Patsy Cline was the "most popular female country singer in recording history" before even turning 30 years old.
Some people just have the knack for predicting things correctly even if it's something improbable. They are just in tune with themselves and are perhaps marching to their own drum, which makes it easier for them to read signs and signals. Singer Patsy Cline from the 1960s may have been one of them since she was able to predict her own death way ahead of time.
She was born as Virginia Patterson Hensley in Winchester, Virginia, during the Depression but showed promise from an early age. She learned to sing from her father, who was an amateur singer. Their family didn't stay still and ended up moving more than a dozen times before she turned 15, which is when she left to support her family. Her abusive father had eventually left them. That's when she started working towards becoming a country singer.
Cline, who rose to fame with Walkin' After Midnight and Crazy, also earned a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame. She had become the "most popular female country singer in recording history" before even turning 30 years old in the 1960s, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
When she was at the peak of her career, at age 28, she had an almost fatal accident with her brother Sam Hensley, Jr. The accident left her in the hospital for months and she also had to undergo major facial reconstruction surgery, as per Good Housekeeping. Her fans were worried that her phenomenal career would end right there but she made a comeback and performed at the Grand Ole Opry stage later that year.
"She kind of has this mythical quality," Sally McKellip, author of the play, You Belong to Me: A Patsy Cline Story, told The Times-Picayune. "She died way too early, and it's like people don't want to let her go."
After returning, she assured her fans that she was here to stay. "I'll tell you one thing: the greatest gift, I think, that you folks coulda given me was the encouragement that you gave me. Right at the very time I needed you the most, you came through with the flying-est colors. And I just want to say you'll just never know how happy you made this ol' country gal," said she.
However, luck was not on her side and she was killed on March 3, 1963, in a plane crash along with country artists Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas. She was returning home after some concerts in Kansas City's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall. There was bad weather which had previously grounded her there and she even refused country music star Dottie West's offer to return to Nashville via car, saying, "Don't worry about me, Hoss. When it's my time to go, it's my time to go." What she said came to be a prediction.
She died because the pilot, who was also her manager Randy Huges, was inexperienced. Later, her close friends June Carter Cash and Loretta Lynn said in the 1993 documentary Remembering Patsy that she often spoke of her death. "It's wonderful—but what do I do for '63? It's getting so even Cline can't follow Cline," she reportedly wrote in a letter to a friend. Only a week before her death, she reportedly told singer Ray Walker that she has been walking a fine line between life and death. "Honey, I've had two bad ones [accidents]. The third one will either be a charm or it'll kill me," she said.
She also knew that Sweet Dreams was going to be her last song. When she was recording it, she said so to those close to her. As per Classic Country Music, in Remembering Patsy, singer Jan Howard said that she was there at a playback party following the recording sessions for Cline’s upcoming album. Cline reportedly gestured toward her album and recording booth and said, "Well, here it is…the first and the last."
And, that came to be true.
References:
https://countrymusichalloffame.org/artist/patsy-cline/
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a29515198/patsy-cline-plane-crash-death-details/
https://www.nola.com/archive/article_e7cc1ff0-619d-5066-a6ef-c76a19803e20.html
