Born Virginia Patterson Hensley on this day in 1932 in Winchester, Virginia, Patsy Cline was an enigma: bold and vulnerable, timeless and tender. With a voice that could ache and soar in the same breath, she became one of country music’s most unforgettable legends.

She dreamed of Nashville as a girl, and made it there in 1955, breaking barriers as the first female country artist to headline her own tours. Her classics Crazy and I Fall to Pieces became pop standards, bridging country and mainstream music with pure emotional power.

“Here was a girl,” songwriter Donn Hect recalled, “attractive but plain, simple but complicated, with a heart as big as the mountains that made her eyes shine.”

She inspired a generation: Trisha Yearwood said that hearing Patsy felt like “she's standing in the room with me… and that room is alive and on fire.”

Killed tragically in a 1963 plane crash, she was just 30. But her voice still echoes, fierce and feminine, wrapped in raw emotion. She once said, “If I'm weak, it's because I love.”