Patsy Cline Part IV

In March 1963, Patsy was still working hard but a little depressed. Some friends later thought that she had had premonitions about dying...She performed at a benefit in Kansas, together with George Jones and Dottie West. Dottie offered her a ride back to Tennessee, in her car but Patsy did not want to go on the long 16 hour drive. She decided to fly, though the weather was not good. The plane flew to Dyersburg Tennessee and landed there, but the airfield manager suggested they stay the night as the weather was increasingly bad. Patsy’s pilot preferred to go on. But he was not trained on instruments flying. The plane took off again at 6.07 but crashed in woodlands outside Camden Tennessee, about 90 miles from Nashville. Roger Miller, her friend and others scoured the woods when they heard that the plane was missing. They found the plane... but there were no survivors.  Patsy was dead at the age of 30. Her death was particularly tragic as she had been working so hard and trying to fulfil her early promise…Her powerful voice and ability to portray emotion in her singing had lifted her above many of the “girl singers” of her time and made her a seminal artist. She came along when women singers were beginning to overcome the notion that they were just eye candy. Her legacy has been nurtured by her daughter Julie Fudge and her husband Charlie who have produced documentaries and shows in her memory…