Life and Music Style of Patsy Cline - Essay Example

Patsy Cline Patsy Cline (1932-63), American country music singer, attained a renowned status in the history of pop music during her life time as well as posthumous. She was born in the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia, in 1932. She had a short but prolific music career and she had created some remarkable contribution to the music arena of the period before she was murdered, along with three other Grand Ole Opry stars, in a plane crash near Camden, Tennessee in 1963. Even forty five years after her death, the modern music lovers are carried away by the magic of her musical quality and lyrics. Fans have ever been in praise of her musical ability and some of her recordings are being sold as hot cakes even today. Her reputation as the most celebrated country singer of the period not only made her famous among her contemporaries, but continues to earn her the status of the ideal of country music. "Forty years after her death," observes Douglas Gomery, "Patsy Cline (1932-63) is a bigger star than ever. She sells more albums than when she was alive. Her haunting rendition of 'Crazy,' a Willie Nelson composition, is the most played song on jukeboxes." (Gomery, 117) Therefore, it is obvious that this great artist has been considered as one of the most influential, flourishing, honored, and commended female vocalists of the 20th century, mainly on account of her musical qualities. However, it remains a fact that Patsy Cline has been far more renowned in the modern music world than she ever was in life. Therefore, it is most illuminating to undertake an investigation into who this posthumously celebrated Patsy Cline is in relation to Patsy Cline of real life, or what her link has been to the Patsy Cline who recorded songs from 1957 until her unexpected death in 1963, fell into gloom, and then sparked a revival in the 1980s that turned Patsy Cline into a 'country music legend'. Thus, understanding the 'real' Patsy Cline would be most valuable in realizing why she has been an important figure during and after her life. In an attempt to expose the 'real' Patsy Cline, Joli Jensen provides useful account of how this endeavor characteristically emulates the culture's tousled efforts to make sense of Cline's concoction of brass and lace. According Jensen, Patsy Cline possessed two careers: "one when she was and alive trying to make hit records, and another after she became a posthumous star. The posthumous Patsy bears only a partial resemblance to the live Patsy, who we can now know only through interviews and pictures." (Jensen, 107) An analysis of what has happened to Patsy Cline's image over time reveals how femininity is constructed in country music and popular culture, in general. This paper, therefore, focuses on the life and music career of Patsy Cline in relation to her country music, which discloses the true merit of her music and answers the question what makes her so important a musical genius. Patsy Cline has been remarkably considered to be the most influential country musician of the last century, and her posthumous influence on the development of country music is even more significant. Her performance career started in the mid 1940s and came to a startling close with her murder in a plane crash in 1963. Patsy started her recording career in Nashville by the year 1955 and soon became a member of the Opry. Her rich tone and emotionally expressive bold contralto voice earned her a great status among her contemporaries. These qualities, accompanied by her image as the sole mover in the country music industry, made Patsy an international figure, and they also inspired several vocalists of different music genres. Therefore, the image of Cline as the most celebrated of the country musicians is categorical. She was a country pop star and her fame was established by the various performing on radio and television broadcasts etc. Patsy Cline has been a country artist who consistently fought the pop styling, and one of the major factors ensuring her success as a renowned musician is her desire to be consistent with country style as against the trends of popular pop music of the time. Though her voice had been flat, rich and 'pop' sounding, she always chose to be a country singer, and her resentment of being forced into recording slower, more melodic material earned her the crown of country music. "Her hit records crossed over into the pop charts, yet she was considered, and considered herself to be, a country star While Patsy Cline is not a typical performer, she is still an excellent vantage point from which to explore the nature of the country music business in Nashville in the 1950s." (Jensen, 38) Therefore, it becomes lucid that one of the major reasons behind the popularity of the artist as the single most influential musicians of the last century is the fact that she resented to be carried away by the pop trends of the time, but preferred to be the harbinger of country music tradition. In fact, her decision to be the benefactor of country music suited her musical talents, and this contributed to her career as the most significant celebrity of the country musical tradition. "Her unwillingness to sing in the pop style," writes Jensen, "suited to her voice and the times sparked explicit disagreements and audible stylistic mixtures. Her temper helped make these stylistic disagreements memorable for her producer and sidemen." (Jensen, 38) Consequently, Patsy inclination for country music helps one in a proper understanding of the major aspects of her career and the development of her recordings. In other words, Patsy Cline's fame as the most influential, triumphant, and commended female vocalists of the 20th century is mainly due to her contribution to country music. In an analysis of the major aspects in Patsy's music which made her a famous female vocalist of the last century, it is essential to have a glimpse of the struggle in the artist between the country music and pop music. It is particularly important to note that Patsy Cline defined herself as a country singer. Similarly, it is often specified that Patsy's Nashville career was the result, mainly, of her reluctance to take on a pop sound and image. However, the most interesting irony of her career was that Patsy earned wide reputation and success mainly due to her pop styled material, although her country material appealed largely on the Opry and live shows. Patsy had an insatiable urge for success, but she never attempted to achieve it by crossing over into the pop record market. The major tensions in her career between country music and pop music point to the success of country music over the popular music of the period. Country music was her passion from her early childhood, and this suited her lower class background and personal style. It was Patsy's long cherished ambition to become a star on the Grand Ole Opry, and country music shaped and reflected her personal world. "One of the symbols of country music that Patsy clung to was the stylized cowgirl outfits she wore in her early career." (Jensen, 42) Though she wished to continue wearing them throughout her career, she had to give it up due to the demands of the industry. Therefore, it is obvious that Patsy Cline suffered mainly the struggle between country music and pop music all through her career, and she gave up her clamorous denunciation of pop styled material. However, Patsy could never embrace the country music style to replace her country style. She considered embracing of pop as her abandonment of her own identity and the connection to her background, beliefs, experience etc. Although she adamantly refused to embrace pop style time and again, she faced the tension of this struggle between pop music and country music. "What is clear from the country-pop tensions in Patsy Cline's career is that it mattered a lot to her that she be defined as a country singer. It fulfilled a lifelong dream of success, and it also identified her with a specific set of values. In other words, generic tensions really count-one of these tensions would have existed, were choice of musical genre merely a matter of aesthetic preference, or based purely in commercial self-interest." (Jensen, 43) There was an obvious struggle in the musical career of Patsy Cline between the pop music style and her own country music tradition, and the same tension was visible in her music business. Obviously, she was ultimately able to manage and overcome this tension, mainly by singing smooth and arranged material, at the same time as calling herself a country musician. Patsy's development as a pop musician was gradual, and always she preferred to be known as a country musician. "In the beginning of her career she was completely into country music, and recorded mostly up-tempo songs, and sometimes used to yodel and growl when she sang. But later on she more and more ended up singing slower ballads; more pop than country, but she was always making sure that she didn't get too much 'uptown' pop into her recordings, because she was really a country girl at heart." ('Patsy Cline') Another central element contributing to this analysis of Patsy Cline, the renowned female vocalist of the last century, is the fact that Patsy's image, during and after her life, has been created and shaped in response to her gender. Patsy Cline was the most famous female country music singer and her reputation was mainly due to her response to her feminine identity. She was clear about the image she wanted to cultivate, and fans understood her differently over the time. Patsy was an ardent supporter of country music and wanted to express herself as a female singer and musician. Patsy revived the country music arena and showed that there was a great future ahead for country music by selling more than the popular albums of the time. However, her reputation as a female country musician has been neglected by several factors. Thus, one finds that Patsy Cline did not incorporate herself greatly in the history of country music, and the contemporary country music scholars as well as fans were not able to identify her place as a country musician. The period was not favorable to the development of country music, but Patsy's role was that of one who had helped the country music 'sell out.' Country music was not at flourishing period during her life time. However, she was able to cross over the borders of country music charts as well as pop charts. She reached beyond the limitations of the time, and "the pop/country charts weren't the only borders she was crossing She had'grown up hard,' was sexually frank, swore, drank, and held her own in male company. So Patsy both was and wasn't country, not only in her music, but in her persona." (Jensen, 112) As against the general conventions of the 1950s in the public country music world, which limited the role of a girl singer to the modest or decorous, Patsy carved her imprint an exemption. In spite of the efforts to make her the personification of pert, fresh, country girl, Patsy challenged the traditional values. She created an image as a female vocalist who reached beyond the expectations of the time, mainly due to her own decision to be different. Patsy Cline's "brief career in the late 1950s and early 6os helped transform country music styling for broader market appeal" (Ellison, 67) Therefore, the main contribution of Patsy to the country music was that she was able to transform its lot by introducing it to the broader market appeal, and she rose above the limitations of her female identity in this attempt. She not only transformed country music, but earned popularity through pop music as well, and her gift of voice helped her in this attempt. "Patsy Cline was the first female artist to have sustained popularity as both a country and pop performer in postwar America. Her legendary vocal styling helped Nashville entrepreneurs develop an antidote to the commercial challenge of rock and roll in the early 1960s." (Ellison, 92) Patsy's current image as the most celebrated female vocalist of the last century has been the result of all her contribution to country music and popular music in general. The music of Patsy Cline not only started the revival in country music, but also illustrated the power of female identity as a great musician. Her fame was also contributed by the audience. "Patsy's fame involves an audience that is responsive to things she apparently represents-a voice that isn't country but a life that is, a feistiness and sexiness that wasn't country then, but can be now, a prescient force for music and feminism, and a death that stopped her too soon, but allows her to 'live again' through our responses to her." (Jensen, 117) This analysis of Patsy has explained that her posthumous fame has been mainly due to certain forces that determine popularity: the production perspective or the force of the media; a consumption perspective of the audience, and an aesthetic perspective or the work itself. However, according to the semiotic perspective, popularity is determined by the symbolic complex of the cultural form and this semiotic perspective addresses Patsy Cline's feminine identity at its best. This perspective also helps in exploring how Patscy has been symbolically constructed to allow for multiple meanings. "In a semiotic perspective, the posthumous Patsy Cline becomes a collaborative construction of all three levels of explanation-the media, the audience, and her body of work. She is a bricolage-an assemblage of accrued meanings that can be variously read, at various times, by various people. Her fame is enabled by the multiplicity of readings her symbolic complexity allows." (Jensen, 119-20) This perspective of Patsy addresses her as an artist or a person as well as a subject position, and she is a person whose life and work may mean a variety of things to different people. Significantly, the posthumous Patsy Cline may be comprehended as an identity which is socially constructed to have enough power to appeal widely, without enough specificity to leave out or resist. "Popular commentary on Patsy's iconic status, as well as fan and scholarly interest, seeks to cut through these symbolic accretions, to retrieve the 'real' Patsy." (Jensen, 119-20) Therefore, the identity of Patsy Cline as created by the popular culture is not the real identity of this artist, and her posthumous identity has been created by the social background. Patsy Cline's musical career is closely related to the country music, and it was through the explorations in country music that Patsy expressed herself. Patsy Cline's position as the most renowned, successful, influential, and honored female vocalists of the last century is undisputed, and she has been rightly considered as the country star who celebrated country music throughout her career. "For its queen," Young and Young observe, "country music had Patsy Cline during the 1950s." (Young and Young, 166) Significant studies in the area have contributed to the understanding of this musician as the most celebrated artist of country music. A contextualized reading of the life and career of this country genius makes one realize "Patsy defined by the country/pop tension in her music, and one who was clearly low class." (McCusker and Pecknold 129) Therefore, this investigation into the life and career of Patsy Cline confirms that patsy Cline made the significant contribution to country music, while also celebrating the pop music style. More significantly, her image as the single influence to country music tradition is also the result if her response to the demands of her feminine identity. She was more than an ordinary woman who always found meaning in exploring the unlimited ways of country music tradition coupled with pop style. Works Cited Ellison, Curtis W. Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 1995. P 67. Gomery, Douglas. Remembering Patsy. The Wilson Quarterly. Vol. 27. Iss. 1. 2003. P 117. Jensen, Joli. "Patsy Cline's Crossovers: Celebrity, Reputation, and Feminine Identity." A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music. Kristine M. Mccusker and Diane Pecknold. (Ed). Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 2004. P 107-120. Jensen, Joli. "Patsy Cline, Musical Negotiation, and the Nashville Sound." All That Glitters: Country Music in America. George H. Lewis. (Ed). Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. 1993. P 38-43. McCusker, Kristine M. and Diane Pecknold. A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 2004. P 129. "Patsy Cline." A Tribute to Patsy Cline. 03 Dec. 2008. . Young, William H. and Nancy K. Young. The 1950s. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2004. P 166. Read More