Today we’d like to introduce you to Suzie Graham.
Hi Suzie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
Growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, I had been singing in bands since I was a teenager and later worked as a cabaret singer. I had listened to Patsy’s music as a kid when my mother first introduced me to her around six years old. People had commented that when I sang Patsy Cline, they thought I sounded like her and it was suggested to me to be a tribute artist.
I am the biggest Patsy Cline fan and this was so amazing to hear that I could sing her songs all night for a living to an appreciative audience who were also fans like me. In 2016, I was contacted by Joltin Jim McCoy who discovered Patsy at 14 years old when she came into his radio station in Winchester, Virginia asking if she could sing on his show. Jim remained friends with Patsy and played with his band at her wedding to Charlie Dick. He was also a pallbearer at her funeral and remained close friends with Charlie until he passed away in 2015.
Jim had seen my YouTube videos and asked if I was willing to spread my wings and come play at his place ‘The Troubadour’ in West Virginia and invited me to stay at his home with his family there. That was the first time I met Patsy’s daughter Julie who had come up from Nashville. Jim had always held ‘Patsy Cline’ days every year to remember his friend and I sang over the weekend event with other artists from around the country commemorating her life at what was to be Jim’s last event.
He sadly passed away while I was there, just a few days before, I sang “I Fall To Pieces” to him whilst holding his hand. The new owners Tony and Sylvia kept the traditions going luckily and invited me back over in 2018 and 2019 and again, Julie came to the events and I got to meet her again and see Jim’s beautiful wife Bertha. I got to recreate the picture of Patsy sitting on her glider at the Patsy Cline Historic House in Winchester, Virginia before it was taken to the museum in Nashville.
In 2019, I was also asked to sing my original country songs in the Blue Bear Barn in Nashville after I had been watching the live streams they did every Saturday night. I was in Scotland coming home after gigs at about 2 am and after telling the guys there Mike and Buster I was going to be there soon, they asked if I wanted a spot.
I did some interviews on W.H.A.G T.V and a few radio stations and covered more States including Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee, and also got to sing in The Music City Bar and Grill with Chris West and The One More Ride Band. I shot a video in Rome in January 2020 for my song “Squeeze all the Juice Outta the Orange” with an awesome video director Ekaterina Moskvina, then Covid came.
I have been writing all through the lockdowns trying to do a new song every week. Right now, I’m back in the studio rehearsing and recording with my band Jim Jack, John Graham, John Thomson, Willie Gamble, and David Thomson. Some of my original songs are available to stream on all the usual platforms and I try to upload new songs to my YouTube channel every week.
I can’t wait to get back again and let everyone hear the new songs. I’ll of course, also be singing Patsy.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Some of the struggles had to be dodgy wigs from eBay and trying to source old western wear like Patsy’s. My auntie Anna, who is also my Godmother, is a dressmaker. She is in her 80s but she offered to make me my costumes.
I will never forget my first red costume she made with the white fringe-like Patsy’s. I have been so lucky and I honestly feel like a million dollars every time I put one of her creations on. I love that Patsy also had her costumes made by her mother Hilda, on a ‘Singer’ sewing machine from Scotland just like my auntie Anna’s!
I also struggled to find great country musicians, however, my auntie Gina is also a folk singer who set me up with some awesome guys from her weekly “Nova Scotia Folk Club”
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a Patsy Cline tribute artist and an original country singer-songwriter from Scotland. In any song I ever sang, people would always nod in agreement to each other saying “Country twang, country twang” which I couldn’t shake.
I listened to old country music as a kid and loved Patsy Cline. I would go with my paper round money to ‘The Barras” market in Glasgow to get my own cassette tapes and while my friends were listening to dance music, I taught them to slap their thighs and listen to Patsy songs.
Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton are my biggest influences in life other than the woman in my own family.
What do you think about happiness?
Singing country music makes me happy as I can be myself and let those yodeling and growling parts rip! I also love writing and singing my own songs, it really can lay you out bare but it’s so nice to get to share my stories.
I wrote a song about Joltin Jim and a song about growing up in Scotland called “Country Girl” I also wrote one called “Nashville” about how I got there.
Most of my songs are “Three Chords and The Truth ” as Harlan Howard once said, I wrote a song called that too!
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: Www.facebook.com/patsyclinetribute
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCpbiWp_NETVohLjIUgTA_Bg
- Other: Www.facebook.com/glasgowcountrygirl
Image Credits
Julie Fudge, Bertha McCoy, Mike Elkins, and Buster Clinard
