I Fall To Pieces Part 2: The Singer

(image from patsified.com)

Before Beyonce or Whitney Houston turned a church choir singing career into a pop music career, before Taylor Swift or Shania Twain dominated the charts as crossover country artists, there was Patsy Cline.

She was born as Virginia Patterson Hensley in Winchester, Virginia in 1932 to a poor, humble family. She sang in church growing up, as well as in bars and local talent shows. She wore the cowgirl outfits her mother made for her every time she performed, up until a fateful day in 1957, when she donned a cocktail dress and wowed the world on the CBS Show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” with her rendition of “Walkin’ After Midnight.”

“I Fall To Pieces” was a major turning point in Patsy’s career. It was her first major hit since “Walkin’”, a span of four years in which she’d gotten married to her second husband and had a baby. It was her first recording away from her original label, Four Star Records, and on her new label, Decca Records (which I’ll talk  about later). It was a whole new sound for her, not firmly bound to the jangly instrumentation of Country-Western  music, but instead establishing herself as a pop superstar.

She wasn’t sure how the song would come across, or how it would be accepted, but she did like the way it sounded. Apparently, so did everybody else.