Patsy: The Life And Times Of Patsy Cline

More than thirty-five years after her tragic death in a plane crash at age thirty, Patsy Cline (1932–1963)remains one of the greatest voices of this century. Her soulful torch-song ballads—“Walkin' After Midnight,” “I Fall to Pieces,” “Crazy,” and “Sweet Dreams”—bought her worldwide fame as both a country and pop star, while her life and career were immortalized in the 1985 film, Sweet Dreams. InPatsy, Margaret Jones chronicles the life of Patsy Cline (nee Virginia Hensley) from her impoverished childhood and abuse by her father, through the struggle for her success and her exploitation by record producers to her phenomenal but short-lived recording career. The book is based on extensive interviews with country music's greatest—Loretta Lynn, June Carter, Dottie West, Barbara Mandrell, Faron Young, Roy Clark, Jimmy Dean, Johnny Western, Tompall Glaser, songwriters Harlan Howard and Donn Hecht, and record men Owen Bradley and Don Pierce. The result is the first fully drawn portrait of this crossover superstar, as well as a vivid picture of the ever-expanding country music world. Hard-living and hard-loving, bawdy and ballsy, Patsy Cline surmounted unimaginable odds in a male-dominated industry to become the most popular female country singer in recording history.

Margaret Jones's profiles and stories on the arts, law, medicine, and publishing-have appeared in Los Angeles Magazine, Yoga Journal, New Mexico Magazine, the L.A. Reader, Publishers Weekly, the Journal of Country Music, Ojai Weekly, and Santa Barbara News-Press. She is a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Oxford University Press), and has written for PBS' Great Performances series. She is a yogi, editor, and organic farmer.