Margaret Jones

Margaret Jones's biography of country music diva, Patsy Cline, PATSY: the Life and Times of Patsy Cline (DaCapo Press 2007. 1999; HarperCollins 1995, 1994), was described by Michael Dorris, in the Los Angeles Times, as “Definitive… it reads as her life was lived, like the melodramatic but hopelessly ‘true’ lyrics of a Nashville ballad.”

Ms. Jones has appeared on national, regional and local broadcast media, including NPR’s “All Things Considered,” The BBC, the Nashville Network, as well as in various national and international print media, to discuss the life and legend of Patsy Cline, and her 100-plus interviews and three years of immersion in the project that resulted in the Patsy bio.

She is also a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Oxford University Press), described as “the definitive historical and biographical work of the past eight decades of country music.”

In addition to writing widely about music, its traditions, and musicians, Ms. Jones has profiled figures in the world of dance, the visual arts, and film. She worked for two seasons as a writer for the PBS series, “Great Performances.” Her profiles and articles have appeared in The Journal of Country Music, Los Angeles Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Reader, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and other publications.

In addition to being a journalist and author, Ms. Jones is an editor, of adult fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, for various trade and university presses and individual authors.


"ALL THINGS CONSIDERED" (NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO) INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET JONES: "Country Legends"



NOAH ADAMS, Host: In November of 1961, Patsy Cline played Carnegie Hall, part of a country music concert and a week later, on the radio in East Point, Georgia, she talked about being in New York.
PATSY CLINE (Archival): "Hot doggies, you talk about a hen out of a coop. I really felt like one up there. But you know what? They were setting up there stompin' their feet and yellin', just like a bunch of hillbillies, just like we do. And I was real surprised. Carnegie Hall was real fabulous, but you know it ain't as big as the Grand Ole' Opry."
ADAMS: On last night's program, we discussed the very short career of Hank Williams, who died in 1953. Patsy Cline was killed in a plane crash near Nashville in 1963. She was coming back from a benefit performance. Her death came only six years after she recorded Walkin' After Midnight. That song sold 2 and 1/​2 million copies. But it was said she didn't make a dime on it. And soon, she was back working shows in her Virginia home town for $50 a night. And then a few years later came "I Fall to Pieces," "Sweet Dreams," "Crazy" and many other songs. Patsy Cline was something new for country music. She was sassy, sexy, sincere. Margaret Jones has written a new biography of Patsy Cline.
MARGARET JONES: All of the female artists in country music before Patsy were more or less safe. They were either the housewife, the comedienne, like Minnie Pearl, or somebody who was part of a sister or family act. There was no such thing as a woman soloist and a star. You were a girl singer and those were your parts.
ADAMS: It was really a travail, this very short career. She had a hard time becoming popular, getting recording contracts, had a hard time getting a hit record. She finally did "Walkin' After Midnight," which is a song she did not want to record. So in a way, there was some luck involved. Why would somebody with that much talent have so much difficulty?
Ms. JONES: Patsy was caught up in the changing face of country music at that time. It was the birth of rock and roll and a lot of people said country music almost died during the '50s. But what was really happening was the emergence of a whole new recording technology, the 45 rpm was developed, transistor radios, car radios, clock radios. Teenagers could afford to go out and buy records. It was the post- war generation and Elvis Presley.
ADAMS: What do you make of Patsy Cline's voice? There's a story that she told that she had a serious throat infection when she was a child and she was in an oxygen tent. And the doctors brought her back to life, she said and recovered from the illness with a voice, in her words, which you quote in your book, `That boomed forth like Kate Smith's.' Do you think that something happened physically to her vocal chords, to her voice, in that oxygen tent?
Ms. JONES: I can't speculate about that. But I believe the story to be true. Patsy, that was from an interview Patsy gave and she, her interviews were always very direct and very honest and her relatives confirmed that that had happened when she was very young and it seems to describe a bout of rheumatic fever. Patsy, however, was one of those individuals who was just gifted with an incredible voice. And she came from a very musical family, though she concealed that information because of the very troubling childhood she had and the extremely problematic relationship she had with her father. But her father's side of the family were all very gifted musically. In particular, her father was a singer and a very accomplished singer. And she had aunts and uncles who attended Shenandoah Conservatory of Music and they all played several instruments. Patsy herself could play piano by ear. Music was very much a part of their life and in a sense, dramatics were too. And one of the, one of Patsy's relatives told me that the Hensley family, Patsy was born a Hensley, were descended from some of the greatest actors on the English stage.
ADAMS: Hmm. You mention her father and the troubled relationship, you mean, incest actually with her father.
Ms. JONES: Patsy described that relationship to a number of her very close friends and it was always something that she extracted promises to, you know, to take this to your grave and this was a secret and back then, of course, this was something that was not discussed at all. It was very common, but not discussed. And as a result, Patsy carried around a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and I think it really influenced her as a person and I think a lot of that achy-ness comes through her voice.
ADAMS: I have asked you to select one Patsy Cline song that we could listen to together. Hard choice?
Ms. JONES: Really tough choice, Noah. Can I pick three?
ADAMS: [laughter]
Ms. JONES: Okay.
ADAMS: Well, tell us about two and then we can hear one.
JONES: Okay. All right. I'm going to pass on a couple of my favorites, just because “Crazy” is the number one jukebox hit of all time and I love that song, and “You're Stronger Than Me” and “Imagine That.” But, I'm going to pick out something a little bit different, “Life's Railway to Heaven.” It is one of Patsy's favorite songs and she sang it throughout her life, up until her death. It reminds me of Virginia. I see her sitting around at the family songfests singing this song and it makes me cry.[music - Life's Railway to Heaven]
Ms. JONES: It was very common back then, for other artists to drop in on other peoples' recording sessions. It was a very informal recording scene in Nashville in the '50s and early '60s, and Patsy had this ability to be at home, you know, cooking, sewing, doing whatever she was doing, come into the recording studio and to totally transform into this incredible package of emotions and voice. Up until Patsy Cline, there was no one who sounded the way she sounded.[music]
ADAMS: Margaret Jones talking with us from our studio in Los Angeles. Her book is called Patsy: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline.