The Andrews Sisters and Patty Andrews

It's Apple Blossom Time coming up again. .....


On February 16, 2010 the truly great girl singer of the 1940s (the girl who helped shape American music during the second World War with her two sisters, Maxine and LaVerne) Patty Andrews will be 92 years young.


Patty and I have been friends for many years, ever since our interview in the early eighties when I wrote a magazine article about the Andrews Sisters. She utilized it for selling her then single act in L.A.


I had always been in love with the Andrews Sisters. Ever since I first heard heard Patty and her sisters vocalize "Bie Mir Bist Du Schoen," it was the beginning of my long-running affection for them.


The three gals from Minneapolis were personal entertainers for many a serviceman during the war years with their hits "Rumors are Flying," "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time," and "Rum and Coca Cola."


By her own description, Patty is a very happy and contented girl living in a beautiful, Tudor-style house near Encino, California with her husband and manager Wally Weschler.


Earlier, when they were kids attending dancing school, they began mimicking the popular Boswell Sisters. They entered the Kiddy Reviews during the summer months on the Orpheum Theater Circuit in Minneapolis. One of the headliners on the show invited the girls to become a permanent part of his touring show. They performed five shows a day sandwiched between movie showings. They copied the Boswell's charts.


"When you are young, there is always someone you look up to," Patty told me just before Christmas, "so we did what they did and it helped launch our career." They sang "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," "When I Take My Sugar to Tea," and "I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cents Store."


Patty sang the lead and solos, Maxene the high harmony, and LaVerne took the third part, even though they had no formal training.


"We would work all day until we perfected new songs in our own new, bouncier style. It was then we realized we had something special to offer." And offer it they did joining up with a big band and began singing on the radio in New York with Billy Swanson's band at the famed Hotel Edison. It was to be their big break, as Dave Kapp, Vice President of Decca Records heard them on the car radio and rushed to the hotel and signed them the following day.


Decca had them record consistently with all the greats including Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Dick Haymes, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Jimmy Dorsey, and every known big band, in a seventeen year triumphant run, as Jack Kapp, President of Decca, took them in hand and guided them to great success as he did for Crosby and many others.


Remember "The Boogie, Woogie, Bugle Boy from Company 'B'," "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree," "Beer Barrel Polka," "Pistol Packin' Mama," "Joseph, Joseph," "Hold Tight," "South America, Take It Away," and "Ferryboat Serenade." I reminded Patty that Ferryboat was my personal favorite. It just clicked with me, but all their songs are great and you can buy them anywhere today in CD form. However, it was "Rum and Coca-Cola" that sold a whopping 7 million records in a time when a million records were hard to sell. The girls also sang those songs at the Stage Door Canteen during the war to help entertain servicemen along with other volunteer celebrities.

Later, the girls performed in movies with Abbott & Costello, the Ritz Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The movies were The Road to Utopia, Buck Privates, Argentine Nights, Follow the Boys, Stage Door Canteen, and In the Navy.

In 1950 the Andrews Sisters capped their career when they performed at the London Palladium. They broke up a few years later. Patty went on to perform as a single in the 1980s with bands like Tex Beneke, who was fronting the great Glenn Miller Orchestra, then went out on his own, too. She recorded two great hits with Gordon Jenkins Orchestra, "I Want to Be Loved" and "It Never Entered My Mind" being at her melodic best.

To effectively write about the Andrews Sisters, it would take a book. It would take another book to write about Patty Andrews own single career.

With Maxene and LaVerne gone, Patty has retired, although she regularly attends jazz festivals where she meets old friends and enjoys great, live music - music she has always enjoyed both listening to and singing. 

Happy Birthday a litle early Patty Andrews. We love you in advance. Thanks for all that beautiful music. And thanks for the photo you sent me last Christmas.