Me & Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline

When Lynn, the octogenarian Queen of Country Music, moved to Nashville in 1959, she was a 27-year-old mother of four who had been married for 12 years. Two years earlier, living in Washington State, she had watched Patsy Cline sing “Walkin’ After Midnight” on TV. Watching Cline perform what would become one of her signature standards, Lynn was transfixed; it was as though Cline were singing only to her. The intuitive connection Lynn felt that night would soon be actualized in Nashville. The two met when Cline, in the hospital following an automobile accident, asked Lynn to visit her after hearing her sing a cover of Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” on the radio. This meeting changed Lynn’s life and has been documented numerous times and in various media. Now Lynn, with her daughter Patsy, has written a beautiful, heartbreaking valentine to Cline, who was a mentor and passionate and devoted friend—all of which is manifestly conveyed through Lynn’s uniquely distinct eastern Kentucky voice and seemingly endless cascade of stories. A foreword by Dolly Parton will further endear this work to country and western fans.