From a hospital traction frame on Old Hickory Boulevard, Patsy Cline listened to a stranger’s voice over a bedside radio and changed country music history forever. Just days after surviving a brutal head-on collision on June 14, 1961, Cline heard an unknown Kentucky newcomer named Loretta Lynn dedicate a heartfelt rendition of I Fall to Pieces on the Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree. Instead of using her precious airtime to plug her own debut single, Lynn chose to honor the injured star who lay bandaged and recovering in a Madison hospital room.
Moved by the gesture, Cline immediately sent her husband Charlie Dick down to Broadway to track down Lynn and bring her back to the hospital. When Lynn arrived wearing a humble homemade dress, Cline instantly took her hand and declared her a little sister, sparking an intense twenty-one-month friendship that would provide the backbone, stage gowns, and fierce industry survival skills Lynn needed to conquer Nashville.
She taught the newcomer how to walk onstage with her head up, stand firm against record bosses, and hold on to her own earnings.
Once discharged, Cline opened her own closets to outfit Lynn with stage dresses and high heels, even buying curtains for Lynn’s bare windows. More importantly, she shielded the young mother from hostile backstage freezes at the Grand Ole Opry and guided her toward her first major Decca recording sessions. Though their legendary bond was tragically cut short by Cline’s fatal plane crash in March 1963, her fierce mentorship left an enduring legacy that Lynn carried for the rest of her life.