[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 549-551]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         REMEMBERING PATTI PAGE

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Patti Page died on New Year's Day this 
year. She was 85 years old. The Senate has not been in session for most 
of the time since then. I wanted to come to the floor to pay a 
Tennessean's tribute to Patti Page. Patti Page is best known for our 
State song, the ``Tennessee Waltz.'' A few years ago, in 2007, when I 
met her for the first time, she told me the story of the ``Tennessee 
Waltz.'' I knew some of it, but she completed the rest of it.
  In 1946, a couple of Tennesseans, Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart, were 
driving from Memphis to Nashville. That was before the interstate 
highways. It took a pretty good amount of time to drive that distance. 
I don't know whether or not they were drinking a beer on the way from 
Memphis to Nashville but they were relaxed, and one of them said to the 
other, Why is it Kentucky and Missouri have a waltz and Tennessee 
doesn't have a waltz? So on the way from Memphis to Nashville they took 
out a penny matchbox,

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which is one of these big boxes with wooden matches in it, dumped out 
the matches on the floorboards of the car, and on the back of the penny 
matchbox, between Memphis and Nashville, in 1946, Pee Wee King and Redd 
Stewart wrote the ``Tennessee Waltz.'' They sang it around a few 
places. Pee Wee King sang it at the Grand Ole Opry. Nobody paid much 
attention to it. Cowboy Copas sang it. They sang it on Red Foley's show 
in Missouri. Nothing much happened to the ``Tennessee Waltz'' until 
1950, and this is the story Patti Page told me. Mercury Records in New 
York had a new song they were sure was going to be a big hit. It was 
called ``Boogie Woogie Santa Claus.'' I don't know whether it was a 
follow up to ``Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,'' but the executives in 
New York were sure it was going to be a big hit so they wanted the 
hottest young female singer in America to record ``Boogie Woogie Santa 
Claus'' so they hired Patti Page. She flew to New York, recorded it for 
Mercury Records, and then in those days you always had to put a record 
on the back of the main record. You had to pick a song. It would be the 
``B'' side. Just as a throw-away they put on the back of it the song by 
Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart, the ``Tennessee Waltz.''
  We know the rest of the story. The ``Tennessee Waltz'' sold about a 
million copies. Nobody ever heard of the ``Boogie Woogie Santa Claus'' 
except those who bought the ``Tennessee Waltz.'' Mike Curb, who owns 
Curb Records in Nashville, told me it was the best selling record ever 
by a female artist. Patti Page eventually sold 100 million records. She 
was the top selling female artist in record sales in history.
  Growing up I heard her songs, ``Mockingbird Hill,'' ``I Went To Your 
Wedding,'' ``Old Cape Cod.'' In 1952 she had a song called ``Doggie in 
the Window.'' It sounds like a silly little song, but it sold a lot of 
records and a great many Americans remember it. When I was Governor of 
Tennessee I would travel to Japan, recruiting industry. In the evenings 
I would go to a restaurant bar with friends, and to my astonishment all 
of my Japanese friends, many of whom did not know much English, could 
sing every word of the ``Tennessee Waltz.'' When I inquired about it, 
it was because it was introduced during the time of the American 
occupation of Japan in 1950 or so, and according to them, the Asian 
music doesn't have the same kind of standard that American music has. 
We get a phrase or a theme in our minds and we never forget it, such as 
the ``Tennessee Waltz.'' So the ``Tennessee Waltz'' became a song that 
most Japanese men of that age knew, remembered, and could sing from 
memory.
  I met Patti Page for the first time 6 years ago. It was 2007. She was 
about 79 or 80 years of age at the time. She told me the story of the 
recording of the ``Tennessee Waltz'' for Mercury Records. It turned out 
it was her last recording session. Mike Curb, the owner of Curb 
Records, had invited her to come to Nashville and record an album, 
``Best of Patti Page.'' He had invited me to come play the piano while 
she sang the ``Tennessee Waltz,'' which I did. It was a real thrill and 
she was very patient to put up with an amateur piano player for her 
very special song. She told me then it wasn't the first time she had 
performed with a Tennessee Governor. In 1950 she had performed with 
Tennessee Governor Gordon Browning at a Memphis theater. This was when 
she was all the rage, the ``Tennessee Waltz'' was all the rage, and the 
Governor wanted to sing it with her.
  I asked how it went. She said, ``Well, to tell you the truth, the 
Governor wasn't a very good singer.''
  I don't know what she said to others about my piano playing, but I 
think that was probably about as harsh a verdict as Patti Page ever 
rendered of any other person.
  According to the New York Times obituary, Patti Page once said:

       But I don't think I've stepped on anyone along the way. If 
     I have, I didn't mean to.

  Well, Patti Page is gone now, but her music is not. Whenever we 
Tennesseans hear our State song, the ``Tennessee Waltz,'' played, or 
whenever we sing it, we will remember the voice of Patti Page.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks that 
the obituary about Patti Page from the New York Times be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the New York Times--Obituary]

        Patti Page, Honey-Voiced '50s Pop Sensation, Dies at 85

                            (By Anita Gates)

       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 Reuterskiold, 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 1950, sold 10 million copies and 
     is largely considered the first true crossover hit; it spent 
     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, 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 Patti Page 
     Story.''
       In the early days of television Ms. Page was the host of 
     several short-lived network series, including ``Scott Music 
     Hall'' (1952), a 15-minute NBC show that followed the evening 
     news two nights a week, and ``The Big Record,'' which ran one 
     season, 1957-58, on CBS. ``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 Advocate of Baton Rouge, La., 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. That song 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'' (1961) and a 
     suburban wife in the comedy ``Boys' Night Out'' (1962), with 
     Kim Novak and James Garner. She had one of her earliest 
     acting roles 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 performing in about 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.

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       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.''

  Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  (The remarks of Mr. Coons pertaining to the introduction of S. 85 are 
printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and 
Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. COONS. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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