Bringing Patsy Cline Ballads and Tunes to Monmouth County

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By Mary Ann Bourbeau
WEST LONG BRANCH – Reagan Richards is currently living a life that closely emulates that of her idol, Patsy Cline, the country music legend who died more than 50 years ago in a plane crash.
“As a country artist, I don’t know how I couldn’t look up to Miss Patsy Cline because she truly was the real deal,” said Richards. “She walked the walk and talked the talk.”
As half of the Jersey Shore-based country music duo Williams Honor, she and songwriter/musician Gordon Brown are touring the country, visiting radio stations to promote their single, “Send It To Me.”
“We get up at 5 a.m., do a radio show at 7 a.m. and then hit another station,” Richards said. “Sometimes we do three a day. It’s the same thing Patsy did. It’s like I’m living the life that she lived. I couldn’t have written it any better.”
Richards will take a break from her radio tour to play the role of Patsy Cline in a stage production of “Always, Patsy Cline,” which will take place at Monmouth University’s Lauren K. Woods Theatre from July 6-16. The two-person show tells Cline’s story through the eyes and words of Louise Seger, a Texas housewife who started out as a fan. The two became pen pals, and that relationship blossomed into a close friendship. Actress Katrina Ferguson plays the role of Louise.
“Always, Patsy Cline” contains 29 of Cline’s memorable songs, including “I Fall To Pieces” and “Walking After Midnight.”
“Country music is about the lyric and about relating to an audience,” Richards said. “If Patsy was singing about a party, you were at that party with her having a blast. If she was crying in her beer about love gone wrong, you grabbed a tissue because tears would be falling down your face. Anyone that put on her records felt what she was singing.”
Richards was raised in Cranford in an artistic family. Her father was a New York City fashion executive and her mother was a 1950s big band singer who often performed with Les Paul.
“I really got into all the records my mother listened to, like Judy Garland and Vera Lynn,” said Richards. “But once I got ahold of Patsy Cline, that was it. I was hooked.”
She studied communications and theater at the University of Pittsburgh before deciding on a career in music. In 1999, she packed her clothes and her equipment in a 19-foot hearse and headed down to Nashville.
“A hearse was the best way to carry my equipment because it has rollers in the back,” she said. “When you get to a show, you just slide it out. It got a lot of attention – and it looked good, too.”
Richards lived in Nashville for seven years, singing in the honky tonks and working as a sessions vocalist. It was at the Grand Ole Opry where she first saw “Always, Patsy Cline” performed.
“I knew when I saw it that I wanted to do that show someday, and this is the perfect time for me to do it, when I’m knee deep in this radio tour. I believe things happen when they’re supposed to happen.”
Through the years, Richards has performed with Jon Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, Deborah Harry and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, and worked as a background vocalist for David Grey, Lisa Loeb, Darlene Love and Ben E. King. She spent four years singing with Les Paul both on tour and at his Monday night shows at the Iridium in New York City. She often performs in the Jersey Shore area with artists such as Glen Burtnik, Bobby Bandiera and Ray Andersen.
“I’m very fortunate that I’ve been able to make my living doing this,” she said. “I never take it for granted.”
Tickets for “Always, Patsy Cline” are $30; $20 for seniors, employees and alumni; $10 for students and $5 for Monmouth University students. For more information, visit www.monmouth.edu/university.aspx.
Further information is available at www.williamshonor.com.
Arts and entertainment writer Mary Ann Bourbeau can be reached at mbourbeau@tworivertimes.com or on Twitter @MaryAnnBourbeau.