they knew Patsy well,” touted singer Faron Young, “I probably met her the earliest and knew her best. I knew Patsy and Charlie, their ups and all their downs. I was a friend they could count on and I was always there when she needed a shoulder to cry on.”

Faron Young was born in Shreveport, where he became a member and star of the Louisiana Hayride before joining Webb Pierce’s band and migrating to Nashville and the Opry. He possessed unusual vocal styling for country music and soon became dubbed the Frank Sinatra of Country. He was a consistent hitmaker with many country top-10s and, in 1957, the number one “Hello, Walls,” an early Willie Nelson tune that brought him pop crossover.

With his band, the Country Deputies, Young was in constant demand on the road. His popularity led to Hollywood, where in 1958, with Ferlin Husky, he costarred in the musical
Country Music Holiday
, which featured Zsa Zsa Gabor.

When you talk of Nashville reputations, Young’s name is bound to surface. If you believe all you hear, he would be one of the most contemptible characters in show business. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s impossible not to like him, in spite of his raunchy vocabulary and bluster.

He helped establish many careers. One example: when he was asked by a local bellhop for a job, Young didn’t put him off. He set an audition, and soon Roger Miller was the Deputies’ drummer.

Faron says much, sometimes too much. How much can be believed or proved is another story. He makes pronouncements that more than a few in Nashville claim to be “total B.S.” He has been married to his wife, Hilda, nearly thirty-five years and has four children. But to hear him carry on, you’d forget he has a certain distinction as a devoted family man.

“Faron is truthful,” Miller commented. “A lot of people say he’s a lot of talk and no action. But he’s a lot of talk and
some
action. His heart’s as big as his mouth.”

When the Dicks moved to town, Patsy talked Charlie into going to see their old friend on her behalf. Faron was, as he’s proclaimed many times, “hotter than hell.”

“Sheriff,
¹⁶
times are tough,” Charlie said. “Patsy’s records aren’t selling.”

“Rock ‘n’ roll’s killing us all.”

“I got a job but I’m not bringing home that much. And now we got another mouth to feed.”

Charlie told Young that Patsy had seen not “one red cent” from McCall and Four-Star Records, and that she was waiting out her contract “on pins and needles.”

“What can I do?” Young asked.

“You’ve known Patsy since the ‘Town and Country Jamboree.’ Can’t you put Patsy on some of your fair and road dates?”

“Goddamn right I can do anything I want! I gotta have a girl singer, but things are bad. Will she work for the right price?”

“Oh, yeah. She just needs to be out where the public can see her.”

Young paid Patsy twenty-five, then fifty dollars a night and took care of her hotel bills and most of her meals. In that era, that wasn’t considered a horrible salary for women singers. Male stars commanded a great deal more.

Patsy proved an asset to Young’s show. “You could’ve pricked Patsy a thousand times and not burst her bubble,” he observed. “She was enthusiastic and the crowds reacted fantastically. I kind of took her under my wing and taught her the ropes. We did things like that. Back then, country folk were a lot tighter. I learned from Hank Williams and Carl Smith to build a song from the heart. I told Patsy sincerity was everything.

“I helped her with her stage presence. Patsy wanted to play the guitar. I told her, ‘Throw that fucking thing away and get that mike and start walking with it. As long as you’re moving, they’re gonna watch you. If you stand still, no one’s gonna pay you any mind.’

“I traveled in a Cadillac limousine and she rode with me. Only the gospel groups had buses then. Since we knew each other for years, it was natural for Patsy and me to hang out. She had a great sense of humor and we were always cracking jokes and telling dirty stories. Patsy cussed like I do, like a drunk sailor.”

Soon Faron and Patsy were inseparable. In fact, according to Young, it went beyond that. “Patsy was pretty when she wanted to be. But I’ll never forget Charlie telling me that the day after he met her, he went to pick her up to take her to work in Washington. He went to her house in Winchester and knocked on the door. A woman with no makeup and her hair in rollers opened the door. He told me, ‘Goddamnit, Sheriff, I didn’t know who the hell she was!’

“He said, ‘Pardon me, ma’am, is Miss Cline in?’ The woman replied, ‘Goddamn it, Charlie, I am Miss Cline!’

“Even when she wasn’t at her prettiest, I was attracted to her. Patsy’s body made up for the rest on those occasions. She was built like a brick shithouse. When she moved, the earth shaked. I couldn’t take my eyes off her body. Ah, she had a figure like an hourglass. And what an ass. She looked good. I had other motives than just her being on my show. Oh, she knew what I was thinking. There wasn’t no doubt about what I was up to.”

Once when Young “tried to pull something,” Patsy told him off.

“Sheriff, what the fuck are you up to?”

“Yep. Right.”

“No, you little mother,” she said. “You can just forget about that stuff. You ain’t getting into the Cline’s britches! Don’t you know you’re messing with a married woman? Ain’t we like brother and sister?”

“Okay,” Young answered. “It’ll be all business from now on.”