Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline, the beloved country singer, soared from obscurity to worldwide fame before her life tragically ended at age thirty. After breaking all the barriers in the Nashville boys' club of the music business in the 1950s, she brought the Nashville sound to the nation with her torch ballads and rockabilly tunes like "Walking After Midnight," "Crazy," and "I Fall to Pieces." Earthy, sexy, and vivacious, she has been the subject of a major movie and countless articles, and her albums are still among the top five best-sellers for MCA almost thirty years after her death. In the end it is her music, a standard feature on jukeboxes from Seattle to Siberia, that prevails and keeps on keeping on.

This memorable biography of one of country music's most enduring legends is a revised abridgment of Patsy Cline , published in 1981. According to Nassour, Cline (1932-1963) was the first woman to demonstrate that country music could appeal to a wide audience. Bold and ambitious, she was a free-living, earthy performer whom producers sometimes found difficult to work with. She apparently had few close friends, but she showed generosity to any number of people, particularly talented young women singers such as Dottie West and Loretta Lynn. Her long-term association with producer Bill McCall was, financially, "probably the single biggest mistake Patsy made in her professional life," claims Nassour, but he gives McCall great credit for promoting Cline's career. Although Cline died in a plane crash 30 years ago, her musical influence has persisted. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.