Cline was best known for her rich tone and emotionally expressive bold contralto voice, which, along with her role as a mover and shaker in the country music industry, has been cited as an inspiration by many vocalists of various music genres. Her life and career have been the subject of numerous books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays.
Her hits included "Walkin' After Midnight", "I Fall to Pieces", "She's Got You", "Crazy", and "Sweet Dreams". Posthumously, millions of her albums have sold over the past 50 years. She has been given numerous awards, which have given her an iconic status with some fans similar to that of legends Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Ten years after her death, she became the first female solo artist inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
In 2002, Cline was voted by artists and members of the country music industry as number one on CMT's television special, The 40 Greatest Women of Country Music, and in 1999 she was voted number 11 on VH1's special The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll by members and artists of the rock industry. She was also ranked 46th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Singers of all Time." According to her 1973 Country Music Hall of Fame plaque, "Her heritage of timeless recordings is testimony to her artistic capacity."
"Crazy" is a ballad composed by Willie Nelson. It has been recorded by several artists, most notably by Patsy Cline, whose version was a #2 country hit in 1962.
Nelson wrote the song in early 1961; at the time he was a journeyman singer-songwriter who had written several hits for other artists but had not yet had a significant recording of his own. Cline was already a country music superstar who was working to extend a string of hits. Nelson originally wrote the song for country singer Billy Walker, but Walker turned it down and Cline picked it as a follow up to her previous big hit "I Fall to Pieces". The song was released in late 1961 and immediately became another huge hit for Cline, eventually becoming one of her signature tunes, and its success helped launch Nelson as a performer as well as a songwriter. Her version spent 21 weeks on the chart. This song as sung by Patsy Cline is #85 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Musically the song is a jazz-pop ballad with country overtones. The complex melody suited Cline's vocal talent perfectly and widened the crossover audience she had established with her prior hits. The lyrics describe the singer's state of bemusement at the singer's own helpless love for the object of his affection.
According to the Ellis Nassour biography Patsy Cline, Nelson, who at that time was known as a struggling songwriter by the name of Hugh Nelson, was a regular at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge on Nashville's Music Row, where he frequented with friends Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller, both unknown songwriters at that time. Nelson met Cline's husband, Charlie Dick, at the bar one evening and pitched the song to him. Dick took the track home and played it for Cline, who absolutely hated it at first because Nelson's demo "spoke" the lyrics to a faster tempo than what Cline later recorded as a ballad. Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, loved the song and arranged it as the ballad it was recorded as. Still recovering from a recent automobile accident that nearly took her life, Cline had difficulty reaching the high notes of the song at first due to her broken ribs, so she came back the next day to record the vocal, which she did in one take. Another story has it that Cline tried to record the song for hours one night with no success. After visiting Willie Nelson and listining to how he would have sung it she made it within a few attempts the next recording session.
Loretta Lynn remembers the first time Cline performed it at the Grand Ole Opry on crutches, she received three standing ovations. Barbara Mandrell remembers Cline introducing the song to her audiences live in concert saying "I had a hit out called 'I Fall to Pieces' and I was in a car wreck. Now I'm really worried because I have a new hit single out and its called 'Crazy'."
Willie Nelson stated on the 1993 documentary Remembering Patsy that Cline's version of "Crazy" was his favorite song of his that anybody had ever recorded because it "was a lot of magic."
Partly due to the genre-blending nature of the song, it has been covered by dozens of artists in several genres over the years. Notable versions include those recorded by The Kills, Linda Ronstadt, Julio Iglesias LeAnn Rimes, Don McLean. Willie Nelson himself has also recorded several versions of the song over the years including a trio version with Elvis Costello and Diana Krall; nevertheless the song remains inextricably linked with Cline.
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