Oklahoma’s ‘Singing Rage’ Patti Page remembered in musical ‘Flipside’
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To the environment, Patti Web site turned known as one particular of the best-marketing female vocalists of all time, a sultry-voiced songstress who acquired the colourful nickname the “The Singing Rage” by crooning lasting hits like “Tennessee Waltz,” “Doggie in the Window” and “Old Cape Cod.”
But no subject wherever her almost 7-10 years songs vocation took her, the Oklahoma indigenous hardly ever stopped getting who she was from the time she was born: Clara Ann Fowler.
“The rationale we love her is for Clara Ann. It can be the heart that is inside of her that arrives out in her voice that is undeniable. You cannot hear to her and not listen to her soul,” claimed area singer and actor Leah Coleman.
Coleman will participate in Clara Ann Fowler, opposite fellow College of Central Oklahoma alumnus Emily Pace’s Patti Site, in the 10th anniversary creation of “Flipside: The Patti Webpage Story.” The homegrown musical is returning to its home point out — and Page’s — for performances June 23-26 at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church as section of UCO’s Broadway Tonight series.
“I are not able to believe that it truly is been 10 a long time considering the fact that we did it, because that has long gone like that,” reported “Flipside” author and producer Greg White, snapping his fingers.
“In that 10 a long time, we have been in a position to trip the achievement of it, and I genuinely am hoping that this is going to be a complete new chapter for ‘Flipside.'”
Who was Patti Web site?
Born Clara Ann Fowler Nov. 8, 1927, in Claremore, the upcoming hitmaker was nonetheless a teenager when she began singing professionally at Tulsa radio station KTUL, adopting her stage identify from a single of the station’s sponsors, the Web page Milk Company.
“I questioned her, ‘What’s your major regret?’ … And she explained, ‘I should hardly ever have supplied up my title,'” recalled White, who is also head of UCO’s musical theater division and executive director for Broadway Tonight.
“There were being other Patti Internet pages just before her due to the fact Patti Web page was a jingle title for the Page Milk Organization. She had just stepped into that part at the radio station, so when Jack Rael heard her on the radio … he was captivated to her voice, but also stored the name.”
Rael gave up his profession as a band leader to develop into her manager, and a 12 months afterwards, Website page signed a agreement with Mercury Records and commenced showing up in Chicago nightclubs. She produced audio heritage with one particular of her early hits: 1948’s “Confess” was the 1st music to use vocal overdubbing, with Page backing up herself on the history.
Inducted into the Oklahoma New music Hall of Fame as element of its inaugural 1997 course, Webpage recorded additional than 1,000 tracks, experienced 111 singles make the Billboard charts and earned 24 leading 10 hits, including 4 No. 1s. She also appeared in movies — such as co-starring with Burt Lancaster in his Oscar-profitable change as “Elmer Gantry” and reverse fellow Oklahoman James Garner in “Boy’s Night Out” — and in musical theater with the comedy “Annie Get Your Gun.”
“Patti Web site was vastly sizeable: The No. 1-selling woman vocalist from 1950 to 1997. Celine Dion knocked her off the best of the checklist,” explained Jeff Moore, govt director of the under-design OKPOP Museum in Tulsa, wherever Page’s selection will be housed.
“She bought a million copies of sheet songs for ‘Tennessee Waltz.’ … But the timing of her profession made it so that it is really challenging for folks nowadays to fully grasp the magnitude.”
‘Flipside’ musical shares Oklahoma singer’s impressive legacy
Immediately after 51 decades of undertaking, Website page gained her initial Grammy in 1999 for traditional pop vocal effectiveness for “Live at Carnegie Hall — The 50th Anniversary Concert.” She was bestowed a Grammy Life time Accomplishment Award a thirty day period just after her death on Jan. 1, 2013, at the age of 85.
A lifelong Webpage fan, White found his inspiration for “Flipside” with biopic musicals “A Closer Wander With Patsy Cline” and “Always … Patsy Cline.” He pitched the idea to Page’s supervisor, Michael Glynn, when the singer returned to her home point out in 2007 to perform on the Oklahoma Centennial Amazing.
“I never even know if you can feel of any person right now that scaled the heights that Patti scaled. Let’s say Beyoncé, but my moms and dads are not enthusiasts of Beyoncé. And all people knew who Patti Page was, and she was preferred with absolutely everyone,” White stated. “It was a unique time in pop culture, but she’s the only musical artist that at any time had her personal exhibit on all a few networks. … So, I love that we can hold that legacy alive.”
To produce the display, he delved into Page’s extensive musical catalog, viewed several clips from her performances and Television exhibits and interviewed Site and her sister, Peggy Layton.
The show’s concept and title arrive from Page’s signature smash, 1950’s “Tennessee Waltz,” a music she longed to record but that her label rejected. With Christmas approaching, Mercury Documents wished her to report “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus,” at some point allowing her report “Tennessee Waltz” for the flipside.
Although the yuletide A-side has mainly been neglected, the B-side “Tennessee Waltz” grew to become an early region crossover strike and offered additional than 10 million copies, position at the time powering only Bing Crosby’s “White Xmas.”
“‘Boogie Woogie Santa Claus’ is fully overproduced. If you’ve got ever listened to it, it truly is every single bell, it truly is each and every whistle, so it is very garish. And the flipside is ‘Tennessee Waltz,’ and it really is quite straightforward. It is really her singing harmony with herself, and of class, that is the piece that skyrocketed,” White said.
“The thesis of it all is no matter what the field makes, why we really like Patti is Clara Ann. … The display is about the increase of her fame, but always reaching back again, making an attempt to go again to the reliable self.”
Creator hopes anniversary generation delivers new vitality to ‘Flipside’
Because its 2012 premiere at UCO, “Flipside” has toured regionally and nationally, attained 18 awards at the Nationwide Kennedy Centre Pageant in Washington, D.C., and played off-Broadway at the prestigious 59E59.
“I nevertheless hear from some of all those people that arrived and saw the present that will email me and say ‘When is the clearly show coming back?’ and ‘Where can we see the display?’ So, I sense like you can find still everyday living to be had in the clearly show … and I’m hoping that this (anniversary generation) puts a new sort of electrical power driving ‘Flipside,'” White explained.
Showcasing 28 tunes in its 90-moment runtime, the anniversary creation will aspect Erin Heatly, Mark Johnson, Kassie Carroll and Justin Larman, with musical direction by Sandra Thompson. Both of those Speed and Coleman will sing and share the phase as the two sides of the popular singer.
“It really is a total story of introspection in the spotlight, and you get to enjoy her by way of the tale relive these reminiscences. You will find periods when she talks to herself,” Coleman reported.
“I am just additional enthusiastic about this manufacturing than I have at any time been about a demonstrate. I have been undertaking my entire daily life, and I’ve by no means been so thrilled to convey to a story.”
‘FLIPSIDE: THE PATTI Site STORY’
When: 7:30 p.m. June 23-25 and 2 p.m. June 25-26.
Exactly where: St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 222 NW 15 St.
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