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

[David Lennick]

When the legend becomes fact..

dl

On 5/24/2011 7:16 PM, Mark Bardenwerper wrote:
> On 5/24/2011 2:33, Cary Ginell wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> So, in other words, the truth was a lie.
>