Patsy Cline Items To Be Auctioned

By: Stephanie M. Mangino
The Winchester Star

Pieces of Patsy Cline’s personal and professional life will be sold to the highest bidder in December.

The offering is special since the most of items are coming from Cline’s family, which holds the vast majority of her possessions, said Joseph M. Maddalena, president and CEO of Profiles In History, the Beverly Hills, Calif., auction house handling the sale.

On Dec. 19, the company will have costumes Cline wore in performances and 21 unpublished letters written by her to friend Marie Flynt, between October 1959 until one month before her 1963 death, on the auction block.

Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc. Opens Acquisitions Fund

By: Stephanie M. Mangino
The Winchester Star

The clarion call sounded for Patsy Cline fans last week, and it told them to muster their resources and bring some of Patsy’s world back to Winchester.

They’ve come together to encourage people to donate to a fund dedicated to bidding on items offered in the Profiles In History auction.

The acquisitions fund is for Winchester-based Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc., which has dedicated itself to establishing a local museum in Cline’s honor.

A bemused smile - one that manages to be both shy and self-assured, and is ever-so-slightly flirty - aimed at an unseen camera is Cline's only acknowledgment that she knows someone is out there watching.

Can Luke Lewis Lasso More Hearts For Country Music?

By: Jennifer Ordonez

IT'S A HARD-LUCK TALE worthy of its own country song.

With record sales faltering, radio audiences dwindling and a dearth of new hit artists, the Country Music Association last year ponied up for a fancy branding campaign anchored by a self-conscious slogan: "Country. Admit it. You love it."

"It didn't go down well with me," says Luke Lewis, chairman of the Nashville-based trade group. "It just seemed a little apologetic." It didn't entice many fans out the country closet, either. Last year, country music accounted for 10.5% of music purchases, down from 18.7% of purchases in 1993, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Now Mr. Lewis, a veteran record executive at Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group, will get a big chance to help steer country music out of the ditch. This week, he will be named chairman of Universal Music Nashville, a new label group that will give him oversight of the biggest country-music supplier in the world. In the arrangement, Mr. Lewis will add the large MCA Nashville label to the Mercury Nashville and Lost Highway imprints he already oversees.

For all the mid-riff bearing and cavorting on CMT, nothing will ever be sexier than Patsy Cline singing "She's Got You." Maybe Loretta Lynn should take some of these current artists down to "Fist City" and show them who's the boss.

• Vegas Sequined Dress - $30,000

• Western Fringe Jacket - $12,000

• White Cowgirl Boots - $2,000 - $3,000

• Remaining Items - $5,000 each, with No Documentation Provided

Problems Still Persist For Country Radio

By: CRAIG HAVIGHURST
Staff Writer

Country radio programmers think the music arriving from Music Row these days is more compelling and distinctive than it was three years ago, but narrow play lists and corruption in the record promotion process still bedevil the format.

Those verdicts emerged from both radio industry panelists and audience members at yesterday's second annual Country Radio Broadcasters Fall Forum. It's part town meeting and part platform for leading program directors and consultants to describe the realities of today's consolidated, competitive radio business.

"It's a new world, and we've got to figure out how to compete. This is our economy, and it's not just radio," said panelist and veteran consultant Jaye Albright.

Crazy for Tryin' in N. Va.
Chance to Sing a 'Patsy' Attracts a Crowd

By: Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer

Darlene Caudle came decked out: tight black jeans, a beaded, polyester Western shirt and a rhinestone-studded star affixed to her bolo tie. Her black hair was crunched up with mousse to give it some extra volume underneath the cowboy hat. She wore red lipstick.

The 45-year-old registered nurse from Boonville, N.C., was smokin' -- and plenty determined to kick some rear. She was among some dozen gals yesterday auditioning for the shot to sing at today's Patsy Cline Celebration & Dedication at the Warrenton Horse Show grounds in Fauquier County. It was here, in the 1950s at the National Country Music championships, where Cline famously belted out ditties from the roof of a concrete booth.

For Caudle, who keeps a shrine in her bedroom that includes Cline's albums, stamps with the singer's image and pine cones and rocks from her elementary school, this was sacred ground. She drove 5 1/2 hours, even took a day off work.

Country music: Even this conservative genre of music is witnessing a trip into the sewer. As my friend Saint Karen said, "If Patsy Cline saw the way these country music gals dress on stage she would slap them and say, 'Go back stage and get dressed, honey'."

Country Songwriter Donn Hecht Dies At 72

MIAMI - Country songwriter Donn Hecht, who co-wrote the Patsy Cline hit "Walkin' After Midnight" with Alan Block, has died of a heart attack. He was 72.

Hecht, who lived in Miami Beach for almost 30 years, died Oct. 18 at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said his daughter, Beverly Hecht.
"My father wrote until the last hour of his survival. He then got dressed and went to the emergency room. My dad was a smoker, and he walked into the emergency room with a cigarette," she said. "He lived a very full life, and he lived the way he wanted to."

Warrenton Goes ‘Crazy’ for Patsy This Weekend with Celebration, Dedication

By: Stephanie K. Moran
The Winchester Star

WARRENTON — It was around 1955 when Patsy Cline climbed to the top of the awards pavilion at the Warrenton Horse Show grounds to belt out a song at the National Country Music Championships, according to Susan Huberth, a member of the horse show’s board who is helping to organize a dedication and celebration of the legendary country singer this weekend.

The open stucco building where Cline sang will be dedicated as the Patsy Cline Awards Pavilion on Sunday.

Huberth said Cline first appeared at the 1953 music championship under her birth name of Virginia Hensley, giving the crowd a rendition of "Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey?"

A celebration of Patsy Cline’s life and music will take place noon on Sunday at the Warenton Horse Show grounds near Old Town Warrenton.

Cline lost that competition, but she won successive ones, the first in 1954 with her performance of "Faded Love."

The dedication of the pavilion isn’t the only recognition Patsy will receive on Sunday.

"She will be 99 in December of this year. She still plays the piano and composes music."