Oklahoma’s Patti Page ‘never wanted to be a singer’

The year was 1946. World War II had ended. The nation and Oklahoma were adjusting to peace time. In Tulsa, Clara Ann Fowler, 18, from nearby Claremore, was singing on a 15 minute live program on KTUL radio. Clara was billed as Patti Page. The program was sponsored by the Page Milk Company. In a hotel room across town, Jack Rael, a dance band manager from Chicago, turned on the radio in his room. Clara Ann Fowler’s singing caught his attention.

When the radio program ended, Rael telephoned the station and asked to speak to Patti Page. When she came on the line, he explained that he had heard her program, enjoyed her singing, and asked her if she had ever thought about leaving Tulsa and singing in the big time. Fowler said, “No,” that she wanted to be a commercial artist.

Rael explained that he was manager of the Jimmy Joy dance band from Chicago, and that they were in Tulsa for a one-night stand. He persuaded her to send him some records of her singing. She did. Less than two months later, the five foot four inch singer from Oklahoma opened in Chicago for a six-week engagement with the band. She was billed as “The Singing Rage, Miss Patti Page.’

The story of Clara Ann Fowler’s quick rise to fame is something like a fairytale. Born in Claremore on Nov. 8, 1927, she was one of 11 children and grew up on a farm near Claremore where her parents tried to make ends meet. She enjoyed music and began singing at an early age at the Church of Christ in Tulsa.

At 18, she found a job singing with Al Clauser and his Oklahoma Outlaws on KTUL in Tulsa. When another singer with the band billed as Patti Page left, Clara Ann Fowler was given her job and the stage name. She was singing as Patti Page when Jack Rael discovered her.

During the late 1940s Patti Page toured with Jimmy Joy’s band throughout the United States. She gained much experience and developed her singing style with her silky voice and her pure and simple style. Soon she was asked to make recordings.

In 1948, she recorded a song called “Confess” for Mercury records. It required that singer to answer another vocalist. Because it was a low budget recording, Jack Rael suggested she sing the second part as well. She did. The novelty of one person singing two parts was a hit with listeners. The song became a Top 20 hit.

Patti liked the multiple-voice idea. She asked if she could sing an entire song as a quartet. When she approached Mitch Miller of Mercury Records with the idea, he was not sure it would work. Miller, however, let Patti record a song in multiple tracks. The song was “With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming.” The 1948 record was her second hit and her first record to sell one million copies.

Two years later in 1950, she recorded “All My Love.” It was even a bigger hit and remained number one in sales for five weeks. A few months later came an even bigger hit. It was “The Tennessee Waltz” the top selling record for about 30 weeks. During the years that followed the record sold nearly ten million copies. At one point in her career she said, “I was a kid from Oklahoma who never wanted to be a singer, but was told I could sing. And things snowballed.”

During the 1950s, Oklahoma’s “Singing Rage” was the best selling female vocalist in the nation. Her recordings became gold records. They included “I Went to Your Wedding” (1952), “You Belong to Me” (1952), “How Much is That Doggie in the Window: (1953), “Changing Partners” (1953), “Cross Over the Bridge” (1954), “Allegheny Moon” (1956), “Old Cape Cod” (1957), and “Out of Your Heart (Hi Lee Hi Lo Hi Lup Up Up)” (1958).

During the early 1950s she was selected favorite female vocalist in the first nationwide audience poll taken on Dick Clark’s “Bandstand” program. In 1956, she married her first husband Charles O’Curran a Hollywood choreographer who is best known for staging the dance numbers of many Elvis Presley films. They adopted two children – Kathleen and Danny. The couple divorced in 1972.

Her popularity continued during the 1960s. She received more national exposure in the new medium of television as a guest singer on such popular television programs as “The Dean Martin Show” (1965). In 1965 she recorded the title song from the Bette Davis film Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965). She performed the song at the 37th Annual Academy Awards.

In 1990, she married Jerry Filciotto. Today Patti and her second husband divide their time between a home near San Diego, California, and Hilltop Farm in New Hampshire where they market Patti Page Organic Pancake mix and bottles of maple syrup. When the bottle caps are twisted open, they play a Patti Page melody produced by a computer chip.

Patti Page still performs as she approaches her 80th birthday. Thus far in her remarkable career she has sold about 100 million records and earned 15 certified gold records. She rode on the Oklahoma Centennial float in the Tournament of Roses Parade last January and cherishes her Oklahoma roots.

(Note: “Oklahoma Reflections” is researched and written by David Dary, emeritus professor of journalism, at the University of Oklahoma and the author of 20 books on the American West. The art was produced specifically for this series by Carolyn Chandler, an artist and illustrator of 45 years, who now resides in Norman and specializes in oil painting.)