Dick Flood – Knowing Miss Patsy Cline before Walkin’ After Midnight –
“My Walk Among the Stars”
“……I remember the day that Billy and me ran into her at Mr. Clarence Count’s Western Wear over in Maryland. That’s where most of the country acts in the DC area went to buy their show outfits. Since we were a new duet in town we were looking for suitable look alike cowboy/country style outfits to wear. I remember Miss Patsy suggesting sport jackets and shirts with collars instead of just fancy cowboy shirts. She also recommended that we get string bow ties and not regular neckties. Billy and I gratefully took her advice on everything but the cowboy boots. We had both decided to wear moccasins instead of boots. As a matter of fact moccasins became one of our trademarks for as long as we stayed together as the Country Lads.
Out of the pure goodness of her heart Miss Patsy did something else for Billy and me. Something that very few if any other aspiring young artists would ever even dream of or think of taking time out to do. Even most seasoned and famous entertainers would probably not have done what Miss Patsy Cline did for Billy and me.
She had made a few recordings locally on Four Star Records but now she had her chance at the big time. She had just signed a contract with Decca Records in Nashville. Since Decca Records was a major label she would now have worldwide distribution and promotion on all of her recordings.
And believe it or not the day before she left for Nashville and her first recording session she came to Billy and me and asked us for a tape of our singing. She wanted to show it to her brand new A & R man Mr. Owen Bradley in Nashville. And she had not even met Mr. Owen Bradley in person yet!
“…….The terrible news of Miss Patsy Cline’s sudden demise in a horrible airplane crash touched the heart of every country music fan all over the world. I myself cried my eyes out. I knew everyone on that small airplane; Mr. Hawkshaw Hawkins, Mr. Randy Hughes, Mr. Cowboy Copas, and of course Miss Patsy Cline. May God rest their souls. The country music world still misses every one of them.
Ten years later in 1973 I was proud to see that Miss Patsy Cline’s name was finally placed in the Nashville Country Music Hall of Fame.”