Patsy Cline was, quite simply, one of the best, most revered and most influential female country artists in the history of the genre. Her achievements and recordings in her tragically short career helping to open the door to success, and establish a creative template for a generation of artists who followed in her footsteps. She was a strong woman who stood up for herself, helping to emancipate fellow female country acts. Her contract with the label Four-Star restricted her to recording material by a small selection of songwriters and, having scored a debut No.2 in 1957 with Walkin' After Midnight, 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. Her longtime producer Owen Bradley embraced the new Nashville sound pioneered by the legendary Chet Atkins to crossover in to the pop world and create a very different sound from her earlier honky-tonk and rockabilly recordings. This collection rejoices in some of her finest and most successful recordings released before her untimely death in 1963 to create a loving overview of her short recording career. It is steeped in that warm, lush Nashville production. It includes her first chart entry A Church, A Courtyard, Then Goodbye and sees her evolve through her career with Walkin' After Midnight, Crazy Dreams until getting to the ultimate Patsy classics Crazy, She's Got You, I Fall To Pieces and Heartaches.
