Live at the Cimarron Ballroom

Recorded at a Tulsa, OK, show on July 29, 1961, this newly released concert performance captures Patsy Cline at what was then a new peak in her professional career, enjoying her first number one country hit at the time with "I Fall to Pieces." The set she does on this disc includes that song, along with "Walking After Midnight," "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home," "Stupid Cupid," "Shake, Rattle & Roll," "Lovesick Blues," "When My Dreamboat Comes Home," and "A Poor Man's Roses." She's in good form, although, alas, hardly at the peak of her powers — the singer had barely survived an automobile accident 15 days earlier, and was on crutches and still bore scars on her face. She talks rather freely about the accident at one point and seems to be in good spirits, and this is, in many ways, a typical show of hers (although many numbers she did haven't survived on the tape), but probably not the one that she would have wanted to represent her concert work to posterity. Her raspy enthusiasm on "Shake, Rattle & Roll" is effective, and everything here works, especially the eight-piece band backing her up, although they're somewhat under-recorded. Still, any newly discovered Patsy Cline performances are worth hearing, and this one especially, as the closest thing to an official live album that we'll ever see.