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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZPAGE, Patti(b Clara Ann Fowler, 8 November 1927, Muskogee OK; d 1 January 2013, Encinitas CA) Pop singer with 78 hits '48-62 on Mercury, a great many top tens '50-54: her distinctive vocal colour and good diction made her a natural star of the era, though without much style. She sang on Chicago radio '47 with the Jimmy Joy band; Joy's road manager Jack Rael became her manager, sometimes led the studio band on her records; she appeared on the then-important Breakfast Club on Chicago radio and sang with the Benny Goodman Septet in Spring '48. On the young Mercury label with A&R chief Mitch Miller, just as tape recording in studios became standard and the 45 r.p.m. record was launched, she benefited from new technology: many of her hits were double-tracked duets with herself, which sounded very high-tech then, and some listeners associated it with the new 45, but the 78 sounded exactly the same, and the effect could not then be reproduced on stage, which was startling for fans at first: when she started singing she didn't sound like the record. Her first hit was 'Confess' mid-'48, first top ten 'I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine' '50, first no. ones 'All My Love' (French song adapted by Mitchell Parrish), 'Tennessee Waltz' (by Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King), both '50, then 'I Went To Your Wedding' '52: the last two were no. 1 for 13 and ten weeks respectively, but the nursery rhyme 'Doggie In The Window', no. 1 for only eight weeks in '53, seemed to go on for ever, and was a kind of nadir in pop music. She had many more hits, but no more chart-toppers. It was a time when song pluggers were still at work, and a new song would get more than one recording: Jo Stafford did 'You Belong To Me', Joni James 'Why Don't You Believe Me', Les Paul and Mary Ford 'Mockin' Bird Hill', Sauter-Finegan 'Now That I'm In Love', Joan Weber 'Let Me Go, Lover'; Page had hits with all of them, as well as 'Steam Heat' (from Broadway hit The Pajama Game), many more. Many of her hits had a country flavour: 'Detour', 'Mister And Mississippi', 'Changing Partners', 'Cross Over The Bridge', along with a few more on Columbia; her last top 40 was a film theme, 'Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte' '65. She made country albums on Mercury (Country Hits) and Columbia (Gentle On My Mind). Along with Stafford, Kay Starr and Rosemary Clooney she was one of the biggest female stars of the early '50s. |