Honky Tonk Angel (8 page)

“My God, Pat! You’re still bleeding. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“I’m all right now, but I thought I was going to die. The pain was so sharp, it felt like a knife was stuck in me! I’m okay. Take that worried look off your face. A couple of aspirin’ll do the trick. I took care of everything. It was just a miscarriage. Now we know what the problem was.”

“What’s Gerald going to say? What’s Bill going to say?”

“What they always say if they find out, which they ain’t.”

Patsy was back singing at the Lodge the following Saturday night, and, as far as Fay knew, no one ever spoke of the incident. Patsy was determined not to have any more accidents, as she put it, which may have caused the further disintegration of the Clines’ marriage. Soon, Gerald was making no attempt to hide his many indiscretions.

On August 7, Patsy was a contestant in the fourth annual National Championship Country Music Contest, an annual Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce) fundraiser held at Warrenton, Virginia. It was sponsored by entrepreneur and broadcaster Connie B. Gay. Patsy won a hundred dollars as Best Female Vocalist and a weekday job at Gay’s WMAL Radio in Washington doing commercial jingles. In addition, at Gay’s WARL Arlington station, she was a fifty-dollar-a-day regular on the afternoon show “Town and Country Time,” starring Jimmy Dean and his Texas Wildcats.

“When I met Patsy,” Dean recalled, “I was working a D.C. club with Roy Clark. She came up packing a dress bag and said ‘Hi, Mr. Dean. I’m Patsy Cline. I want to sing for you.’ She had a great body, and I thought, ‘If she can sing, too—great!’ She went to change and came out in full western regalia. Roy looked at me and I looked at him. I thought, ‘Holy cow.’ I looked around and said, ‘What the shit! Nothing but a bunch of drunks.’ We moseyed to the piano, she sang and just knocked everybody’s hat in the creek.”

Under Gay’s contract with the U.S. Army recruiting program, fifteen minutes of the daily radio show was transcribed on sixteen-inch long-playing acetate disks and sent to 1,800 stations. Though the recording was done in a small studio, there was an attempt to make the listener think an audience was present. In late September 1954, Dean introduced Patsy:

“Well, sir, it’s guest time here on ‘Town and Country Time.’ And our guest is a mighty pretty girl that sings a real fine song. Here’s a girl that’s kinda just making a start here in country music. And sooner or later, I know that you’re gonna hear a whole lot about a real fine young’un by the name of Patsy Cline. And we’d like to say hello to her. Patsy, how are you, honey?”

“Just fine, Jimmy.”

“You’re looking real good.”

“Why thank you.”

“Uh-hummmmm,” said one of the band members. “Mercy!”

“All the guys ‘round here’re standing, drooling down over the bibs of their overalls,” cracked Dean. “As lazy Jim Day would say, ‘My overalls drawed up till my feet wouldn’t touch the ground for three days, by golly!’ Patsy, what you gonna sing for the folks?”

“I’m gonna walk a li’l bit of dog!”

“That’s fine!”

She was referring to the Cliff and Tex Grimsley tune, “I’m Walking the Dog,” which began:

I’m a walking the dog and I’m never blue.

I’m walking that dog, I’m not thinking of you.

I don’t need no one to tie me down

’Cause I’m walking that dog and painting the town ...

Patsy wanted stardom. To achieve this, Bill advised, she needed to make records. As far back as the end of 1953, Bill began producing and circulating a number of demonstration tapes of Patsy’s vocals. Nothing came of it until the day when Gay played one for a man with a spotted reputation, who nonetheless got things done.

William A. McCall, president of Pasadena, California—based Four-Star Records, crisscrossed the nation on talent-hunting expeditions. The tight artist rosters at the major labels made room for independents, some not always scrupulous.

McCall’s biggest prize had been signing Jimmy Dean, who, at the first opportunity after a Four-Star hit, went with Columbia Records. McCall knew of Patsy from demos sent by Bill and her work for Gay. When Bill caught up with McCall in Washington, he told him he was missing “the opportunity of a lifetime” in not signing what was essentially a prize package: Patsy Cline and Bill Peer and the Melody Boys.

When McCall met Patsy, he definitely saw possibilities. Bill told him, “And she’s a dream to work with.” Almost three weeks after her twenty-second birthday, on September 30, 1954, with Bill as her manager and in the presence of Gerald, Patsy signed a two-year recording contract with Four-Star. They were so excited, they didn’t bother to have a lawyer review the fine print.

It was probably the single biggest mistake Patsy made in her professional life.

I
n Nashville music annals, Bill McCall is an enigma. By those who found him less than honorable, he has been termed a “shrewd businessman who maintained the upper hand,” “devious and cunning,” and “a first-class son of a bitch” and “con artist.” Jimmy Dean reminisced, “Bill was the craftiest operator I’d seen in my life. A Californian in the truest sense of the word—suave, delightful, and he could charm the pants right off your behind while he stabbed you in the back. Anyone who signed with him—writers, singers—he nailed to the wall. He was a shyster from the word go.”

“There’re two sides to every story,” said songwriter Donn Hecht. “Bill was honest, hard-working, and there when you needed him.”

Four-Star was basically a music publisher, but McCall signed artists, recorded them at their expense, then leased product to a major label, such as Decca.

Pioneer record producer Milt Gabler, for years A&R (Artists & Repertoire) chief at Decca, claimed McCall “operated just this side of the law. You didn’t envy anyone who dealt with him.”

Just about everyone considered McCall a nuisance, yet he made good economic sense. The label distributed his product and reaped nice commissions. “Nashville is full of Bill McCalls,” Hecht said. “They’re hard-driving, profit- and loss-minded executives who know how to recoup their investments. No one thinks of them as suspect. Writers, some desperate for money, went to McCall. He’d say name a price for the publishing rights, then he’d buy the song. He didn’t twist any arms. When that song would become a hit, McCall was found guilty. He couldn’t see into the future. A lot of what he bought didn’t even make it to the bottom of the charts.”

Patsy’s contract was a standard American Federation of Musicians (AFM) form, specifying “a minimum of 16 (sixteen) 78 rpm record sides, or the equivalent thereof . . . and additional recordings shall be made at our election. The musical compositions to be recorded shall be mutually agreed upon between you and us, and each recording shall be subject to our approval as satisfactory.”

Her services would be exclusive with Four-Star for two years with a one-year renewal option. Any recordings made would remain the property of Four-Star. Patsy’s royalty of 2.34 percent of the retail list price on records sold in the United States was about half the royalty paid to established stars. Session musicians would be paid within fourteen days of services and such payments, at scale, would be deducted from Patsy’s royalties—the industry norm.

After the contract signing, McCall took Peer, Gerald, and Patsy for drinks and dinner. Years later, Patsy remarked, “McCall paid that night, but it ended up being on me. I paid for every goddamned thing from then on. I didn’t know how much till it was too late.”

Patsy went into the new phase of her career with guns blazing. Either on her own or with Bill in tow, she covered the region, going anywhere such stars as Ernest Tubb or Webb Pierce performed. Her reckoning was that she had to be seen and heard to advance her career.

Teddy Wilburn, just home from the Korean war, and his brother Doyle met Patsy when they were singers and musicians in Pierce’s band and did the “Town and Country Time” show. “Patsy was someone we thought of as a fan rather than someone with star potential,” Teddy noted. “She was well-meaning and you couldn’t help but like her. She was a bit aggressive, but in a bubbly, exciting sort of way. She wasn’t offensive. And she had quite a sense of humor. Musicians loved her. From how she talked of becoming a star, you might think she was putting you on.

“As it turned out, her talent was real. We hit it off. After that, if we were anywhere close, you could bet she’d show up to say hello, then ask if she could sing. We’d talk to Webb and get him to put her on. It was hard to say no. You could see how much it meant.”

Bill had a better idea to bring Patsy stardom: a trip to New York. McCall urged Bill to assemble a more experienced, pop-oriented band for the trip. He set up a demo session with Decca Records’ chief of country A&R, Paul Cohen. In addition to the Melody Boys, Bill added Gene Shiner, his brother-in-law who had the Metronomes; former Melody Boy Pete O’Brien who formed his own band; and Leo Miller, one of his musicians. Bill arranged for Patsy and the band to try out for CBS’s half-hour, prime-time show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts,” which introduced promising amateur artists.

Traveling in two cars, they arrived in New York in late November and checked into the Dixie Hotel (now the Carter) on West Forty-second Street in the heart of Times Square. Bill immediately took Patsy shopping for new dresses. According to Leo Miller, he spent more than eight hundred dollars. The audition, conducted by Janette Davis, a featured vocalist on the show and Godfrey’s administrative right hand, took place on the sixteenth floor of the old CBS headquarters on Madison Avenue between Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets. Their big competition was a
young girl dressed in petticoats and a white ruffled dress, who was a violin virtuoso playing on a prized Stradivarius.

“Miss Davis was polite,” Shiner recalled, “but she wasn’t too taken with the band. She told us she’d be happy to book Patsy, whom she felt transcended country and was more a blues singer. All Bill and Patsy knew and wanted was country music. We ultimately decided that if it had to be that way, then Patsy should accept. The reason for coming was to try to get the band and Patsy on the show, but we knew getting Patsy on was Bill’s number-one goal. Patsy’s dream was to become a star and here was her big chance. She completely stumped us. She told Miss Davis we were a package and it was ‘all or nothing.’ I thought Bill would kill her! But it was no deal and the girl with the violin went on that night and won.”

Davis took Patsy and Bill aside and made a commitment that if ever Patsy wanted to come back and audition, she’d see to it. According to Shiner, Davis contacted Richard Lisell, who managed Teresa Brewer, and suggested he meet Patsy and the band. When they met at Lisell’s East Side apartment, Roy Deyton remembered, Bill touted Patsy as “the second greatest singer in the whole U.S.A.” It became clear Bill was pushing Patsy and not the entire package. To some of the band it seemed Lisell got the idea of prying Patsy away from Bill and signing her himself.

The band Bill put together was solid, and impressed everyone. Lisell quickly had them working—singing and playing, not pop, but country after all. It was a novelty in New York. In one night, the band managed one-hour sets at four clubs, including the famed Latin Quarter.

Peer and Lisell supervised Patsy and the band’s taped demos at Decca’s studios on West Fifty-seventh and Seventieth streets. There were two Four-Star songs, “Turn the Cards Slowly” and “Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray)” plus “Crazy Arms” (later a hit for Ray Price)
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and “This Ole House,” which was a number one pop hit that summer for Rosemary Clooney.

The session went smoothly until they got to “This Ole House.” Peer had his ideas, Patsy had hers, and Lisell had his. Shiner says there were twenty-seven takes before it proved acceptable to Lisell. Members of the band could now tell they were not being considered for a record deal. This was all for Patsy. They felt used, there were words, and Patsy and Lisell argued. When Patsy didn’t show that night for a booking he had arranged, Lisell washed his hands of the whole affair.

McCall and Cohen were still in the picture. Cohen liked the band, and was prepared to offer them a year’s contract, but it meant they’d have to stay in New York. Because of jobs and families, the musicians didn’t pursue the deal.

Finally, after eleven days, it was time to head home. Patsy overslept, and, as everyone was anxious to leave, she packed quickly.

Patsy returned to Frederick and to Gerald and his early Christmas present—to himself—a sporty 1955 Buick Roadmaster. She took to wearing a flattering New York-style coiffure, pulling her hair up and over her head.

Besides the cowgirl outfits Mrs. Hensley made, Patsy now sported her New York “originals,” the most glamorous being a “shocking” semi-strapless two-piece
black gown with silver highlights and a sequined bodice that she tied with a chiffon sash.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, as Patsy, Bill, and the band rehearsed, Mrs. Peer arrived and sat with Fay. Shortly after, a delivery arrived from the Dixie Hotel. It was a large box addressed to Mrs. Bill Peer. Jenny thought it was a surprise from Bill and hurried to open it.

“Why on earth is the hotel in New York sending me Patsy’s coat?” she inquired.

She read the attached note: “Dear Mrs. Peer, we are happy to inform you that the coat you left behind in your room was turned over to this office by your maid. We are returning it herewith. Sorry if your oversight caused you any inconvenience. It was our pleasure to serve you. We hope you had a nice trip.”

As Patsy told Del Wood later: “I looked at Bill, he looked at me and Jenny looked at both of us. The music stopped and you could hear a pin drop. Bill said, ‘Oh, shit!’ and almost did. Then all hell broke loose!”

Fay noted that thereafter the various goings-on in what she called the Brunswick Triangle slowed notably. Gerald suddenly started following Bill and Patsy everywhere they went. Jenny was always “dropping in” on rehearsals unexpectedly and staying all night at the dances. She never let them out of her sight. Yet Bill and Patsy found a way.

McCall contacted Cohen, who reviewed the tapes and saw Patsy’s potential, not exclusively as a country singer. He felt that she had great pop potential. “Bill, I want to sign her,” he said to McCall. “How much?”

“No,” McCall told him. “What I’m offering is a leasing deal. I retain all artist and publishing rights.”

Cohen was suspicious of such an arrangement and felt the stipulation that Patsy only record Four-Star songs would limit selectivity. In the end, he bought it. But he had one reservation about Patsy: “She’s two handfuls. Can you control her?” McCall assured him, “Don’t worry about her. I’ll take care of her.”

McCall advised Bill to whip Patsy and the band into shape. He sent new material, which, when sufficiently rehearsed, was tried out on the Saturday night Moose regulars. The first weekend in December a Fredericksburg, Virginia, radio station studio was booked for a demo session.

“It was the only facility with decent equipment,” Roy Deyton explained. “Patsy, really primed for the occasion, recorded ‘Honky Tonk Merry-Go-Round,’ ‘Hidin’ Out,’ ‘A Church, a Courtroom and Then Goodbye’ and ‘Turn the Cards Slowly,’ which we did in New York. The band was paid, but we really all pitched in to help Bill. It seemed he wouldn’t rest until he made Patsy a star.”

It was obvious that Bill’s goals were not the same as those of the band members. The following Saturday at rehearsal, Patsy stopped the music and yelled, “Goddamn it! Can’t you guys ever get the beat right? Bill, do something. They’re awful.”

Grover Shroyer, the drummer, expressed the general consensus, “That’s right, Patsy, treat us like dirt. You got what you wanted. You don’t need us anymore.”