Free Honky Tonk Angel by Ellis Nassour

she talked of becoming a star, you might think she was putting you on.
    “As it turned out, her talent was real. We hit it off. After that, if we were anywhere close, you could bet she’d show up to say hello, then ask if she could sing. We’d talk to Webb and get him to put her on. It was hard to say no. You could see how much it meant.”
    Bill had a better idea to bring Patsy stardom: a trip to New York. McCall urged Bill to assemble a more experienced, pop-oriented band for the trip. He set up a demo session with Decca Records’ chief of country A&R, Paul Cohen. In addition to the Melody Boys, Bill added Gene Shiner, his brother-in-law who had the Metronomes; former Melody Boy Pete O’Brien who formed his own band; and Leo Miller, one of his musicians. Bill arranged for Patsy and the band to try out for CBS’s half-hour, prime-time show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts,” which introduced promising amateur artists.
    Traveling in two cars, they arrived in New York in late November and checked into the Dixie Hotel (now the Carter) on West Forty-second Street in the heart of Times Square. Bill immediately took Patsy shopping for new dresses. According to Leo Miller, he spent more than eight hundred dollars. The audition, conducted by Janette Davis, a featured vocalist on the show and Godfrey’s administrative right hand, took place on the sixteenth floor of the old CBS headquarters on Madison Avenue between Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets. Their big competition was a
young girl dressed in petticoats and a white ruffled dress, who was a violin virtuoso playing on a prized Stradivarius.
    “Miss Davis was polite,” Shiner recalled, “but she wasn’t too taken with the band. She told us she’d be happy to book Patsy, whom she felt transcended country and was more a blues singer. All Bill and Patsy knew and wanted was country music. We ultimately decided that if it had to be that way, then Patsy should accept. The reason for coming was to try to get the band and Patsy on the show, but we knew getting Patsy on was Bill’s number-one goal. Patsy’s dream was to become a star and here was her big chance. She completely stumped us. She told Miss Davis we were a package and it was ‘all or nothing.’ I thought Bill would kill her! But it was no deal and the girl with the violin went on that night and won.”
    Davis took Patsy and Bill aside and made a commitment that if ever Patsy wanted to come back and audition, she’d see to it. According to Shiner, Davis contacted Richard Lisell, who managed Teresa Brewer, and suggested he meet Patsy and the band. When they met at Lisell’s East Side apartment, Roy Deyton remembered, Bill touted Patsy as “the second greatest singer in the whole U.S.A.” It became clear Bill was pushing Patsy and not the entire package. To some of the band it seemed Lisell got the idea of prying Patsy away from Bill and signing her himself.
    The band Bill put together was solid, and impressed everyone. Lisell quickly had them working—singing and playing, not pop, but country after all. It was a novelty in New York. In one night, the band managed one-hour sets at four clubs, including the famed Latin Quarter.
    Peer and Lisell supervised Patsy and the band’s taped demos at Decca’s studios on West Fifty-seventh and Seventieth streets. There were two Four-Star songs, “Turn the Cards Slowly” and “Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray)” plus “Crazy Arms” (later a hit for Ray Price) 2 and “This Ole House,” which was a number one pop hit that summer for Rosemary Clooney.
    The session went smoothly until they got to “This Ole House.” Peer had his ideas, Patsy had hers, and Lisell had his. Shiner says there were twenty-seven takes before it proved acceptable to Lisell. Members of the band could now tell they were not being considered for a record deal. This was all for Patsy. They felt used, there were words, and Patsy and Lisell argued. When Patsy didn’t show that night for