Patsy Cline was one of the first country music singers to find success on the pop charts. She has a terrific voice, and has justifiably found her place in the 20th Century musical canon.
That said, her brand of slow, plaintive country songs isn’t really my thing. When it comes to country music, I tend to prefer the more upbeat, humorous stuff, with a fresher, honky-tonk feel. Her brand of lush, mournful pop country crooning—complete with luxuriant string arrangements and sappy backing vocals—just sets off my cheese-o-meter far too often. (I’ve had similar reactions to certain work from artists as diverse as Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, and more.)
On first listen of a wide range of Cline’s work, I almost always preferred her more upbeat rockabilly-style numbers prevalent in her earliest work over her slower stuff. Yet almost every critic I come across claims that this was her weakest period, before she found her artistic voice. Feh.
The more I listened, the more I grew to like some of those slow, broken-heart-blues songs as much as the feistier material—but I’ve become more and more convinced that the two styles sound best together, juxtaposed. When we see the wild woman and the broken-hearted dreamer side by side, the picture becomes more complex.
I had a 12-song greatest hits package before, which I didn’t listen to very much. But this playlist (which actually contains many of the songs on the hits package, and more) just plain infected me. Once I’d finished making it—and was ready, in fact, to move on to something else—I just couldn’t stop listening.
Cover Art Citation:
- Sentimentally Yours: Source, Discogs.com
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