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Patti Page
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This SourcePatti Page (born Clara Ann Fowler on November 8, 1927 in Claremore (some sources give Muskogee), Oklahoma) is one of the best-known female singers in traditional pop music. She is the best-selling female artist of the 1950s and was among the first to cross over from country music to pop. Her recording career spans the years 1947 to 1981. Page continues to perform live and was billed as "The Singing Rage, Miss Patti Page".
Early life and rise to success
She was born into a large and poor family. Her father worked on the MKT railroad, while her mother and older sisters picked cotton. They went without electricity, so young Clara could not read after dark, as she related on TV many years later. Clara Ann Fowler became a featured singer on a 15-minute radio program on radio station KTUL, Tulsa, Oklahoma at age 18. The program was sponsored by the Page Milk Company; thus, young Clara Ann Fowler became Patti Page on the air. In 1946, Jack Rael, a saxophone player and band manager, came to Tulsa to do a one-nighter. He turned on the radio, and heard the musical program with the 18-year-old featured vocalist. He liked what he heard, and asked her to join the Jimmy Joy band, which Rael managed. Eventually, both left the band, and Rael became Patti's personal manager and leader of the backup orchestra for many of her recordings.Recording career
In 1947, she recorded a song called "Confess" which had a portion requiring one singer to answer another. (The other hit version involved a duet of Doris Day and Buddy Clark.) Because of a low budget, a second singer could not be hired, so Jack Rael suggested that Page sing the second part as well. The novelty of her doing two voices on one record possibly contributed to the song becoming a Top 20 hit for her.At the time, most record companies had a director of Artists and Repertory (the "A&R man"), who tightly controlled all the choices of artist-song assignments, and Mercury Records' A&R man was Mitch Miller, who became famous later on as the A&R man who brought Columbia Records into a dominant position in pop music in the early 1950s). After recording "Confess", Page (or Rael, or both) liked the multiple-voice idea so much, that she asked to do an entire song as a quartet. Miller was skeptical, until Page recorded a four-bar song demo in four different voices, and played the sample for Miller.
Reluctantly, Miller permitted it, and the song, "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming" became another big hit for Page, her first to sell a million. Although both Mary Ford and Jane Turzy became known for it, Page was actually the first singer to record multiple tracks on the same song ("Confess"). On some of the records, she was billed as "Vocal by Patti Page, Patti Page, and Patti Page," and in at least one case ("With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming"), she was billed on the single as "The Patti Page Quartet."
Page's first number one hit was "All My Love". It was based on Maurice Ravel's "Bolero". "All My Love" was #1 for five weeks in 1950.
Her bigest hit was "The Tennessee Waltz", which was also released in 1950. "The Tennessee Waltz" was #1 for thirteen weeks in 1950 and eventually sold more than 6,000,000 copies, making it the biggest charted Billboard hit of the entire decade. In 1963, Page left Mercury Records for Columbia Records, returning to Mercury in 1971. While at Columbia, she scored her most recent Top 10 pop hit in 1965 with the title song from the Bette Davis film Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. In 1973, she went back to the Columbia again, recording for their Epic Records subsidiary.
Page had a huge hit in 1953, "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?", a novelty song written by Bob Merrill, adapted from a well-known Victorian music hall song. Page recorded it in 1952, and it made #1 on the Billboard and Cash Box charts in 1953. To say that it was a major hit would be a tremendous understatement; it was almost constantly on the radio at that time.
Later career
In 1974 and 1975, she recorded for Avco Records, and, in 1981, recorded for Plantation Records, her most recent record label. Page's most recent single to appear on any Billboard chart was the 1982 #80 country single, "My Man Friday". (She last appeared on the pop chart in 1968, with her version of O.C. Smith's hit, "Little Green Apples", and on the Adult Contemporary chart with "Give Him Love" in 1971.)Page made the country chart in up to 1983, with her biggest hit during that time being "Hello, We're Lonely," a 1973 #14 duet with Tom T. Hall.
In the 1990s, Page started her own label, C.A.F. Records. In 1998, she won a Grammy as "Best Traditional Pop Singer". Many of her songs have a strong beat to them that prelude rock 'n' roll. These titles include "Mister and Mississippi", "Detour" and "Cross Over the Bridge". In 1956, she married choreographer Charles O'Curran. They adopted two children, a daughter, Kathleen, and a son, Daniel O'Curran.
In 1997 the English electronic music group Groove Armada released the song "At The River", which sampled "Old Cape Cod" by Patti Page. The single was re-released in 1999, and reached #19 at the British charts in August 1999.
In 2007 Patti Page was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
More recently, the White Stripes have covered Patti's 1952 recording of "Conquest".
She continues recording to this day, with a new album debuting in 2008 from Curb Records and featuring a duet with Vince Gill on the song “Home Sweet Oklahoma.”
Life today
Patti Page and Charles O'Curran divorced in 1972. In 1990, she was wed to Jerry Filiciotto, with whom she runs a maple syrup business in New Hampshire. Until recently, Page was also host of a weekly Sunday program on the "Music of Your Life" radio network (now distributed to individual radio stations via satellite by Jones Radio Networks). She and Jack White of White Stripes were interviewed by USA Today on January 1, 2008. Page still performs live in concert, and recently appeared in a Vegas casino showroom in the Spring of 2007.Discography
Hit singles
(For a more complete collection, see List of songs recorded by Patti Page.)
See also
References
External links
- The Official Patti Page Website
- Interview with Patti Page
- Chart positions, label numbers, etc. of all her hit songs
- Bio on Producers Inc. site
- Bio on All Music Guide site
- Bio on The Interlude Era site
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Last updated on Saturday March 01, 2008 at 07:46:19 PST (GMT -0800)
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