[78-L] Patsy Montana's "Million Seller"

[Cary Ginell]

Got this from Jay Orr of the Country Music Hall of Fame:

Regarding your Patsy Montana / Cowboy’s Sweetheart 
question, I have this from our senior historian, John Rumble. He refers 
to Robert K. Oermann and Mary Bufwack, authors of
Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music. They make the 
assertion that I Wanna Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart was “the first record by
 a woman in country music to pass the million mark in sales.”:

 
We have not referred to
 it as a million-seller, because sales of this magnitude seem 
implausible during the midst of the Great Depression. I seem to remember
 seeing one source, possibly one of our interviews
 with Art Satherley, who stated that it sold in the hundreds of 
thousands, but not 1 million. If Cary wants to contact Oermann and 
Bufwack, they may have obtained hard data to back their claim. But I 
don’t think so. I think the million-seller designation probably
 bent the truth for promotion purposes. I suppose it’s possible that 
cumulative sales over a good many years reached 1 million, but to reach a
 million within a year or even two years just doesn’t ring true, to me. 
I’ll check some of the Art Satherley interviews
 and see what I find, as this won’t take long and may turn up some 
evidence. Of course, Uncle Art was reflecting after many decades, and 
his memory might not be accurate.

 
Another thing to 
consider is that the Carter Family—enormously popular and with the 
support of 500,000-watt Border Radio, never sold that many copies of a 
single. Considering that 30,000 to 40,000 was considered
 a decent, profit-making country sale in the prosperous late 1940s and 
1950s, I just find it hard to believe that “Cowboy’s Sweetheart” sold 1 
million units.
 
Cary Ginell