“A Portrait Of Patsy Cline” by Patsy Cline - album review

features in: Album Chart of 1964 ● Album Chart of the Decade: 1960s

Patsy Cline’s 4th and final LP of new music was recorded at various times between February 1962 and February 1963 in Nashville, Tennessee and released posthumously in June 1964. She had given her final performance on March 3rd 1963 at a benefit concert in Kansas, and finished the show to a thunderous ovation with a song she had recorded the previous month, “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone”.

In her early 1963 sessions she had been working on her 4th LP which had even gotten so far as to have been titled, “Faded Love”. Fate had other ideas. Spookily, friends Dottie West, June Carter Cash, and Loretta Lynn recalled Cline telling them during 1962–1963 that she felt a sense of impending doom and did not expect to live much longer. Cline, known for her generosity, had begun giving away personal items to friends, writing her will on Delta Air Lines stationery and asking close friends to care for her children should anything happen to her. She told Jordanaires back-up singer Ray Walker as she exited the Grand Ole Opry the week before her death: “Honey, I’ve had two bad ones (accidents). The third one will either be a charm or it’ll kill me.” Having been grounded in Kansas for a day due to bad weather, her small private airplane flight back to Nashville finally departed a day later. However, Cline’s flight encountered further inclement weather and crashed on the evening of March 5th 1963. Her recovered wristwatch had stopped at approximately 6:20 p.m. The plane wreckage was located approximately 90 miles (140 km) from its Nashville destination in a forest outside Camden, Tennessee. Forensic examinations concluded that everyone aboard had been killed instantaneously from their injuries and did not suffer.

The album opens appropriately with “Faded Love”, a cover of Bob Wills’ 1950 western swinger, and also includes that final performance number “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone”. There are some fantastic gems that we’ve been left with. “When I Get Thru With You” sees Patsy deliver in a Shirelles style, “Your Kinda Love” revisits the super cool delivery of “Walkin’ After Midnight”, bluesy inflection and all, whilst “When You Need A Laugh” sees Hank Cochran come up trumps once again with another pucker country tearjerker. I can only imagine that this album would’ve helped a lot of folks in mourning. Hers is a legend that can never be killed.

The Jukebox Rebel
22–Jul–2008

+ notes

• A Portrait (or otherwise known as A Portrait of Patsy Cline) is an album released by Decca Records in 1964, to show some of legendary Country Music singer’s Patsy Cline’s lesser-known material. All the material recorded for the album was recorded the previous year, 1963, by Patsy Cline. This was shortly before her death in March of 1963. The album included some recordings of Country standards, like "Faded Love", originally recorded by Bob Wills (Patsy Cline made the song a #7 Country hit in 1963) and "Crazy Arms", originally a hit for Ray Price. It also includes some Pop standards, like "Someday, You’ll Want Me to Want You" and "Does Your Heart Beat For Me". The album released the single "When You Need a Laugh", which charted at #47 on the Country charts.

Tracklist

A1	[03:43] Patsy Cline - Faded Love (Bob Wills, John Wills) Country
A2	[02:20] Patsy Cline - I’ll Sail My Ship Alone (Henry Bernard, Morry Burns, Lois Mann, Henry Thurston) Country
A3	[02:45] Patsy Cline - When You Need A Laugh (Hank Cochran) Country
A4	[02:23] Patsy Cline - Crazy Arms (Ralph Mooney, Chuck Seals) Pop
A5	[02:40] Patsy Cline - Always (Irving Berlin) Crooner / Cabaret
A6	[02:30] Patsy Cline - When I Get Thru With You (Harlan Howard) Pop
B1	[03:02] Patsy Cline - Blue Moon Of Kentucky (Bill Monroe) Country
B2	[02:49] Patsy Cline - Someday (You’ll Want Me To Want You) (Jimmie Hodges) Country
B3	[02:14] Patsy Cline - Who Can I Count On (Sammy Masters) Country
B4	[02:58] Patsy Cline - You Took Him Off My Hands (Harlan Howard, Skeets McDonald, Wynn Stewart) Country
B5	[02:29] Patsy Cline - Your Kinda Love (Roy Drusky) Country
B6	[02:37] Patsy Cline - Does Your Heart Beat For Me (Arnold Johnson, Russ Morgan, Mitchell Parish) Country

ratings by TJR