Patsy Cline
September 8, 1932 - March 5, 1963
As Ginny Hensley, Patsy began performing in a variety of local and regional clubs and inns, and gained an audition for radio station WINC, then known as a hillbilly station, where she became a regular performer in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1948 she tried out in Nashville on WSM, the home of the Grand Ole Opry, at which she dreamed of playing. She was regarded as too unpolished then, but Roy Acuff heard her audition and asked her to sing on his own Noontime Neighbors radio show. 
By 1952 Ginny was featured vocalist with Bill Peer and his Melody Boys, and Peer urged her to change her name to Patsy, derived from her middle name, Patterson. When, on March 7, 1953, she married a construction industry mogul named Gerald Cline, she became Patsy Cline - the name by which she is remembered.
Quotes courtesy of The Patsy Cline Story
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