Honky Tonk Angel (27 page)

Pearl Butler smiled warmly. “To put it simply, Patsy was an easy touch! If you want to talk about what a compassionate, thoughtful person Patsy was, I’ll start cooking something to eat for us. Anyone in trouble or need only had to go see Patsy and she was there with a good word or helping hand. But people didn’t take advantage of her. She’d know.”

Brenda Lee has deeply etched memories. “Those were my formative years, and Patsy had a big influence. We had a good, close relationship. It was wonderful to be involved with someone who was unique. Most people, especially an established star, wouldn’t have bothered with a youngster. But Patsy treated me as a peer. She loved all the girl singers. She was so unselfish and not the least bit envious or jealous. She didn’t mind their successes. That made a good impression. A lot of Patsy rubbed off on me.

“From the time Julie was two, when Patsy and Charlie first moved to Nashville, I went to their house in Madison. It was cute but tiny. Patsy was always saying, ‘One of these days, l’il sister, I’m going to have me a real house!’ They found one in town and were buying it, but Patsy wanted a real dream house like the movie stars.

“Either Patsy would pick me up or Mom would take me over. I couldn’t wait to get there. She was big on costume jewelry, and I used to love to play in her jewelry box and walk around in her spike heels. Patsy had things everywhere. Not strewn about. She was neat. She didn’t have any room. She was a pack rat waiting for the day she’d move to bigger quarters. Patsy loved to shop! She’d get things and didn’t have any place for them.

“Patsy liked being domestic. She loved cooking but wasn’t the type who’d throw something together in an hour. She needed all day. She was as much a perfectionist in that as she was in everything else. I helped Patsy with Julie or in the kitchen. And we’d sing. I’d listen to Patsy, and she’d listen to me. Then we’d both sing. I’d ask her how she did this or that and vice versa. We had that little hiccup thing we called yodeling. She’d yodel up a storm. I envied. her. She tried to teach me but I was a lost cause. Patsy didn’t give up, though. She wanted to yodel on her records the way she did on her live shows but Owen wouldn’t hear of it. Except for that one time in Texas, I never saw Patsy perform. I regret that very much.”

Brenda learned other things from Patsy. “A few unusual words. I wouldn’t say Patsy was rated X, but she’d come in under R! I don’t mean that in a detrimental way, because Patsy was Patsy. She was honest and blunt. Patsy never had a problem saying what she thought. She didn’t offend anyone when she cursed or set out to be vulgar or common. It was her mode of talking. I used to wonder who on earth in her family she took after. But it wasn’t anyone. It was just Patsy!

“When I was on the road as a kid with Faron, Mel Tillis, and George Jones, they’d tell me jokes—none of which I understood. Then they’d say, ‘Hey, Brenda, go tell so-and-so that.’ And I’d go up to someone and do it. They’d say, ‘Lord, all that coming out of a kid’s mouth!’ The guys were on the floor laughing.
They
thought it was funny.

“Patsy was the most generous person you’d ever want to meet. I liked her so
much more because of what she did for her friends and even strangers. Because she came up struggling, she had a good heart. I loved her dearly, and when she had Julie I said, ‘Patsy, if I ever have a little girl, I’m going to name her Julie because I love you so much.’ She’d answer, ‘Oh, you will not!’ And I’d retort, ‘Yes, I will. You wait and see!’”

Del summed up Patsy’s giving nature: “Even when she didn’t have it, she’d spend it. And not always on herself. She’d give anyone the skirt off her backside if they needed it.”

The house Patsy and Charlie were buying was a small but lovely red brick house situated on a huge lot in the 5000 block of Hillhurst Drive off Dickerson Road in northeast Nashville. She had Randy keep her working in order to keep up the house payments and go on furniture and appliance shopping sprees.

One of the better-paying jobs was an October 1960 U.S.O. show for military bases in Hawaii. Packaged by Hubert Long and Randy, it headlined Faron Young and Ferlin Husky and also featured Jerry Reed. Prior to setting off for the islands, Patsy and Charlie spent a long weekend in the “Brunswick triangle.” On Saturday night, to almost everyone’s surprise, Patsy and Charlie paid a visit with Fay and Harry Crutchley to the Brunswick Moose Lodge. Bill Peer and the Melody Boys, as usual, played for the dancers. Although a majority of those present knew the situation between Patsy and Bill, she was a star and they wanted to hear her sing. On hand was Bill’s second wife, Dolly Huffmiester, who, along with guitarist John Anderson, sang with the band.

Melody Boys Joe Shewbridge and Roy Deyton remember the occasion. “Folks kept bugging Bill about why he wasn’t asking Patsy to sing,” Shrewbridge said, “so he grudgingly asked. Patsy gladly accommodated, but afterward Dolly got terribly upset. She told him, ‘How the hell can you invite her to sing after the way she did you? Where’s your pride?’”

Deyton, who played upright bass, guitar, and fiddle, said, “Most of the band were happy to see Patsy. In spite of everything, we adored her, but none of us could blame Dolly, who was once one of Patsy’s best friends. Patsy had made fools of them and Dolly didn’t see why they had to be reminded of it.”

“I don’t see why we have to kiss her ass and say thank you!” Dolly was reported to have said.

For the trip to Hawaii, Patsy and Reed received expenses and a per diem of fifty dollars. Upon their arrival via Pan American clipper, agent Hubert Long had Faron, who was wearing shorts, and Ferlin, decked out in aloha shirts, and Patsy bathed in fragrant leis. Patsy, in her sixth month, loved the native, loose-fitting muumuus.

“Patsy had to see a hula show,” Faron recalled. “We didn’t hear the end of that. We did all the typical tourist things, such as sightseeing at Pearl Harbor and going to a luau. I don’t think Patsy ever stopped taking pictures!”

She had her tiny Kodak with the flash attachment permanently draped around her neck, directly underneath her daily assortment of leis. During the day, she wore sunglasses and a wide-brim hat made of dried palm fronds. She was never without
her two large purses—one of them, made of straw, was basket-sized. At night, she wore her famed gold lame trenchcoat.

The main engagements were at Pearl Harbor and the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe on the east side of Oahu. But there were also two nights in Honolulu at Kaiser’s Dome, now part of Hilton Hawaiian Village.

“The GIs knew Patsy and wanted her autograph and their picture taken with her,” Faron said. “I don’t remember her ever saying no. She loved it! The only time I can remember Patsy down was one afternoon onstage. She had hundreds of those guys screaming, yelling, applauding, and foot-stomping at Kaneohe, but when she was introducing ‘Walkin’ After Midnight,’ something happened that really depressed her. She said, ‘Back when I used to play with Arthur Godfrey—’ And they cracked up. They were laughing so hard they wouldn’t let her finish. She came off hopping mad and told me, ‘Those ignorant sons of bitches took what I said wrong!’

“I took Patsy into my arms and soothed her. ‘Honey, don’t think anything of it. Shit! They’re a bunch of gyrenesl What did you expect? They didn’t mean anything. They were just having a good time at your expense.’ I went out and did my portion of the show and calmed everybody down. I asked them, ‘Hey, you want to hear another number from Miss Patsy Cline?’ And they went wild, and Patsy returned to the stage and sang and sang and forgot about what happened.”

Upon her return to Nashville, Patsy made the rounds of the annual D.J. Convention, as the celebration was now called. Decca had made her signing official. Even with no new release since August, there were posters everywhere, stating: Welcome D.J.’s and Sincere Thanks ... Patsy Cline of Decca Records—Manager and Booker Randy Hughes. Patsy and Bradley were also selecting material for her first official Decca session, which was set for the middle of November. This was an all-important event, which had to produce a hit.

And Bradley had just the song he knew would do it.

Patsy’s friendship with Roger Miller introduced her to a new breed of Nashville songwriters who were considered radical by the establishment.

“I was a musician,” explained Miller, “but I wanted to write. I was unlike any other in Nashville. Patsy thought my music was unique and wonderful. Of course, I agreed with her. That made
two
of us! I was just a musician she thought was pretty amazing for some reason. She thought the same of Doug Kershaw.
¹⁹
Patsy had a self-contained show, independent of Faron’s, but no band. We [the Country Deputies] played behind all the acts and I was the drummer.

“I’d been doing okay as a writer and had a couple of records that had done fair, but Patsy was a star. There was a distance between writers, musicians, and the so-called stars. Patsy wasn’t like that. She loved good talent and dug all of us songwriters.

“She was a great singer, a belter. There’re people who sing and those who really
sing
. Patsy was in the latter category. Everyone respected her as the best female country singer. What amazed me was she could yodel and turn right around and do pop. There was no one like her.

“I can just see her coming in her cowgirl outfits with red western boots and hat and standing there singing her butt off, singing her soul at you. She didn’t make predictions about the future for me. But she was one of the first who appreciated what I could do.

“On those long road trips, being with Patsy in the back seat of the car was a wonderful way to while away the time. There was never a dull minute with her around. We had some good times and created a lot of wonderful memories, but Patsy and I weren’t intimates. Patsy was a loner and didn’t have a lot of friends. Patsy never confided in me about business or her personal life. She didn’t have any problems. As far as I could see, she always seemed to know where she was going. She and Charlie had their ups and downs, but nothing that much for me to know. He could get a bit rowdy when he was drinking, but I don’t know what that entailed.

“The writers and musicians hung out in the upstairs rear of Tootsie’s. After a few laughs and beers, when Tootsie was about ready to throw us out, we’d get a group together, especially on Fridays and Saturdays, and go to someone’s house and talk, play, and sing the night away. Patsy and Charlie’d hang out after the Opry at Tootsie’s and became part of the clique.

“I was Patsy’s friend because I amused her. She loved to laugh—no, howl! I was a clown. I made everyone laugh, but Patsy’s laugh was the greatest. It was a raucous thing. You could hear it all over the building. Anytime anyone’d ask Patsy about Roger Miller, she’d just throw her head back and laugh. Now we didn’t have anything on Patsy in the storytelling department. She could tell some dirty jokes!

“Patsy taught me a lot of slang. We were on a flight once, so it must have been to New York. She leaned into me and cracked, ‘Hoss, I saw you on the tube!’ I asked her, ‘What the hell’s a tube?’ She got real smart. ‘A TV, goddamnit!’ I said, ‘Thank you very much!’”