Born 99 Years Ago Today in the Sooner State, the “Singing Rage” Who Became the Best-Selling Female Artist of the 1950s and Sold Over 100 Million Records

On this day (November 8) in 1927, Clara Ann Fowler was born in Claremore, Oklahoma. However, audiences would later recognize her as “the Singin’ Rage, Miss Patti Page.” Using her stage name, Page sold more than 100 million records across six decades, with 14 million-selling singles including her signature 1950 hit “Tennessee Waltz”. She was blending country and pop music long before it became the norm in Nashville, and that crossover appeal helped her become one of the few vocalists to chart songs in five separate decades.

On January 1, 2013, Patti Page died at age 85 in an Encinitas, California retirement home. In honor of what would have been her 99th birthday, we’re taking a trip through her life and career.

How She Became Patti Page

One of 11 children, Clara Ann Fowler grew up poor in a home without electricity. Getting her start singing in church with her sisters, she made her professional singing debut on a Tulsa radio station.

Announcers referred to her as “Patti Page” in a nod to the show’s sponsor, the Page Milk Company. In 1946, saxophonist and music manager Jack Rael heard her on the radio and asked her to join his band.

She kept her stage name even after leaving the radio show, touring the country with the Jimmy Joy Band. Rael also took over as her manager.

In 1947, Page made her way to Chicago, where she sang in a small group led by “King of Swing” Benny Goodman. This got her noticed, and she landed a deal with Mercury Records as the label’s “girl singer.”

Her Biggest Hit Was Never Meant as a Single

However, Patti Page would soon prove that she was much more than a run-of-the-mill “girl singer.” Her first hit, “Confess,” made her the first pop artist to overdub harmony vocals onto her own lead.

She and Rael continued experimenting with dubbing, growing increasingly more sophisticated in their techniques. Page implemented this gimmick in her first million-selling single, 1950’s “With My Eyes Wide Open, I’m Dreaming”. That same year, she scored her first No. 1 hit with “All My Love (Bolero)”.

1950 also brought Paige enduring fame with “Tennessee Waltz”, co-written by Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King four years earlier. While other artists had previously recorded the song, its place in history wasn’t cemented until Page put her touch on it.

Initially, Mercury Records had only intended to release “Tennessee Waltz” as an obscure B-side to the seasonal single “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus”.

“Mercury was really hyped on ‘Boogie Woogie Santa Claus’”, Page later said. “It was being released like on the 15th of November, because no one ever had a record that did anything around that time except a Christmas song. They put ‘Tennessee Waltz’ on the other side of ‘Boogie Woogie Santa Claus’ because they wanted a song that was obscure and didn’t really mean much.”

Instead, it spent 13 weeks atop Billboard’s best-sellers list and outsold any other song released by a female artist in the 1950s.

Inspiring six Top 40 covers during the following year, “Tennessee Waltz” is now recognized as an official song of the Volunteer State.

More Success Followed

Patti Page would notch two more No. 1 hits in the early 1950s with “I Went to Your Wedding” and “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” She also gained her own television program, The Patti Page Show, in 1955.

When rock-and-roll music began pushing mainstream pop aside, Page endured. She continued charting throughout the 1950s with songs like “Allegheny Moon” and “Old Cape Cod”.

[RELATED: 3 Early 1950s Hits That Almost Everyone Still Knows Today]

In September 2012, Patti Page announced her retirement from music due to health reasons. She died on January 1, 2013, at age 85.

Featured image by Steve Oroz/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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