ALWAYS … PATSY CLINE Chronology October 2017, Jewel Theatre Company Shaun Carroll, Director © Susan Myer Silton, Dramaturge
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ALWAYS … PATSY CLINE Chronology October 2017, Jewel Theatre Company Shaun Carroll, Director © Susan Myer Silton, Dramaturge Key: DJ (disc jockey), NYC (New York City), UK (United Kingdom), US (United States), WWI (World War I) 1932 Patsy is born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8 at Winchester Memorial Hospital, Winchester, Virginia. 1932-1946 The events of Virginia (Ginny’s) life during these years are described narratively throughout the glossary, in the definitions and in her biography on pp. 1-10. 1946 – 1947 Virginia auditions for DJ Joltin' Jim McCoy at Radio Station WINC, Winchester. She wins a regular spot on McCoy's Saturday broadcast. 1948 Virginia catches the ear of Wally Fowler when Fowler brings his Oak Ridge Quartet to the Palace Theater in Winchester. Fowler invites Virginia to audition for WSM In Nashville. Ginny and Hilda travel to Nashville. Virginia auditions for Opry talent manager Jim Denney, but does not receive an immediate offer for employment. She returns to the clubs and taverns around Winchester. 1952 Virginia begins working with Bill Peer and his Melody Boys at the Moose Lodge in Brunswick, Maryland. Peer becomes her manager, and at his urging, she adopts the stage name "Patsy," derived from her middle name of Patterson. They become lovers, even though he is married. Peer manages Patsy’s career, getting her gigs and working tirelessly to ensure that she is seen and heard by people who will put her in the spotlight. He not only guides and nurtures her career, he bankrolls it out of his own pocket, working several jobs and often going into debt to do so. Bill has been credited with taking the rough-hewn singer and transforming her into a dynamic Country belter. It was his goal to record Patsy. He produced and circulated a number of demonstration tapes of Patsy’s vocals, but ultimately, he couldn’t deliver on his promises to get her the right contacts outside of where they lived. Bill was well-known regionally and had connections, but his contacts with Nashville stars didn’t lead to recordings. The Nashville folk didn’t see him as more than a respected local musician whom they could call on in a jam or use for backup when they toured through the area. 2 Bill Peer with Patsy Patsy meets Gerald Cline at a Moose Lodge dance where she is singing. They begin dating. Cline, from Frederick, Maryland, is 7 years her senior but looks much older. He is overweight, only a bit taller than Patsy, and not particularly good-looking. However, he is completely smitten with Patsy and pursues her persistently. 1953 Patsy marries Gerald Cline on March 7, officially becoming Patsy Cline. She justifies the surprising move by reasoning that it will bring her respectability after her scandalous affair with Peer, take her out of the small town of Winchester, and provide a financial boost to her career through his family’s money. Not long after they marry, she reumes her affair with Bill Peer. 3 Patsy and Gerald in the early days of their relationship 1954 Patsy wins first prize at the National Country Music Championships, held in Warrenton, Virginia, sponsored by Washington, DC Country music promoter, Connie B. Gay. She later joins Mr. Gay's radio broadcast, Town and Country Time. On September 30, Patsy signs her first recording contract with Four-Star Music Sales, aka Four-Star Records, through its president, William A. McCall. According to Ellis Nassour in Honky Tonk Angel, “Four-Star was basically a music publisher, but McCall signed artists, recorded them at their expense, then leased product to a major label, such as Decca. This is exactly what McCall did with Patsy’s records: before the year was out, he would negotiate a Leasing and Distribution Arrangement with Decca Records through Paul Cohen, who was in charge of the label’s A&R (Artists and Repertoire). Decca secured control of the recording sessions and choice of producer. Cohen would later pair Patsy with Owen Bradley, who developed the sound around Patsy’s unique attributes as a singer. Bradley, who is described more below, respected Cohen’s “ear” for a song. Bradley said, “he was not a musician, but he had a great sense of rhythm. I learned from him how to pick songs. There are some people who will analyze a song, but Paul didn’t. He just felt them. He’d either say, ‘I love it!’ or ‘I don’t like it’ –– you know, a gut reaction” (Patsy: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline). 4 Owen Bradley (left), Patsy Cline and Paul Cohen in the Bradley Studio in Nashville Pioneer record producer Milt Gabler, for years A&R chief at Decca, claimed McCall “operated just this side of the law. You didn’t envy anyone who dealt with him. Just about everyone considered McCall a nuisance, yet he made good economic sense. The label distributed his product and reaped nice commissions” (Patsy: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline). Songwriter Don Hecht was also interviewed by Nassour for his book. “Nashville is full of Bill McCalls,” Hecht said, “They’re hard-driving, profit- and loss-minded executives who know how to recoup their investments. No one thinks of them as suspect. Writers, some desperate for money, went to McCall. He’d, say, name a price for the publishing rights, then he’d buy the song. He didn’t twist any arms. When that song would become a hit, McCall was found guilty. He couldn’t see into the future. A lot of what he bought didn’t even make it to the bottom of the charts.” Patsy’s contract with Four-Star was a standard American Federation of Musicians (AFM) form, specifying “a minimum of 16 (sixteen) 78 rpm record sides, or the equivalent thereof … and additional recordings shall be made at our election. The musical compositions to be recorded shall be mutually agreed upon between you and us, and each recording shall be 5 subject to our approval as satisfactory.” Patsy was required to be exclusive with Four-Star for two years, and had a one-year renewal option. Any recordings made would remain the property of Four-Star. Patsy’s royalty of 2.34% of the retail list price on records sold in the United States was about half the royalty paid to established stars. Session musicians would be paid within fourteen days of services and such payments, at scale, would be deducted from Patsy’s royalties—the industry norm. “After the contract signing, McCall took Peer, Gerald, and Patsy for drinks and dinner. Years later, Patsy remarked, ‘McCall paid that night, but it ended up being on me. I paid for every goddamned thing from then on. I didn’t know how much till it was too late’” (Patsy: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline). Many musicians have difficulty with their initial contracts, because at this stage in their recording career, they are naïve, the record companies are powerful, and they will capitulate because the market is so competitive and they fear not being signed at all. The themes of resilience and fighting oppression in Tom Petty’s song “I Won’t Back Down,” though universal, have been attributed to his own struggle with a recording contract early in his career. 1955 In the Spring, Patsy has an abortion. She wants to postpone children until her career has moved further ahead, and because she resumed her affair with Bill Peer after her marriage 6 to Gerald Cline, she is unsure who the father is. On June 1, under the supervision of producer, arranger, pianist and big band leader Owen Bradley, Patsy has her first recording session in Nashville. Bradley, who was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1974, was years ahead of his rivals as a producer. He was innovative at a time when Country Music had grown stagnant. Bradley had his own pop combo, the Owen Bradley Quintet, where his brother, Harold, also a session player, played guitar. Farther out toward the West End of Nashville, Music Row, as it came to be known, was taking shape. Bradley was one of its masterminds, having built a studio with his brother in 1952, to which they later added an adjacent metal “Quonset Hut”, which is now part of Sony-Columbia. It was soon christened “Bradley’s Barn”. On the main floor was a studio for and in the basement, Bradley created one of the most technically advanced recording studios in the region. Interior of Owen Bradley’s Quonset Hut studio Paul Cohen saw Patsy as a crossover star, and heard in her voice a pop sound that wasn’t like that of other Country female soloists. It was the quality that he wanted Bradley to develop in her songs. Bradley had his feet in both the Country Music and Pop world. His studio was in Nashville and he worked with many Country musicians, but earlier in his 7 career, he had been a pianist and arranger for Kay Starr, Jo Stafford, Dinah Shore and Perry Como. At the time Cohen introduced Patsy to Bradley, Bradley had no magic formula for Patsy’s voice. Bradley noted later that even if he initially wanted to record her as Pop, it wouldn’t have been accepted. Despite Cohen’s insight about Patsy’s voice, she was being sent to Nashville to record Country Music, and that’s what Bradley did at first. Besides, Patsy would have nothing to do with the pop sound. She was steeped in her Country roots and preferred growling, yodeling, and the flashy up-tempo endings suited to her big voice.