[Vision2020] [Spam 9.51] Patti Page, Honey-Voiced ’50s Pop Sensation, Dies at 85

Thu Jan 3 12:31:48 PST 2013

About a year ago a CD was released featuring Patti Page singing 24
standards with an A-List musicianed big band.  It is an enjoyable listen.
Although her diction is a bit pure, prim, and proper, she never-the-less
demonstrates that she can swing.

w.

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 2:44 PM, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote:

> Her and her music were great. Back then Pop, Country, Folk Music and Jazz
> were all  great. Today there is very little worth listening too.
> Roger
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: [Spam 9.51] [Vision2020] Patti Page, Honey-Voiced ’50s Pop
> Sensation, Dies at 85
> From: "Tom Hansen" **
> To: "Moscow Vision 2020" **
> Date: 01/03/13 01:48:40
>
>  Courtesy of the New York Times at:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/arts/music/patti-page-singer-dies-at-85.html?_r=0
>
> -------------------------------------
>  Patti Page, Honey-Voiced '50s Pop Sensation, Dies at 85
> Patti Page, the apple-cheeked, honey-voiced alto whose sentimental,
> soothing, sometimes silly hits like "Tennessee Waltz," "Old Cape Cod" and
> "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?" made her one of the most
> successful pop singers of the 1950s, died on Tuesday in Encinitas, Calif.
> She was 85.
> Her death was confirmed by Seacrest Village Retirement Communities, where
> she lived.
> Ms. Page had briefly been a singer with Benny Goodman when she emerged at
> the end of the big band era, just after World War II, into a cultural
> atmosphere in which pop music was not expected to be challenging. Critics
> assailed her style as plastic, placid, bland and antiseptic, but those
> opinions were not shared by millions of record buyers. As Jon Pareles wrote
> in the New York Times in 1997, "For her fans, beauty and comfort were one
> and the same."
> "Doggie in the Window," a perky 1952 novelty number written by Bob Merrill
> and Ingrid Reuterskiöld, featured repeated barking sounds and could claim
> no more sophisticated a lyric than "I must take a trip to California." It
> is often cited as an example of what was wrong with pop music in the early
> '50s, a perceived weakness that opened the door for rock 'n' roll. But if
> that is true, and if the silky voice of "the singing rage, Miss Patti
> Page," as she was introduced during her heyday, was mechanical or sterile,
> she had significant achievements nonetheless.
> "Tennessee Waltz," from 1951, sold 10 million copies and is largely
> considered the first true crossover hit; it spending months on the pop,
> country and rhythm-and-blues charts.
> Ms. Page was believed to be the first singer to overdub herself, long
> before technology made that method common. Mitch Miller, a producer for
> Mercury Records at the time, had her do it first on "Confess," in 1948,
> when there were no backup singers because of a strike.
> The height of her career predated the Grammy Awards, which were created in
> 1959, but she finally won her first and only Grammy in 1999 for "Live at
> Carnegie Hall," a recording of a 1997 concert celebrating her 50th
> anniversary as a performer. Her career was also the basis of recent,
> short-lived Off Broadway musical, "Flipside: The Patty Page Story."
> In the early days of television Ms. Page was the host of several
> short-lived network series, including "Music Hall" (1952), a 15-minute CBS
> show that followed the evening news two nights a week, and "The Big
> Record," which ran one season, 1957-58, on the same network. "The Patti
> Page Show" was an NBC summer fill-in series in 1956.
> Ms. Page defended her demure, unpretentious style as appropriate for its
> time. "It was right after the war," she told The Baton Rouge Advocate in
> 2002, "and people were waiting to just settle down and take a deep breath
> and relax."
> She was born Clara Ann Fowler on Nov. 8, 1927, in Claremore, Okla., a
> small town near Tulsa that was also the birthplace of Will Rogers. She was
> one of 11 children of a railroad laborer.
> Having shown talent as an artist, Clara took a job in the art department
> of the Tulsa radio station KTUL, but an executive there had heard her sing
> and soon asked her to take over a short country-music show called "Meet
> Patti Page" (Time magazine called it "a hillbilly affair"), sponsored by
> Page Milk. She adopted the fictional character's name and kept it.
> The newly named Ms. Page broke away from her radio career to tour with
> Jimmy Joy's band and was shortly signed by Mercury Records. She had her
> first hit record, "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming," in 1950. Other
> notable recordings were "Cross Over the Bridge," "Mockin' Bird Hill,"
> "Allegheny Moon" and her last hit, "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte," which
> she recorded as the theme for the Bette Davis movie of the same name. It
> was nominated for an Oscar, and Ms. Page sang it on the 1965 Academy Awards
> telecast.
> Ms. Page briefly pursued a movie career in her early '30s, playing an
> evangelical singer alongside Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons in "Elmer
> Gantry" (1960), David Janssen's love interest in the comic-strip-inspired
> "Dondi"  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4jQLFhkFQ>(1961) and a
> suburban wife in the comedy "Boy's Night Out" (1962), with Kim Novak and
> James Garner. She made her acting debut in 1957 on an episode of "The
> United States Steel Hour."
> In later decades her star faded, but she continued to sing professionally
> throughout her 70s. Early in the 21st century, she was doing an average of
> 40 to 50 concerts a year. In 2002 and 2003, she released an album of
> children's songs, a new "best of" collection and a Christmas album.
> Ms. Page married Charles O'Curran, a Hollywood choreographer, in 1956.
> They divorced in 1972. In 1990 she married Jerry Filiciotto, a retired
> aerospace engineer, with whom she founded a New Hampshire company marketing
> maple syrup products. He died in 2009. Survivors include her son, Danny
> O'Curran; her daughter, Kathleen Ginn; and a number of grandchildren.
> Ms. Page's nice-girl image endured. In 1988, when she was 60, she told The
> Times: "I'm sure there are a lot of things I should have done differently.
> But I don't think I've stepped on anyone along the way. If I have, I didn't
> mean to."
> --------------------
> Patti Page in 1958
> [image: 03pageweb1-popup.jpg]
>
> -------------------------------------
>
> "(How Much is That) Doggie in the Window" by Patti Page
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/songs/DoggieForSale_PattiPage.mp3
>
> "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" by Patti Page
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/songs/HushHushSweetCharlotte_PattiPage.mp3
>
> "Old Cape Cod" by Patti Page
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/songs/OldCapeCod_PattiPage.mp3
>
> "Tennessee Waltz" by Patti Page
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/songs/TenesseWaltz_PattiPage.mp3
>
> Rest well, Patti.
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares"
> http://www.MoscowCares.com
>
>  Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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