Stevie Vallance
A collection of projects by Stevie Vallance's production company.
Fast Forward
by Lori Montgomery
"Walking A Mile In Someone Else's Boots"
After six years of playing Patsy Cline, Jazz singer and actress Stevie Vallance says that she feels a special connection to the late country singer. Though she knows it might sound a bit strange, she says she even hears Patsy speaking to her.
"I feel that there definitely is a spirit that comes to me," Vallance says earnestly. "In fact, I wasn't going to do (the show) this time around, because I'm doing more of the jazz thing now, and I was driving down to LA. 'Crazy' came on the car radio, and she just started talking to me again... So I pulled over at the next rest stop and called (ATP artistic associate) Diane Goodman and said, 'Forget what my agent said. It'll work.'" the "jazz thing" includes a new CD, "Practically Naked", and a touring schedule that takes her all over North America and between two homes in Vancouver and LA. But the lure of playing the most enduring personality in country music brought her back to APT, where she has played the part twice before.
"She was quite an incredible woman, a very strong woman," Vallance says. "She's like a shot of Vitamin B whenever I do her. She just makes me feel good inside."
Vallance doesn't get too maudlin about her eerie connection with Cline - they were even born on the same day, September 8. She jokes about the extensive padding that is necessary to lend her the same serious curves as The Great Lady of Country Music, and our interview is over when she has to leave for a "bum fitting." But she takes her responsibility seriously, as a conduit for Cline's love of music.
"I feel like her will is so strong," Vallance says. "Nothing could hold her back. She was totally open about her love of her voice and her desire to love and touch as many people as she could. It feels like even a plane crash can't stop her. It feels like she's just still driving through me... "I don't want to sound so esoteric, but I'm really starting to believe that there's something bigger there, that finds me even in my car in the middle of a rainstorm somewhere in the middle of Oregon."