Patsy Cline Exhibit To Open At Hall of Fame

The Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum will open Patsy Cline: Crazy for Loving You on Fri., Aug. 24 for a 10-month run in the museum’s East Gallery. The exhibition will offer career-spanning audio and video which allows Cline to largely tell her story in her own words. The centerpiece will be a powerful film created by museum staff that includes performance footage, audio clips and new interviews with Country Music Hall of Fame members Harold Bradley, Brenda Lee, Willie Nelson and the Jordanaires’ Ray Walker, each of whom knew and worked with Cline. The audio clips, isolated without instrumentation, are from Owen Bradley’s original three-track recordings of some of Cline’s greatest performances including “Crazy” and “Sweet Dreams.”

Upon entering the exhibit gallery, visitors will be able to read Patsy’s biography via text-panel reproductions of the bio Cline herself crafted in 1962. Among the dozens of artifacts are hand-written letters, daughter Julie’s baby book, Patsy’s jewelry box and costume jewelry, her red cowgirl-style skirt and blouse with longhorn-steer and wagon-wheel motifs, and her stage and evening wear including gold lamé pants, matching ankle boots and fur stole.

The exhibit will be accompanied by the release of a beautiful 80-page companion book, titled Patsy Cline: Crazy for Loving You. Published by the museum’s Country Music Foundation Press, the volume will include a foreword by artist Rosanne Cash and an essay by noted Cline authority Paul Kingsbury. 

“Though she recorded for only eight years and made her last record nearly 50 years ago, her body of work—those classic torch songs and ballads of heartache—have continued to resonate with music fans of all genres,” says Museum Director Kyle Young. “While she considered herself a country singer, she was equally adept at pop stylings, and was a key influence in bringing the two genres closer stylistically in the 1960s. Her prodigious vocal stylings and unique delivery have influenced scores of artists including Loretta Lynn, Linda Ronstadt and Reba McEntire.”

Cline recorded classic songs “Crazy,” “She’s Got You,” “I Fall to Pieces,” “Sweet Dreams (of You)” and many more before her untimely death in a plane crash on March 5, 1963. Cline’s achievements were formally acknowledged with her 1973 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The opening weekend of the exhibit will include an Aug. 25 panel discussion featuring Cline’s husband Charlie Dick, and daughter Julie Fudge, Country Music Hall of Fame member Harold Bradley, and singers George Hamilton IV and Jan Howard. There will be an Aug. 25 concert featuring Bradley, singer-songwriter Jessi Alexander, Always…Patsy Cline star and singer Mandy Barnett, duo Striking Matches and singer Emily West. 

Details at countrymusichalloffame.org.