Patsy Cline, would become a famous country singer, was born in Winchester in 1932. But on the heels of the Depression, and with her father looking for work as a blacksmith, her family moved around around a lot.
According to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Cline and her family lived in Elkton (1934), Lexington (1937), Winchester (1941 and 1948), Portsmouth (1943), Edinburg (1945), Middletown (1946), Gore (1947), Round Hill (1946) – and 70 years ago in Grottoes, the town in southeastern Rockingham County, near the Augusta County line.
But it was another small town in Rockingham County – Elkton – were Cline had more roots. Her mother, Hilda Virginia (1916-1998), lived in Elkton just prior to the birth of Virginia (Patsy) Patterson Hensley on Sept. 8, 1932.
Cline was the grand marshal of the Elkton jubilee parade on July 4, 1958, and there are photos that capture the event.
“If you look at that photo closely, you will see she was pregnant with me,” Julie Fudge, the daughter of Cline, told this reporter five years ago.
Fudge, who was 4 when her mother died in a plane crash in Tennessee, paid a return trip to Elkton in 2008 for parade.
The singer spent time in Elkton as a child.
“She was raised in the Elkton area (for a time). She lived in a house that is still standing on Rockingham Pike,” Jan Hensley, a distant relative, told this reporter in 2021. “She has some first cousins who lived in Elkton but unfortunately they have died in the past few years.”
Wideopencountry.com listed Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Cline as the three greatest country female singers of all time.
The Winchester native was the first woman to go into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1973.
Among her hits were “Crazy,” released in 1961.
Other Valley singers
Some of the other notable singers/bands – not a complete list by any means – past and present with Shenandoah Valley roots include, in alphabetical order:
- Jessica Crawford. From Bridgewater, she writes on her website “the place I felt most at home in the world was with my family on my Grandmother’s Augusta County farm.” She performed on March 21 at the Sipe Center in her hometown, and she is very involved at New Beginnings Church in Harrisonburg. The singer spent two years in Nashville before returning to the area about two years ago.
- Emily Henline. The young singer grew up in Waynesboro and appeared on local TV at age 11, per her website.
- Ryan Jewel. Country singer from Front Royal studied wildlife and fisheries biology at Clemson. He produced “Same Bar, Different Town,” two years ago.
- Clint Miller. Born in North Carolina in 1939, he grew up in Woodstock and became a country singer before getting involved in state politics. He ran for governor, in 1993 but lost the Republican nomination to George Allen.
- Scott Christopher Murray. The singer/songwriter, with Grammy nominations to his credit, has roots in Fulks Run, in Rockingham County.
- Old Crow Medicine Show. The Americana string band got their start in Harrisonburg before heading to Nashville, per online sources. They have performed at Little Grill in Harrisonburg.
- Jessi Pugh. The rising country artist is from Bridgewater and has a show in Waynesboro on Aug. 7 at Stable Craft Brewing & Cidery and in Harrisonburg on 23 at White Oak Lavender Farm + Vineyard, in the Cross Keys area, among other local gigs.
- Jim Shelley. In 2012, he came out with his autobiography The Ballad of Jim Shelley: My Life as a Failed Rock Star. He attended Bridgewater College, JMU and the University of Virginia, among other schools, per online outlets. “One of America’s great unknown songwriters,” wrote Jim Santos, formerly of Alternative Press.
- Kate Smith. She who born in Greenville in Augusta County in 1907 before moving to the nation’s capital at a young age. For years she sang “God Bless America” before hockey games in Philadelphia. At the age of 13, Cline was hospitalized with a throat infection and rheumatic fever but she recovered. “You might say it was my return to the living after several days that launched me as a singer,” Cline said in a 1957 interview. “The fever affected my throat and when I recovered, I had this booming voice like Kate Smith’s.” Smith died in North Carolina at the age of 79.
- The Statler Brothers. They performed from 1955 to 2002 and their July 4 shows in Staunton were must-see events. A big deal nationally for most of the 1970s and beyond, they went into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. Member Lew Dewitt Jr. passed in Waynesboro in 1990 at the age of 52. Former member Jimmy Fortune was born in Williamsburg and has roots in Nelson County, and branched out on his own. The Statler Experience will take place at the Rockingham County Fair on 8 with relatives of original members of the band. “The Class of ‘57” song noted that three members graduated that year from Wilson Memorial High School. Member and co-founder Harold Reid passed in 2020.
- Phil Vassar. Though he was born in Lynchburg in 1962, he ran track at JMU and started singing in local venues, per online reports, on his way to a successful career as a writer and country singer.
- Robin and Linda Williams. They have lived in “the country outside of Staunton” for years. They began performing in 1973 and made their first appearance on “Prairie Home Companion” two years later. They are set to perform in Verona on 30 at the Oak Grove Music Festival.
- Mac Wiseman. The American bluegrass and country singer was born in Crimora in 1925 and died in Nashville in 2019. Per online reports, he went to school in New Hope and studied at Shenandoah Conservatory in Dayton, until the school – now known as Shenandoah University – moved to Winchester in 1960. He worked as a disc jockey at WSVA radio in Harrisonburg. From his obit in the New York Times: “Afflicted with polio at a young age, he went on to win a scholarship from the National Foundation for Polio to study piano, music theory and radio broadcasting at a conservatory in Dayton in the northwest part of the state.” He went into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1993 and the Veteran Era category of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014.
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David Driver
