POP MUSIC REVIEW : Patti Page Still the ‘Singing Rage’ as She Serenades Bowl Audience

The “Singing Rage” is what they called Patti Page in the ‘50s--a performer who eventually became the best-selling female vocalist in pop music history. The two decades between 1948 and 1968 saw no less than 58 Page singles listed in Billboard’s Top 20.

Friday night Page brought her “Doggie in the Window” and “Tennessee Waltz” (among many others) to the Hollywood Bowl as part of the annual “Great American Concert.” Remarkably, both the songs and the singer sounded refreshingly pleasant. Page’s voice--always a smooth and easy sound--has lost nothing in the intervening years since its greatest popularity. And her material, with its uncomplicated echoes from a more settled era, struck all the right nostalgic chords.

Demonstrating a capacity to move beyond her singles-oriented roots, Page also sang effectively on such standards as “All by Myself” and “Here’s That Rainy Day,” as well as a lovely reading of the more recent “Evergreen.”

Her closing medley of hits, however, produced the most enthusiastic response from the Bowl’s audience of 16,020. Moving into the lower section box seats with a sometimes obstreperous portable microphone, Page roved from one side of the Bowl to the other, singing hit after hit, and greeting her fans with the elegant amiability of a royal duchess. It was an object lesson in the staying power of pop aristocracy.

Conductor Erich Kunzel opened the “Great American Concert” with a Western-styled program that featured an Indian invocation from Iron Eyes Cody, a huge assemblage of clog and square dancers, some staged cowboy stunt fighting, a few film music selections by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, horseback riders in the aisles, and a reading of the “Cowboy Creed” by Gene Autry.

But the real highlight, predictably, came with the closing fireworks--a repeat of this year’s marvelous Fourth of July display, and an effective climax to an evening of lighthearted entertainment.