Patsy Cline - The Complete Releases 1955-62 (2017)

Patsy Cline is one of the most important and revered female artists in the history of country music, a situation made all the more remarkable by the fact that she only had a couple of years at the top before her tragic death in a plane crash in 1963 at the age of 30 – an event which only served to heighten her legendary status. Her career was a strange one, in that, having eventually scored a debut No. 2 in 1957 with “Walkin’ After Midnight”, the fact that she was obliged to record unsuitable material by her deal with Four Star meant she did not have another hit until she signed directly to Decca in 1960. After that, she had huge country and pop hits with the classics “I Fall To Pieces”, “Crazy” and “She’s Got You”, by hot new writers like Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard and Willie Nelson, with producer Owen Bradley using contemporary Nashville pop crossover arrangements which were very different from her earlier honky-tonk and rockabilly recordings. This great value 75-track 3-CD set, comprises every record she released from her debut on Coral in 1955, through her Four Star and Decca years until the end of 1962 a couple of months before her death. It includes the A and B sides of all her singles, plus the tracks from her three albums “Patsy Cline”, “Showcase” and “Sentimentally Yours” which were not otherwise released on singles. It therefore represents a comprehensive and definitive overview of her active career, and is a worthy tribute to a unique talent.