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  By that point, Jim McCoy had already met Ernest Tubb and become completely enthralled. Jim bought Tubb’s records, like the guitar, from Montgomery Ward, and then at age fourteen he hitchhiked to Conococheague Park in Hagerstown, Maryland, to see the Texan play. Once they met, Jim started sending letters. By the time he finished high school, Jim was pen pals with one of the biggest stars in country. His insider knowledge and professional connections made him a natural, authoritative DJ, first in Hagerstown and then at WINC, the still-operational Winchester radio station that started broadcasting in 1946. WINC was only the second FM signal in Virginia, broadcasted with a 3-kilowatt transmitter and a 148-foot cloverleaf antenna set up on a hill. On Saturday mornings, Jim hitchhiked down the mountain to host the station’s sole country show from 4:30 to 9 a.m.

  It was in that capacity, in 1948, that he first met Patsy. He was nineteen and she was three years younger. Jim offered local and touring acts the chance to play on-air for $2, but Patsy didn’t even have that. She auditioned for him in the hallway, an a cappella take on “San Antonio Rose,” and Jim immediately let her sing to the live mic, free of charge. This episode has since become a key component of Patsy lore—her creation myth in a sense. But more important, it inaugurated fifteen years of intense friendship and musical affinity. Jim played guitar for Patsy on many early occasions, became lifelong friends with her second and final husband, Charlie Dick, and eventually served as a pallbearer at her funeral. Jim will tell you how sexy she was, but they were never romantically involved. His love for her was a deeper and purer thing.

  Imagine you were a teenage country obsessive from the Depression-era sticks who thumbed rides in the weekend predawn just to play records for fruit pickers. Imagine loving country music that much, and then being tracked down by this disarming, ruby-cheeked, sixteen-year-old spark plug without even two spare dollars to her name. And when she pleads for thirty seconds of your time you step out into an empty tile hallway and she lets forth with that voice, bell-clear and sorrowful even as a child. In a few years this voice will sing “Crazy” and the world will fall in love—indeed, the world will have a new musical shorthand for love itself. In that hallway you hear more than just a singer. You hear the future, the shape of your world to come. And as her legend grew after death, you could say with well-earned pride that you were the first person to get behind a radio microphone and fill the airwaves with this stunning voice, the greatest to ever sing country. Imagine all that, and it might make a little more sense why Patsy’s face was plastered so persistently all over the Troubadour grounds: on the welcome sign, behind the cash register, and side by side with a picture of Bertha on a shrine-like mantel in the studio.

  Jim spent the 1950s rushing from daybreak radio shows to recording sessions and honky-tonk gigs, and he had plenty of fellow travelers. In 1949, the year after Patsy Cline first sang on Jim’s Saturday morning show, WINC was one of nearly seven hundred American radio stations that played country. Grand Ole Opry–aping regional radio revues sprung up everywhere from Los Angeles to West Virginia’s northern panhandle, where Jim played the Wheeling Jamboree concert and radio show for decades. More than sixty full-scale country-themed entertainment parks opened for business during the boom as well. Singers like Gene Autry and Roy Acuff became well-known, diversified businessmen in addition to performers, opening music publishing operations and radio stations. In cities, country TV shows were huge draws and major stops for touring talent. The Jimmy Dean Show originated in Washington, D.C., in 1957, and for musicians in the greater orbit of Maryland and the Virginias, that became the grail. Postwar country music was an entrepreneur’s playground—the first nationwide American independent music scene. And Jim McCoy tried his hand at every possible opportunity: establishing Troubadour Records and Studios, DJ-ing his radio show, playing gigs whenever possible with the Melody Playboys and as a sideman. There were enough amateur Acuffs like him to scare the mainstream industry into action: in July 1950, Columbia Records became the first label to open a Nashville office and country subsidiary. From that day forward, all those state-highway honky-tonk circuits and regional rodeos slowly drained like open veins until the genre’s talent and money pooled in central Tennessee.

  As a teenager Jim looked up and made eyes with the daughter of a man whose timber he was sawing. She was Marjie, a sweet country girl, and like a finger-snap they were soon married with three children. Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, Jim would rise to host a WINC show at 4:30, then head to the southeastern corner of town to manage the Montgomery Ward till 5 p.m. He made $40 a week at that job: “Big money.”

  But he kept up the grueling music schedule on top of it all, making that twelve-hour drive to Nashville often. His archives are filled with hundreds of showbiz photos: Jim in a suit and ten-gallon hat, mugging, exhausted-looking but boundless; in a cornpone costume with a one-off redneck comedy gang called the Skillet Lickers; posed behind a radio microphone in a press shot; with his band mates or promoters outside a seemingly infinite number of local fairs, fund-raisers, radio-station promotional gigs, barbecues. And there are smiling photos alongside big stars like Ray Price and Dottie West, too. These people were his friends, his admirers even. He finally made it to the Opry stage in the late 1980s, when he was invited to perform at the memorial for Ernest Tubb. But Jim never left for good. He stayed in the upland Shenandoah, and held on as a regional radio star and record producer for decades. The Troubadour, especially for a first-time visitor, feels purely valedictory, a monument to a life lived in noble service to music. But the music Jim lived for is the genre of heartaches, setbacks, and lonely, regret-filled nights. Honky-tonk country is the sound of rural-rooted people taking their first difficult, stumbling steps toward the city, and it is not often the music of triumph. The songs are short, direct, and comfortingly formulaic, but the words, like the backstories of many of the music’s stars, continually remind us: life is not a song.

  The day after karaoke night, Jim opened Troubadour Park for the summer season. More than two hundred people paid their requested $10 donation for the privilege of setting their foil-covered side dish on the long picnic tables near the giant smoking pistol. One man, his skin as deeply textured as a piece of sun-parched oak, carried an enormous macaw on his shoulder as he walked through the crowd. He made his way to the outside bar and paid for one Mountain Dew and a Styrofoam cup full of ice, then took a seat at a white plastic table and poured his soda. As the bubbles fizzed in the sun, the parrot gingerly dismounted from the man’s shoulder and put his beak in the cup, guzzling.

  By the bar, under a low canopy, Jim and Bertha’s employees prepared the smorgasbord. A young man with sweat beading on his downy mustache unscrewed the top from a gallon jug of Great Value original barbecue sauce as the propane grills roared nearby. I recognized him as our steak chef from the night before, and he obviously had the same fuss-free way with chicken. He tipped the jug onto a pile of thighs and legs that he’d arranged in an aluminum tray, then tossed them all with his bare hands, getting sauce up to the T-shirt tan lines above his elbows. Piece by piece he threw the meat on the grill and each time a fresh gust of smoke and burned corn syrup filled the air.

  Jim was seated by the donation bucket at the entranceway, greeting everyone who came in. He stayed glued to a stool, giving thumbs up and accepting kisses on the cheek. After a while, Jim’s doctor, Matt Hahn—who was spoken of in grateful, hushed tones by the assembled crowd—got on the stage and tapped the mic as Donny turned the volume on. Hahn was in his early fifties but looked like a fresh-faced teenager even with his shaved head. He winced from a blast of feedback.

  “Back at the Troubadour!” Hahn announced, to scattered applause. “Let’s give a hand to Jim and Bertha. I’ve had so much fun here I feel bad for all the people who have to live somewhere else. I know the food is about to come out and we’ll all get started, but first I wanted to remind everyone that Jim and Bertha have had their problems lately. Lots of doctor’s bills, though we know they�
��re going to get better.”

  Little Eddie, Jim and Bertha’s indefatigable busboy, began to unwrap the foil from the dozens of Pyrex dishes at the base of the megagun. The macaw fished zealously for a piece of ice in its soda cup. Its owner had ripped the cup down to a quarter of its original height so the bird could still reach its prize. Rings of carefully manicured Styrofoam were gathered underneath his lawn chair, floating like bubbles in the curling mountain grass. The darkening clouds moved regally, like galleons in full sail.

  “And I know we all feel deeply grateful to these people who have given us so many wonderful afternoons like this up here, surrounded by friends and great music,” Hahn continued. “So I encourage everyone to visit that donation bucket and see how generous you feel today.”

  To his right the plywood outdoor restrooms sat empty, their doors slightly ajar. The light still glowed in the men’s. To Hahn’s left, three children shook the thin frame of a swing-set with chipped paint. There was a small boom as Hahn clicked off the mic, then Donny faded in a Kenny Chesney CD and the lines began forming by the plastic cutlery. A breeze flew in, caramelized chicken and cool pine. The beer-can bin was just full enough to rattle each time a new empty dropped in. Anxiety felt impossible, at least for all but one of us.

  Up through a twisting aisle of lawn chairs and crossed legs, a man in a gleaming white cowboy hat strode determinedly toward Jim. He was late thirties, hairless except for a struggling blond goatee. He wore a black sleeveless T-shirt, seemingly ironed, which he had tucked into his Wranglers and secured with a belt buckle big enough for a Buick’s hood. It featured a soaring eagle made of polished silver. Behind him, following his stiff black cowboy boots, was a young girl, maybe fourteen and not at all graceful. Poor posture, crimped hair arranged to purposely obscure her face, she wore boys’ gym socks pulled up to her knees and black low-top Chuck Taylors that she’d scrawled on with colored pens. A silent older man, presumably her father, trailed her at a small distance.

  “Mr. McCoy,” the goateed cowboy said, leaning into a conversation between Jim and two older women. The women wrapped up with a kiss on Jim’s cheek and went to grab a spot in line. Jim looked up and said nothing.

  “Mr. McCoy, I have someone here who I really think you’d like to hear sing.”

  “Do ya?” Jim asked, skeptical.

  “Name’s Melanie.” He turned and gestured the poor girl in. A thick barbecue din filled the air—screams, laughter, echoing music, monotone debates over the approaching clouds. “She lives out in Great Cacapon, loves to sing. Loves it. I was hoping you might have her onstage tonight and see if she’s ready to record.”

  Jim looked at her with interest but without leering. He was assessing honestly: is this young lady ready for show business?

  “What do you sing?” he asked her.

  “I like . . .” Her agent’s face was so grimly focused you’d think guns were drawn. “Miranda Lambert?” she finally asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know if these fellas are going to know something that new,” said Jim, gesturing to the quartet of road warriors currently setting up and tuning onstage. Guitar, drums, bass, two mics. A couple ponytails. “Anything a little older?”

  Stammering but brave, the girl opened her mouth and stared at the agent for approval as the syllables came out slowly.

  “Loretta Lynn?”

  “They might know that,” said Jim. Nodding with approval, he began shuffling up through the chairs, toward the stage, to tell the band they were featuring Melanie on a couple tunes today. They all shook her hand excitedly while the agent placed a gentle palm on Jim’s hunched back and said, “We do appreciate this, Mr. McCoy.”

  Great Cacapon is another one of those tiny towns that dot the panhandle, places that years ago had their own Elks Lodge or roadhouse where Joltin’ Jim and the Melody Playboys might play with the local high school surf-rock band. Today, fewer than four hundred people live there. Maybe that man heard Melanie singing with her friends while they watched a music video on a phone. Maybe she was in the church choir. Maybe she was his niece. However it happened, one day he heard her voice and thought: That could be it. This girl might sing well enough to get some attention, and who knows what might come of that. Maybe a little money. Maybe a lot of money. Plenty of girls just like her, from nothing-doing towns in the far corners of rural states, have sung their way to fame and wealth. And what do you know, the man who discovered the best there ever was, the real Joltin’ Jim McCoy himself, is right up the mountain. Why not dream? It’s happened before.

  2

  A Closer Walk with Thee

  Just past noon on a Saturday in early March, the first warm weekend of the year, the only sound on South Kent Street was a screen door slapping behind two teenage girls as they crossed a short lawn. In black hoodies and tight, neon-highlighted ponytails, the pair turned and walked behind the yellow house they had come out of, possibly headed for the shallow creek just past the rear property line, or maybe to the train tracks beyond that.

  The sidewalks were cracked and shifted on South Kent Street. The porches were peeling. Sixty years ago, the residents of this gently hilly enclave on the east side of Winchester were strictly white working class. That Saturday morning, I saw mostly black families attending to weekend chores, though each house still looked like a place where money had to stretch. All except for number 608, which looked even nicer than it did when the street was only white folks. That warm morning, a small crowd had gathered outside, and JudySue Huyett-Kempf was smiling anxiously as she shook hands on the porch, welcoming everyone to the former home of one of the best-known singers in the world.

  Not long before, the Patsy Cline Historic House and Museum had been in total disrepair, stuck in legal limbo after decades as a rental. But in 2011, this tin-roofed two-story with white paint and black shutters was transformed into the only tourist attraction in sight. Its five front windows now gleamed like a grand piano, and clean bricks lined its stretch of the sidewalk, engraved with donors’ names. Visitors from as far away as Australia and Japan had paid their $8 to get inside and see a painstaking re-creation of the building as it was between 1948 and 1957, when Patsy lived there, the longest residence she held during her short life.

  Big necklace, big earrings, big smile, and a long leopard-print blouse: JudySue greeted us like a volcano. Every curl of her hair was teased into place and her makeup was flawless. She was 5’2” but she dominated us.

  “The big one for me was Erik Estrada,” she explained to a couple on the porch. “He was grand marshal of the Apple Blossom Parade a few years ago and he came and visited us. Gave him a free tour, of course.” Then she rolled her eyes in an exultantly hubba-hubba gesture that made her guests seize with laughter.

  I was part of the noon group. The house is small enough that only so many people can go in at a time, and this weekend was slated to be busier than usual: though the house’s official visitor season doesn’t start until April, JudySue and her fellow board members of Celebrating Patsy Cline, the 501(c)3 that instigated the house’s resurrection, had opened it that week to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the deadly plane crash that ended Patsy’s life. They were hosting tours of the house all day Saturday, followed by a party downtown that evening and a graveside memorial service just outside town on Sunday morning, the actual date of the tragedy.

  JudySue opened the front door and the air changed immediately. The wood-box television and 45 player in one corner were the only traces of halfway modern technology in the living room. Otherwise there were only black and white photos, a white upright piano near the front window, and a side table next to a floral print couch draped with homemade lace. A framed copy of Patsy’s most famous early ’60s headshot, signed to her mother (“We finally made it!”), sat prominently on the piano lid. Three departing Patsyphiles were talking with an impeccably groomed man in white gloves, one of a handful of docents leading visitors through the house.

  “Those were actually Patsy’s,” JudySue bea
med, pointing to a group of matching salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen windowsill, a small portion of the singer’s sizable collection. “And same with the table and chairs right near ’em.” She had a right to be proud: In the Lazarus tale of 608 South Kent Street, JudySue was Jesus. Its reopening was the signal achievement of her twenty-year campaign to make Winchester synonymous with Patsy, or at least to recognize her existence at all. JudySue’s struggle in this effort shocks most outsiders. After all, most little-known hamlets would be thrilled to capitalize on a hometown girl of such eminence: the first solo female inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame and one-time subject of a U.S. postage stamp, with a continually replenished fan base to rival Sinatra’s. She even sang at Carnegie Hall and got a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But Patsy Cline didn’t belong to the Winchester elite when she lived here, and not even her tragic death and subsequent global stardom ever earned their affection.

  Patsy was at the height of her fame, only thirty years old with two young kids, when she boarded a single-engine Piper Comanche that her tourmates had affectionately dubbed “the shitbox.” It was March 5, 1963, and she was heading home to Nashville after a show. The plane’s nickname, like Jim McCoy’s touring hearse, was a bit of gallows humor in an industry where performers famously died on the road. Patsy herself had been hospitalized for weeks after a head-on collision about eighteen months earlier. Jim had two of his own death-defying crashes in his touring days. So some of the bigger stars had taken to traveling by plane. It seemed safer.