ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the basic facts about the life and career of Patsy Cline. It provides an exploration of the gender in her voice. The chapter suggests ways that Patsy's singing effectively repositioned some of the well-established conventions of country music and pop alike used to define women's identities. Her singing brushed across the grain of the voice then sanctioned for female performers, and did so smartly and invariably musically. Her voice, considered as a cultural phenomenon, was saturated in personal experience, just as it was invested in the larger history of 1950s America and the South in particular. That history, to be sure, is manifested indirectly in her performances; the results, on the other hand, were very direct indeed. Her voice struck listeners' ears with force, conviction, and authority. Though Patsy Cline was for all intents and purposes a professional singer for ully half of her short life, her recording career was brief.
