Patsy Bruce
Patsy Ann Smithson
March 8, 1940
Brownsville, Tennessee, United States
May 16, 2021 (aged 81)
Country music
Songwriter, music manager
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Patsy Bruce was born Patsy Ann Smithson to Henry and Hazel Smithson on March 8, 1940, in Brownsville, Tennessee.[1][2][3]
Personal life and early career[edit]
In October 1964, while she was employed as a secretary she married William Edwin Bruce Jr., subsequently known professional as Ed Bruce, who was working as a car salesman and trying to break into music at the time. They had met in Nashville but married in Memphis before moving back to Nashville in 1966. They had a daughter in 1965, and she suffered a miscarriage in 1967, before giving birth to another daughter in 1968 and adopting a son in 1970; her husband also had a son from a previous marriage.[1][4][5][6] Patsy began serving as her husband's manager, and she also began writing songs with him, and the couple established several publishing companies in Nashville.[1]
Professional music career[edit]
In 1975, they collaborated on the song "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" — Patsy suggested swapping in "cowboys" for Ed's original line "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Guitar Players."[6][7] Ed Bruce's version made it to No. 15 on the Hot Country Singles charts in late 1975 and early 1976. Then, in March 1978, a Waylon Jennings/Willie Nelson cover hit No. 1 on the country music charts and spent four weeks there.[7][8] A cover by Gibson/Miller Band only reached number 49, however the song became a country standard and was named one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time by members of the Western Writers of America.[9]
The Bruces had another songwriting hit with Tanya Tucker's 1978 cover of Texas (When I Die), which Patsy co-wrote with her husband and singer Bobby Borchers. It made it to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.[7][8]
Management and other business interests[edit]
She served a stint as president of the Nashville Songwriters Association International in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[7][10][11][12] She and Ed also ran the Ed Bruce Talent Agency in Nashville during this period, and she worked as a casting director for the TV show Maverick and the 1980 film Urban Cowboy.[3][7][13]