Honky Tonk Angel (53 page)

In 1964 the Civil Aeronautics Board claimed the probable cause of the crash was a “Non-instrument pilot attempting visual flight in adverse weather conditions, resulting in a loss of control. Judgment of the pilot in initiating flight in the existing conditions was misguided.”

Their investigation concurred with the observations of witnesses at Dyersburg airport that there was no engine malfunction. Exact details will never be known, but it’s been surmised that the plane may have been flying upside down or, because of how it came down, flipped on impact; that it shifted hard to the left as the wings were torn off and nose-dived into the ground. It’s said Randy was thrown from his seat, and Patsy, directly behind him, was ejected with more impact. Because she was partly shielded by Randy, more of her body remained intact.

If he’d been flying two miles to the east, Randy would have come out of the clouds over Camden and found the highway, maybe even a flat stretch where he could land.

Kathy Hughes took issue with statements claiming she’d told Randy she could “see the moon and stars ... it’s clear [in Nashville].” She recalled instead, “It had poured most of that day. The rain had stopped. I didn’t tell him the sun was shining, only that it looked like it was trying to quit raining.”

Sturvesant Insurance Company of Allentown, Pennsylvania, filed for a “declaratory judgment,” stating that it wasn’t liable for damage or personal liability because Randy hadn’t flown enough hours to pilot solo without an instructor. Randy was issued his license in May 1962, and his logbook showed he’d flown one hundred sixty hours—just over three of those at night.

Rumors circulated that Randy lived and flew his plane dangerously, but Mrs. Hughes said, “I’m certain Randy felt he was doing the right thing. The CAB reported pilots with hours of flying get in the same predicament.” She noted, “There was talk he and the others had been drinking,” but the autopsy of recovered remains backed up Mr. Braese’s statement that “there was no smell of alcohol and everyone appeared to be sober.”

Mrs. Hughes filed a $2.5 million suit, with the three estates filing claims of $750,000 each. A settlement was reached, awarding $33,333 to each of the families and $15,000 for the plane.

Months after the crash, Patsy’s Confederate flag / Rebel soldier cigarette lighter and Hawkins’s rhinestone-studded “Hawk” jacket and Western hat, pilfered from the wreckage, were donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Carl Perkins presented items he’d found, including Patsy’s mascara case and hairbrush. Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires turned over a piece of the plane’s floorboard he’d been given. Ralph Emery donated the plane’s cockpit dashboard clock—with the hands stopped at 6:20 PM. The beautician who dressed Patsy’s hair and wigs donated a wig.

In 1964, a memorial entrance to Shenandoah Memorial Park, where only simple markers were allowed, was completed. Inscribed on a giant granite slab are music notes and these words: “This entranceway is dedicated in remembrance of Patsy Cline, one of America’s best beloved singers by her husband Charlie Dick, their children Julie and Randy and her family.”

“When Charlie began dating,” said Faron Young, “it was ironic that he found a gal who sang just like Patsy. She worked for Del Reeves, Porter Wagoner, and me. Of course, she was a knockout!”

He spoke of petite beauty Jamey Ryan. It was amazing how reminiscent her vocal talents were of Patsy’s, but the rub was that she was just eighteen.

Mrs. Hensley wasn’t pleased that her grandchildren’s mother figure was still in her teens. Charlie was eleven years older. He felt his children’s most important need was a mother. He loved Jamey, she got on well with Julie and Randy, and gossip be damned.

Assuming she had a trump card, Mrs. Hensley filed Patsy’s handwritten will in probate court in Davidson County, Tennessee; but Charlie managed to have it overturned. However, when it proved impossible for him to work and care for the children, he made a temporary truce and allowed Mrs. Hensley to keep them, as per Patsy’s will. They remained with her for a year and a half, spending holidays and summers with their father, who supported them financially.

Charlie and Jamey married in 1965. Mrs. Hensley contended that when she came to Nashville with her grandchildren, “I was not welcome at Charlie’s home.”

“Not true,” claims Charlie. “That was just Hilda talking. She knew she was welcome. If she chose to stay in a motel, it was her own doing. There was a misunderstanding between Hilda and Jamey, but that was cleared up. We were all very, very good friends.”

Julie and Randy spent the summers of 1963 and 1964 in Nashville and returned to Winchester Labor Day weekend. In 1965, they never came “home” to Hilda, who said that when she rang Charlie to protest, he gave the phone to five-year-old Julie, who told her she wanted to live with “Daddy” and that “We have a new Mommy now.”

Of her marriage, Jamey explained that Mrs. Hensley “felt mixed emotions. I was still a teen and marrying the twenty-nine-year-old father of her two grandchildren. Her attitude was, ‘What kind of kid is coming in here and taking care of my grandbabies?’ It was hard for her to give the children up, but after a couple of years, she saw I loved and cared for them as if they were my own. I didn’t talk to her on a regular basis, but we did stay in touch and were friends.”

Charlie and Jamey had a son, Charles Jr. (Chip), in 1966. They divorced in 1972.

“I remained close to Julie and Randy,” Jamey said. “Lots of things happened between Charlie and me. It was sad our marriage didn’t work. It’s one of those things we all have to learn to live with. But we have a son and now grandkids, so good, bad, or indifferent, I have to accept Charlie. I know he did try. It wasn’t easy. He has been a good father.”

Many assert Charlie’s drinking, carousing, and preoccupation with Patsy’s memory were contributing factors in the breakup.

Jamey’s Patsy-like clarion voice would later come in handy. She provided the vocals for two songs in
Sweet Dreams
: “Bill Bailey (Won’t You Please Come Home)” and “Blue Christmas,” a song Patsy never recorded.

It puzzles or irritates some that Patsy’s daughter calls Jamey “Mom,” but Julie
was not quite four and a half when her mother was killed, so Jamey was in fact Julie’s mother figure during her formative years.

“I’ve written some songs since Patsy’s death,” said Hank Cochran, “and I’ve just cried because she wasn’t around to sing them.”

Patsy could still be climbing the charts just on her ability to deliver songwriters’ lyrics so poignantly. Some call that tear in her voice a gimmick; however, according to Bradley, it was natural.

It’s a rare country awards show that an artist fails to mention being influenced by Patsy. Such artists include Emmylou Harris, k.d. lang, Reba McEntire, Barbara Mandrell, LeAnn Rimes, Linda Ronstadt, and Trisha Yearwood.

“It’s wonderful that whenever Patsy Cline’s name is mentioned,” poet Maya Angelou observed, “people’s voices fall and they become right sentimental. And rightly so.”

“I never met her, and that is certainly my loss,” regretted late country legend Tammy Wynette, who sang her share of songs about heartbreak. “Patsy Cline is and perhaps will always be the standard bearer for all female country singers. She truly was my inspiration.”

A gift of Patsy Cline albums to k.d. lang on her twenty-first birthday was a transforming experience. “I was just blown away by her interpretive quality and the timbre of her voice. It was pretty powerful stuff.”

When Trisha Yearwood became an Opry member in 1999, Charlie and Julie presented a necklace that belonged to Patsy. “Patsy’s voice was big,” Yearwood attested, “but it’s also very emotional. On ‘Faded Love,’ you hear her breathe. It’s like she’s in the room with you.”

At Reba McEntire’s early Nashville sessions, related Harold Bradley—Owen’s brother and a well-regarded bass player on Patsy’s records—she kept asking him, “What was it like to record with Patsy Cline? What was she like?” At her Hall of Fame induction, McEntire performed “Crazy” and observed “Patsy was larger than life! ... She taught me emotion—raw, sincere, unashamed. On her recording of ‘Crazy,’ you can almost hear her cry from her guts. I wanted to create that kind of emotion when I sang.”

In 1979 she recorded “Sweet Dreams (of You)”; and until a 1991 tragedy in which the plane transporting her band crashed, McEntire ended concerts with it.

Terri Clark’s love for Patsy turned her to crime. Upon arrival in Nashville, she so admired a photo of Patsy that hung on the wall at Tootsie’s that she decided she had to have it as a good luck charm. The “theft” made news, and Clark vowed “when I make it, I’ll return it.” In 2006, upon being made an Opry member, she kept her promise.

With her ability to sustain high notes, LeAnn Rimes is the closest anyone has come to sounding like Patsy. Her 1996 debut recording, “Blue,” made when she was fourteen and which won her Grammys as Best New Artist and Best Female Country Vocal Performance, was written by Bill Mack, a Dallas disc jockey and record promoter. He’d written the tune for Cline and sent her a demo.

Rimes’s early recordings, which included “I Fall to Pieces” and “Crazy,” were produced by Bradley. “Being compared to Patsy Cline,” said Rimes, “was the biggest honor, because I always looked up to her.”

When Dolly Parton invited Loretta and Tammy to join her sessions for the album
Honky Tonk Angels
, Parton and co-producer Steve Buckingham created a quartet on Hank Williams’s rockabilly classic “Lovesick Blues” by overdubbing Patsy’s rendition.

In 1988 Bradley removed Patsy’s vocals from ten songs on the three-track master tapes and merged them with contemporary arrangements for a larger orchestra. The results were less than satisfying.

Bradley, in conjunction with the Cline and Jim Reeves estates and RCA producer and recording artist Chet Atkins, created duets on “I Fall to Pieces” and “Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue)?,” recorded by the singers in almost the same key.

In 1991 MCA released
The Patsy Cline Collection,
with over one hundred songs Patsy recorded or sang live or on the radio. The following year, Patsy and Willie Nelson were honored with induction into the Grammy Awards Hall of Fame for “Crazy.”

Discovery!
, released in the U.K. in 1994, was an apt title. It contained seventeen Patsy vocals from Arthur Godfrey shows, including the never-recorded “Down by the Riverside” and “The Man Upstairs.” The U.S. release has dialogue between Godfrey and Patsy.

A long-lost tape surfaced of Patsy singing live in Tulsa. It was cleaned up and released in 1997 as
Patsy Cline Live at the Cimarron Ballroom.
Amid thirteen tunes, including “Stupid Cupid,” which Patsy had sung on Armed Forces Radio and in Las Vegas, and “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” there’s rare chatter with the audience.

In 1999,
Patsy Cline Duets
was released with Crystal Gale, Glen Campbell, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson singing with Patsy. In 2005 Natalie Cole, George Jones, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, k.d. lang, Martina McBride, and, among others, Lee Ann Womack, did renditions of Patsy’s songs for
Remembering
Patsy.

Recording artist Mandy Barnett portrayed Patsy in 2006’s
Crazy
, the biopic about electric guitarist Hank Garland, who played on Patsy’s sessions from 1957 through the 1960 “I Fall to Pieces” recording, when, following disagreements, Bradley stopped using him. Session logs don’t list him playing on the “Crazy” sessions.