Chords for Patsy Cline: A Country Career Cut Short (NPR Podcast)

_ _ _ One of American popular music's great unknowns is what would have happened to Patsy Cline's career if it had lasted longer.
She was poised to revolutionize the role of the solo female singer as well as Nashville's place in the music business.
With the release of her complete Deco recordings, rock historian Ed Ward takes a look at a great talent.
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Have you ever been _ lonely?
_ _ Have you ever [D] been blue? _ _
Have you ever loved _ someone _
just as [G] I love you? _
_ Can't you see that [C] I'm sorry?
_ _ Patsy Cline's [G] career really only lasted three years and the complete recorded output [Em] from that career lasts two hours and [D] ten minutes,
but her importance is out of proportion to those numbers.
[E]
She was born [B] Virginia Patterson Hensley in 1932 to parents living in the hills of West [N] Virginia
and was performing as a teenager under the name Ginny Hensley.
In 1953, she married Gerald Cline, a [C] construction worker.
A year later, she signed a contract with Four Star Records, which was mostly a vehicle for recording songs from its owner's publishing house.
Four Star put out 18 songs of the 51 she cut for them and only one [Am] charted.
I go out [C] walking _ after midnight
Out [F] in the moonlight just like we [C] used to do
I'm always walking _ [Ab] after midnight
[C]
Searching for _ _ [Dm] [C] you
_ [G] _
[C] I walk for miles
This recording is actually a remake of the original, which, like all [A] her other Four Star records, [F] was hardcore country.
[C] These recordings were made at the famous Nashville [Ab] studio Bradley's Barn, [Eb] where Decca's country recordings were made.
The minute her Four Star contract expired in 1960, she signed with Decca and Bradley saw a chance to record a great pop talent.
[Dm] For her first record, he found a song by Hank [Eb] Cochran and [Bb] Harlan Howard, two of the best writers in town. _ _
[Gm] I _ _ [Eb] fall _ _ [F]
to pieces
_ _ _ [E] _ [Eb] _
Each time [F] I see [Bb] you _ again
_ _ I _
_ _ _ [Eb] _ [Bb] fall [Cm] _ [F]
to [Dm] pieces
[F] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _
How [F] can I be [Bb] just your friend?
_ _ _ _ You want me to act _ [Eb] like we've never kissed
You [F] want me to forget
_ _ _ [Bb] Pretend we've never met, _ _ _ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ haven't yet
_ _ [Eb]
You walk by _ [F] and I [Bb] fall to pieces
_ _ _ The [Eb] _
_ instrumentation, [Dm] which included steel guitar by Ben Keith, [C] who later worked with Neil [Bb] Young, was country, but her phrasing definitely wasn't.
[Eb]
The song shot to number one on the country charts early [F] in 1961 and got to number 12 on the pop charts.
[Ab] Bradley's intuition was correct, so he started looking for jazzier numbers from his songwriting acquaintances.
A young Texan friend of Cochran's came up with one, and this did [Bbm] even better.
[Bb] _ _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[Cm] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
Crazy
_ [Ab] _ [G] I'm crazy for feeling _ [Cm] so lonely _ _ _ _ _ Crazy
_ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Crazy [Bbm] for [A] feeling [Bb] _ so _ [B]
lonely
_ [Cm] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [G] _
_ As long [Cm] as you want it
_ _ _ And _
_ [F] _ someday _ _ _ you'd leave me for _ [Bb] somebody new
[Cm] _ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [Dm] _
[D] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ Until Crazy hit number one in the country charts and number nine on the pop charts, Willie Nelson was considered [Bb] a bit too eccentric for Nashville's tastes.
But the song established him, and his career took off.
Patsy, though, was faced with a problem.
She'd joined the Grand Ole Opry and seems to have been a bit freaked out by her pop success.
She'd originally resisted recording Crazy, and yet her renditions of Hank Williams and [F] Bob Wills' songs sound odd because the way she sings them is so pop.
She found herself performing at Carnegie Hall and co-headlining the Hollywood Bowl with Johnny Cash.
[D] In 1962, [Gm] she became the first [G] female country performer to headline in Las [C] Vegas.
_ [Bb] _
[Am] I [Gm] [F] have been so [E] _ _
_ [F] _ _ wrong
_ [B] For a soul
[G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] Thought I could live
[C] Without [Am] the love that you [F] give
I was [A] wrong, [Gb] oh [Gm] so [C] wrong
_ _ [F] I have been [Bm] so _ _ [F] wrong
By the time So Wrong, [G] co-written by Carl Perkins, hit the [Dm] charts in the summer of [G] 1962, she'd earned enough money to buy a nice house for [D] herself, her husband Charlie Dick, and her two kids,
and her manager, Randy Hughes, bought a small plane so she could get around quicker and spend more [N] time at home.
Clearly, a change was coming.
In March 1963, even though Patsy had the flu, they flew to Kansas City to do a benefit with a half dozen other country stars for the family of DJ Cactus Jack Call,
who just died in an automobile accident.
After the show, she and two of the other performers, Cowboy Copus and Hawkshaw Hawkins, got in the plane, although Dottie West offered to drive her home.
Don't worry about me, Hoss, she told West.
When it's my time to go, it's my time.
The plane was delayed a day by bad weather, then only made it as far as Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Late the next day, they took off, ran into bad weather, and minutes later crashed into a hill.
All on board were killed.
_ Patsy Cline's last sessions show a woman coming to terms with pop music, as well as a voice that was learning to navigate some tricky directions.
She never had the chance to make the leap all the way, and left behind 41 songs that still hold up.
_ Ed Ward lives in the south of France.
He reviewed Patsy Cline's Sweet Dream, the complete Decca Studio Masters, 1960 to 1963.
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