Since we are in Kansas this week, I noticed, that today is the 55th memorial for the death of Patsy Cline and crew who took off from here on March 3, 1963 on a fatal flight back home to Nashville, Tennessee.
The chart below is pogressed from Ms. Cline’s rectified natal to approxmiate time at the KC airport. She was there to perform at benefit at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, Kansas City, Kansas for the family of disc jockey “Cactus” Jack Call, who had died in an automobile crash a little over a month earlier.
She boarded a Piper PA-24 Comanche plane, four-seat or six-seat, low-wing, all-metal, light aircraft of semi-monocoque construction with tricycle retractable landing gear. It was designed and developed the Comanche and cost about 14.500 at the time. That would be about $130K today.
Also on board were country performers Hawkshaw Hawkins famous for his Sunny Side of the Mountain, and Lloyd Estel “Cowboy” Copas who hit #1 with his ditty, Alabam. Their manager Randy Hughes, was also the pilot but not trained in instrument flying, a requirement for inclement weather when visibility is poor.
I have darkened all the houses that do not have major planets within, clearly showing a see-saw temperament type for the flight. At this point, her Part of Fortune is in 30 Pisces the Ninth House of administration and travel,accurate as because of her gifted voice she was travelling everywhere from the East Coast to the Midwest with her very aggressive road manager after being discovered on the Arthur Godfrey Show.
The PoF is opposite her Venus at Virgo 02, where Venus is ill-dignified in the second house of resorces and then makes a Cosmic Cross to Vulkanus in the twelth house (hidden pressures) to Pallas (seeking approval) in the sixth. Based on the reports from the flight manager in Tennessee that could only be her manager, Randy Hughes, as everyone on the flight was under his administration, because the only act that wasn’t, Dottie West, drove back home with her husband. From the chart, it would seem that Ms. Cline wanted to join the West’s but did not want to upset her manager because she was so reliant on him for bookings.
Hughesmade a fuel stop in Missouri, and another landing at Dyersburg Municipal Airport in Dyersburg, Tennessee before departing for Cornelia Fort Airpark, near Nashville. The airfield manager at Cornelia recommended that the weather was quickly worsening and recommended them staying overnight. Hughes shrugged that off and told his people to board the Comanche. The manager was right and the flight encountered severe inclement weather crashing in a forest near Camden, Tennessee on the evening of March 5, 1963, killing all on board. Patsy Cline was 30 years old.
The chart of the accident shows that her PoF is now on the twelfth-first house cusp, signing her over to posterity. Sadly though, her transitting Saturn, again her manager and the Dragon’s Tail of betrayal, are in the eighth house of death but trine her PoF. If it wasn’t so sad, it would be “crazy.”
Patsy Cline’s rectified nativity.
She was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on september 8th, 1932 in Winchester City, VA, her father was a blacksmith and her mother was a 16-year-old seamstress. She became familiar with music at an early age, singing in church with her mother. When her father left, she was forced to drop out of high school and work odd jobs to help support her family.
After several weeks of watching performers through the window at her local radio station, she asked WINC-AM disc jockey and talent coordinator Jimmy McCoy if she could sing on his show. Her first performance on radio in 1947 was so well received that she was requested to come back and sing again. This led to performances at local nightclubs, wearing fringed Western stage outfits that her mother made from Patsy’s designs.
She started singing in variety and talent showcases in and around the Winchester, Virginia and Tri-State area, and coupled with increasing appearances on local radio, she soon attracted a large following. In 1954 Jimmy Dean, a young country star, learned of her and she became a regular with Dean on Connie B. Gay’s “Town and Country Jamboree” radio show, airing weekday afternoons live on WARL-AM in Arlington, Virginia.
In September 1953 she married Gerald Cline, a contractor who was considerably older than her and divorced him four years later because he did not want her traipsing around with other men singing. A few months after her divorce, she married Charlie Dick, a linotype operator, with whom she had two children.
In 1955 her manager, Bill Peer, got her a contract at Four Star Records, the label with which he was then affiliated and also gave her the first name of Patsy, from her middle name that was her mother’s maiden name, Patterson and used Cline instead of Dick for obvious reasons.
In the late fall of 1956, she auditioned for “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” in New York City, New York and was accepted to sing on the CBS-TV show on January 21, 1957. She was originally supposed to sing “A Poor Man’s Roses (Or a Rich Man’s Gold),” but the show’s producers insisted she sing “Walkin’ After Midnight” instead. Though heralded as a country song, Godfrey’s staff insisted that Cline appear in a cocktail dress rather than in one of her mother’s hand-crafted cowgirl outfits.
The audience’s enthusiastic ovations pushed the applause meter to its apex, winning the competition for her. After the Godfrey show, listeners began calling their local radio stations to request the song, and she released it as a single. The song reached Number 2 on the country charts and Number 12 on the pop charts, making her one of the first country singers to have a crossover pop hit.
From 1955 to 1957 she recorded honky-tonk songs like “Fingerprints,” “Pick Me Up on Your Way Down,” “Don’t Ever Leave Me Again,” and “A Stranger in My Arms,” with her co-writing the latter two. In 1958, after the birth of her daughter Julie, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Known to be generous with her friends, she often bought them groceries and furniture, hiring them as wardrobe assistants, and occasionally paying their rent in order for them to stay in Nashville to pursue their dreams.
In June 1961 she and her brother Sam were involved in a head-on collision in Nashville. The impact threw her into the windshield, nearly killing her. When help arrived, she insisted that the other car’s driver be treated first. She spent a month in the hospital, suffering from a jagged cut across her forehead that required stitches, a broken wrist, and a dislocated hip. When she left the hospital, her forehead was visibly scarred and for the remainder of her career, she wore wigs and makeup to hide the scars, along with headbands to relieve the forehead pressure that caused headaches if left unattended.
Six weeks later, she returned to the road on crutches. Unable to capitalize upon the success of “I Fall to Pieces” because of hospitalizaion, she sought another recording to reestablish herself and found “Crazy”, written by Willie Nelson. She instantly disliked the composition and the inaugural recording session was unsuccessful.
Her ribs still hurting from the car accident, she was unable to reach the high notes and the sound was flat. After several other attempts and different instrumentals she liked the tune better and cut the record in a single take. “Crazy” would ultimately become her signature song. B late 1961, it was another crossover success, reaching the Top 10 on the both charts.
In 1961 she became the first woman in country music to perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall and the following year she headlined the famous Hollywood Bowl with Johnny Cash and became the first woman in country music to headline her own show in Las Vegas at the Mint Casino.
