Chapter 11: Pop Music in the 1940s and 1950s
Patti Page was one of the most popular and commercially successful singers of the postwar era, known for her gentle, expressive voice, her genre-blending appeal, and her pioneering use of overdubbing. Often referred to as “The Singin’ Rage,” Page became the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, selling over 60 million records and charting numerous hits across both the pop and country charts.
Born Clara Ann Fowler in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Page was one of eleven children in a working-class family. She began her musical career as a teenager, singing country songs on Tulsa’s KTUL radio station. At just 18, she was selected as the featured vocalist for a fifteen-minute program called Meet Patti Page, sponsored by the Page Milk Company. She adopted “Patti Page” as her professional name and carried it with her for the rest of her life.
Page soon moved to Chicago, where she appeared on national radio, including The Don McNeill Breakfast Club on ABC, and began recording for Mercury Records. In 1947, she made history as the first popular singer to use overdubbing—the technique of layering multiple vocal tracks on top of one another. Her hit “Confess” featured Page singing both lead and harmony with herself, a novel idea at the time that would become a signature of her sound.
But it was in 1950 that Page’s career skyrocketed with her recording of “Tennessee Waltz.” Originally a country and western song written by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart, Page reimagined it in a gentle pop-ballad style, overdubbing herself in a duet. The song became an unprecedented success, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard chart and reportedly becoming the first tune ever to hit No. 1 in every industrialized country in the world. It not only elevated Page to national stardom, but also helped legitimize country music as a commercially viable genre in the pop market.
This technique of overdubbing was pioneered and popularized by guitarist and inventor Les Paul in the late 1940s. Using reel-to-reel tape machines, Paul developed a method for recording one part of a performance, then playing it back while recording additional parts on top of it. Each layer was synchronized with the original, allowing multiple vocal or instrumental parts to be combined into a single recording. Paul refined this process by modifying tape recorders to allow for sound-on-sound recording, which enabled him to stack harmonies, solos, and effects one track at a time. This innovation allowed him and singer Mary Ford to produce dense, layered recordings like “How High the Moon” and “Tiger Rag,” in which Ford’s vocals and Paul’s guitar were recorded in separate passes but played back as a unified performance.This layering technique, now standard in music production, was revolutionary at the time and opened new creative possibilities for pop singers like Patti Page, who could use it to enrich their sound in studio recordings.
Throughout the 1950s, Page continued to score hits with sentimental pop ballads that appealed to both rural and urban audiences, including:
“I Went to Your Wedding” (1952)
“(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” (1953)
“Cross Over the Bridge” (1954)
“All My Love (Bolero)”
Page’s sweet, sincere delivery and wholesome image made her a favorite on radio and television. She became the first singer to have television shows on all three major networks:
NBC aired The Patti Page Show in 1956
CBS ran The Big Record from 1957–1958
ABC followed with The Patti Page Oldsmobile Show from 1958–1959
Though her popularity waned with the rise of rock and roll in the 1960s, Page continued performing and returned to her country roots in the 1970s. Her work in this period reaffirmed her connection to country music, and she remained a beloved performer, touring internationally and appearing on television well into the 1990s and early 2000s. She continued to perform until 2012 and passed away in 2013.