Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler (November 8, 1927 – January 1, 2013), known by her professional name Patti Page, was an American singer of traditional pop music. She was the top-charting female vocalist and best-selling female artist of the 1950s, selling over 100 million records during a six decade long career. She was often introduced as "the Singin' Rage, Miss Patti Page". New York WNEW disc-jockey William B. Williams introduced her as "A Page in my life called Patti". Page signed with Mercury Records in 1947, and became their first successful female artist, starting with 1948's "Confess". In 1950, she had her first million-selling single "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming", and would eventually have 14 additional million-selling singles between 1950 and 1965. Page's signature song, "Tennessee Waltz", was one of the biggest-selling singles of the 20th century, and is recognized today as one of the official songs of the state of Tennessee. It spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard magazine's Best-Sellers List in 1950. Page had three additional No. 1 hit singles between 1950 and 1953, "All My Love (Bolero)", "I Went to Your Wedding", and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window". Unlike most pop music singers, Page blended country music styles into many of her most popular songs. As a result of this crossover appeal, many of Page's singles appeared on the Billboard Country Chart. Towards the 1970s, she shifted her career towards country music and began having greater success on its charts, ending up one of the few vocalists to have made them in five separate decades. With the rise of Rock and Roll in the second half of the 1950s, traditional pop music began to wane. Page was among a small number of traditional pop music singers able to sustain success, continuing to have major hits into the mid-1960s with "Old Cape Cod", "Allegheny Moon", "A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)", and "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". In 1997, Patti Page was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. She was posthumously honored with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2013.