Patsy Cline will forever be remembered as one of the most influential country singers of all time. Musically, she made great strides for the genre, but commercially, she proved that the masses wanted country music; thus, an enormous business could be built on that desire. Fast forward eight or so decades, and now we have the Nashville we know today, in part due to Patsy Cline’s success. Well, on this day, November 16, 1960, Patsy Cline helped solidify her success as she recorded the hit single “I Fall To Pieces”.
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The three most successful singles in Cline’s catalog include “Crazy”, “Walkin’ After Midnight”, and “I Fall To Pieces”. In terms of cultural impact, “I Fall To Pieces” is arguably one of the most successful country singles of all time.
Roughly a year after the recording, Patsy Cline released “I Fall To Pieces” on January 30, 1961. Following its release, the single peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. “I Fall To Pieces” is one of the first country music singles to be a crossover success. However, Patsy Cline isn’t the only individual to receive praise for this accomplishment, because the writers of the song were the iconic country music writers, Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard.
How Cochran and Howard Shaped Patsy Cline and Country Music
Other than writing “I Fall To Pieces” for Patsy Cline, Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard, not as a duo, also wrote “She’s Got You”, “He Called Me Baby”, “Shoes”, and “Why Can’t He Be You”, The Cochran-penned track, “She’s Got You”, became another major hit for Cline, as it peaked at No. 1 on the country charts at No. 14 on the Hot 100.
Cochran and Howard’s contribution to country music did not start and stop with Patsy Cline. In addition to writing for Cline, the two songwriters also wrote classics for Eddy Arnold, Ray Price, George Strait, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Rich, and Johnny Cash. Some of the notable singles written for those artists include “The Eagle”, “The Chair”, and “The Wall”.
Needless to say, the trio of Cline, Cochran, and Howard was unstoppable in creating a No. 1 hit. And on this day, November 16, 1960, they did just that, as Cline took to Decca Records in Nashville, Tennessee. A year later, and the rest was country music history…
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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