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Patsy Cline’s Short but Amazing Career Comes to Stage

Take a musical journey back in time on Thursday, June 18, as Good Clean Fun Productions brings its traveling show, “The Music of Patsy Cline,” to Detroit Lakes’ Historic Holmes Theatre for a 7:30 p.m. show.

Patsy Cline

Featuring Cassandra Wiese as Patsy Cline, and backed by seven talented musicians known as “The Bobs” — an homage to Cline’s tradition of calling her backup band “The Bodacious Bobcats” — the show will highlight all of the greatest hits from Cline’s prolific song catalog, as well as “a few lesser known gems,” said Wiese.

Sometimes, the group has even been known to take requests.

“We do know more (of Cline’s ) songs than we do in the show,” said Tony Ray, who serves as the drummer for The Bobs as well as the publicist for the show.

“It’s amazing how many songs she did — she was very busy for having such a short career,” Wiese added. “It was just two years of her life that she was a star — the rest of the time she was struggling (as a musician).”

So determined was Cline to be a country music star that she went on stage just a month after suffering a major car accident in 1960. “She had to be wheeled out on stage in a wheelchair,” Wiese marveled. “She stood on crutches for the whole show. I love that (live) recording — it’s amazing how much energy she had.

“That’s ambition — she knew what she wanted.”

For having such a short career, Cline has stood the test of time, as the popularity of songs like “Crazy” and “Walkin’ After Midnight” has continued unabated more than 50 years after her tragic death in a plane crash on March 3, 1963, just as she was beginning to reach the heights of stardom.

One reason for Cline’s enduring popularity, of course, is her truly unique voice — and “I have never heard anyone sound as close to the real Patsy Cline as Cassie does,” said Ray.

Cassie & The Bobs had their beginnings in a community theater production of “Always… Patsy Cline” by the Prairie Wind Players in Barrett, Minn.

Wiese was cast as Patsy, and the seven musicians who currently accompany her in the touring show — Jay on drums, guitarist Terry Kennedy, steel guitar player Randy Barnes, lead guitarist Steve Ahles, 15-year-old fiddle sensation Sami Steidl, guitarist/musical director Bruce Kelly and piano/accordion player Anne O’Flynn — were the pit orchestra for the production.

“After a string of sold out performances at Roosevelt Hall, we started getting requests to do concerts,” said Ray.

Though most of the requests were local at first, the group has since branched out to other parts of Minnesota and South Dakota, Wiese added.

Find the whole article online at http://www.dl-online.com/event/article/id/44922/

Published June 5, 2009 on D-L Online

By Vicki Gerdes

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Who is Lost Gold Records?

Lost Gold Records is an independent record label that specializes in rare and hard to find music and recordings from the vaults of record companies, recording studios, and the artists themselves. We feature tracks from established and new artists as well as music from yesteryear that escaped your attention because of tight radio playlists or out of print classics. From Bobby Darin to Patsy Cline to The Quarrymen (early Beatles) to bands from independent websites like DMusic and Soundclick, we have a growing catalogue that will keep you coming back for more. And we are not affiliated with the major companies or RIAA. None of our tracks feature DRM, and they are all in 320k hi - resolution mp3 format.