A Page Out of History

Singer Patti Page had her first Top 20 hit, “I Confess,” in 1945. In the years that followed, especially those between the late ‘40s and the mid-’60s, she cranked out hit after hit--15 gold singles and three gold albums.

With more than 100 million record sales to date, she is still the all-time bestselling female singer.

So it was no surprise that an overflow crowd, the majority of which clearly recalled Page’s glory days firsthand, turned out for her matinee performance at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday afternoon.

The fact that it was Page’s 71st birthday lent a special cachet to the performance, enhanced during her encore by an onstage birthday cake, the presence of her 10 granddaughters and an award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. (The award honored her 1950 hit “The Tennessee Waltz,” a tribute that didn’t exactly compensate for the fact that Page has never won a Grammy and never been asked to appear or be a presenter on a Grammy award show.)

Page responded with a warm, elegant performance. Garbed in different but equally exquisite white gowns for the two halves of her program, she worked her way through standards and greatest hits with easygoing confidence.

Her honey-toned voice, one of the finest pop music sounds of the post-World War II years, was still impressive, and she still sings with the slight Oklahoma twang that always gave her interpretations such a unique quality.

Her program was enhanced by the addition of some tunes not generally associated with her: “The Nearness of You,” “When I Fall in Love” and “The More I See You,” among others. But her enthusiastic audience clearly expected her to launch into her familiar hits, and she did not disappoint.

The songs came rolling out, filled with the kind of nostalgia that glistened the eyes of her listeners: “Old Cape Cod,” “Allegheny Moon,” “With My Eyes Wide Open,” “You Belong to Me,” the inimitable “The Doggie in the Window” (accompanied by carefully placed barking from the orchestra members) and, of course, “Tennessee Waltz,” her biggest hit, with more than 10 million copies sold.

*

It was a pleasant afternoon of music from an artist whose work virtually defined the conservatism of the Eisenhower ‘50s--a fascinating reminder of the changing patterns of American pop music.

Soon after Page became one of the principal voices appealing to the home-and-hearth comforts of the generation that had survived the war, Elvis Presley began stoking the fires that would soon erupt with the energies of the rebellious ‘60s. The essential identity of a society, it seems, is always best expressed through its music.