Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline

There was a lot of information in here that was very interesting. I would have gave a higher review, but there are lots of typos & a lot that the author wasn't sure of if it was true.

Honky Tonk Angel has got to be the most definitive book on Patsy Cline ever written. Ellis Nassour starts the book off with a forward by Dottie West, one of Patsy's closest friends, which pretty much summed up Patsy's mercurial personality and enormous talent. The chapters are set up like records, side 1-4, giving Patsy's life in such detail that at times it was hard to keep all the characters separate.Nassour must have interviews hundreds of Patsy's friends, family and fellow musicians because the detail of this book is amazing. You get every recording she ever did, along with her session players, first band, rumored loves, and of course her relationship with Charlie Dick with whom she had her two children. Charlie doesn't come off particularly good in the book, a lady's man and a probably alcoholic, Dick treats Patsy as if he's both proud of her accomplishments and jealous at the same time.I learned that Patsy was as generous off stage as she was on stage. She helped other singers with no jealousy which is very unusual since it's been my experience that singer/musicians can be very competitive. Patsy helped her mother with money, gave her younger brother and sister everything, which turned out to be disappointing in the end, because the two fought over Patsy's things when their mother died.Patsy was married to Gerrard Cline first, and ended up using his name for the rest of her life, just as Demi Moore and Pat Benatar also did in their careers even though they married other men afterwards.After reading Honky Tonk Angel, I felt as if I really knew the woman behind the voice. All of the heartache and longing you hear in the songs Patsy made famous, are echoes of her life. She tried so hard to first 'make it' as a star, and then to keep her home life together once she was famous. What was so special about Patsy Cline is how she transcended country music. Her voice was too big for just one type of music and in fact she crossed over into popular music making her accessible to the world.Patsy fought this, thinking that she was betraying her roots, but given that her voice was meant for the world, it was inevitable that she'd move beyond one way of singing. I think the contrast between her pure country ambitions, and her big, glorious voice, caused the wonderful tension in her songs. Ray Charles had the same effect with his mixing of the blues with church music, and Willie Nelson with his Jazz styling with country songs.Informative with encyclopedic-research, Honky Tonk Angel is a must for every Patsy fan.

This Lady Had a Beautiful Voice!!! It’s sad that she had so much unhappiness in childhood experiences and her marriage but the music she’s left us with stands the test of time

This telling of Patsy's life was detailed and didn't end with the plane crash. I had never heard explicit details of the crash and who was first on scene. Sad and gruesome. The book was kind of gossipy and a score card of who "did" who. At times the book seemed to contradict itself, but it was based on recollections of Patsy's friends, family and "co-workers". As with everything else people remember situations a little bit differently. For example, some took issue with Loretta saying Patsy was her best friend. Loretta clarified saying Patsy was HER best friend and was not claiming Loretta was Patsy's best friend. I would recommend this book for an unfiltered look at Patsy's career home life. The life of a star is not all glamour and comfort.

This is a good rendition of her life and how she really was, not as she was depicted in her movie about her life. It seems to tell it like it is when it comes to events in her life with men,she was crude sometimes. It didn't tell much about her children who I imagine were brought up by her mother, although it doesn't say so. I would have liked to hear more about them. It did have nice pictures of her in it that probably you won't see anywhere else. I think that Charlie Dick is still alive and I saw him recently on TV talking about her. He was also crude but I guess they made quite a couple.

I enjoyed the first 20% of the book and the last 30%. The middle was beyond tedious! I grew up listening to Patsy’s music in my family home. I was always very curious to learn more about her and I was very excited to read this book. I got off to a quick start and then I got stuck. The middle is filled with too much information - names, dates, venues, street names etc etc. I was so confused and could not remember who was who. It took me months to get through this part. Then earlier today I got to the events that lead up to the plane crash and I was able to read the last 30% in one day.

I have listened to Patsy Cline for years but knew little, if anything, about her other than her tragic end. This book showed me everything I need to know about one of the two greatest female vocalists of the 20th century (Billie Holiday being the other). I recommend this book for any Cline or country-music fan. You could feel the love fans and friends had for her, especially at the end when my eyes welled up after the plane crash. I had no idea she was such a vibrant, tough, wild, independent woman. Why do talented people like this often make poor choices in marriage?

Only thing I have a problem with is the faded text on some of the printed pages. Hard to read. If a person wants to keep this paperback for a long time, the faded text will fade even more. That is if a person has the same problem as I have with this book. Other than that, it's a good read.

If you know nothing about that time then it's interesting. I knew a little and learned a little more. It was an interesting read for me.

A gift. Arrived on time without damage

another great book on Patsy Cline, a must

While Ellis Nassour's book is the primary source of information on whom Patsy Cline was as a Country singer, it is seriously flawed as a would-be biography. Allowing that Miss Cline was but 30-years-of-age when she died in the aeroplane crash just west of Camden, in Tennessee, in March of 1963, little is learned as to whom Miss Cline was as a person.The major flaw is that far too often the author is guilty of 'speaking' for Patsy Cline; in the same way Hollywood uses the technique when making a film of a departed person. This is quite unforgivable, as it puts a different slant on who the person is that the author is writing about. Another flaw is that much of what is written about Patsy Cline is hearsay, speculation or fabrication. Thus it is that one needs to read the book with tongue firmly tucked into cheek in order to separate the wheat from the chaff.Of two areas of her life that get scant attention in the book, one is that her husband, Charlie Dick, held down full time jobs. Thus making a mockery of the oft-mentioned claim that Miss Cline worked only to 'put bread on the table'. The other concerns the frequency with which Miss Cline chose to leave her two 'babies' in order to pursue her career on the 'road'; the absences sometimes stretching into a week or more at a time and which included a Christmas and a birthday. Today, those absences would be seriously frowned upon as neglect, given how very young the children were.While Patsy and Charlie's marriage was clearly made in Hell, each deserving of the other, Patsy Cline's saving grace, if it can be described as such, was her God-given lovely voice, emotionally charged and capable of reducing a romantic to tears.Derek Peake, Exeter, UK.