sarah peachey's List: andrews sisters

• • 1967 laverne -cancer died 1968 at age 55
    patty continued performing maxene got job at a college
• • Over Here - musical about WWII home front starring Patty and Maxene Andrews - 341 performances
    1995 - Maxene died of heart attack in Cape Cod age 79
• The Andrews Sisters were vibrant figures in the entertainment industry for about 30 years, and they still appeal to both the young and old.
• 700 songs and earning nine gold records.
• 90 millio

  n records
• The trio brought music, laughter and happiness in a dark period for Americans.
• The Andrews Sisters are still recognized for their engaging harmony and witty sense of humor.
• best-selling female vocal groups of all time.

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• • started singing at a young age as a family past time, they developed love of music at an early age. influences were Bosswell sisters, Elaa Fitzgerald and Mel Torme

  • Born in Minnesota
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  • • Patty- blond, youngest, loud energetic, headed group with strong voice
      Maxene - middle, brunette, harmonic range
      LaVerne- oldest, redhead, strong willed , witty, eye for fashion
• The Andrews Sisters were America’s most popular female singing group
• longevity in the music industry and popularity with people all over the world
• versatile sound and range in genres
• swing to country-western.
• also be found performing in radio series, commercials, Hollywood movies and on Broadway. 
  

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• • Vic Schoen, the band leader and composer left in the 50s
    in 1954 patty left to go solo, 1956 reunited and tried to join new times(music) but people wanted oldies

  • active patriotic duty in wartime entertainment
    volunteered singing and dancing for wounded men
    8 week USO tour and performed for 1000s of service men
• 1940s
• earning $20,000 a week.
• 17 Hollywood movies
• radio personalities
• released eight new singles, six of which became bestsellers; one went gold and another reached platinum status

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• The Andrews Sisters quickly developed their own style which was influenced  by--and which influenced in turn--the emerging boogie-woogie and swing styles of  the later 1930s and 1940s.
  
• The Andrews Sisters' popularity as singers quickly translated into motion  pictures, and between 1940 and 1948 they appeared in no fewer than seventeen  films. Most of these appearances were confined to the performance of musical  numbers, but quite often the sisters had scenes that propelled the story as  well, with Patty in particular showing a flair for comedy.
• famous for their strong public support for the military during World War II
• performed tirelessly in concert, clubs, and on the radio for the troops
• been bested only by Bob Hope's tours.
• instrumental in establishing The Hollywood Canteen and other similar venues
• invited service men to join them for dinner.
• Their fame was such that their recordings were even smuggled behind enemy  lines, where they were surprisingly popular in Germany.
  
• Maxene's half-hearted suicide attempt
• 1960s they emerged as favorites in such diverse locations as London, England and  Las Vegas, Nevada.
• 1974 the two reunited for the Broadway musical
• excellent reviews and box office--but after a run of nine months a lawsuit filed  by Patty's husband
• The Andrews Sisters received a Star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
  
  
• introducting international and ethnic styles previously unknown to mainstream  American audiences
• Yiddish, as in their first major hit "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon;" the polka; and  numerous Latin American styles, including "Rum and Coca-Cola," which is  generally thought to be the single biggest selling recording of the World War II  era.
  
• significant impact on ideas about "girl singers."
• when it came to big bands, however, "girl singers" were primarily there for  looks
• They were not just "girl singers;" they were stars, and when they performed the  band---whether it was Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, or Guy  Lombardo--was suddenly reduced to background. Many bandleaders greatly disliked  this fact and more than one band refused to work with The Andrew Sisters,  claiming that they upstaged the band!
  
  
• Andrews Sisters had a huge impact on the way singers of their own era performed,  pushing the envelope to a point at which performers like the truly wild-woman  Betty Hutton could find a place among the singing stars of the day
• girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s
• pattern of trios in tight harmony built around a specific lead

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• • 18 quote maxene

• The Andrews Sisters’ recording earned them a gold record, the first ever by a female vocal group.
• For many servicemen abroad in the Second World War, the Andrews Sisters were the voices of the girls back home
• and they helped found the famous Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen.

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• SPECIAL SERVICES IN ACTION, 1944

  National Archives Identifier: 24546

  Local Identifier: 111-FB-155

  • watched and cited
• Andrews Sisters Show,

  National Archives Identifier: 4740543

  HMS Entry Number: NC148 572

  • I hav requested info for this
• OPERATION HOMECOMING LUNCHEON, 04/27/1973 - 04/28/1973

  National Archives Identifier: 35059

  Local Identifier: 111-LC-58437

  • i hav emailed for information too

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• Three singing sisters from Minneapolis made another 2¢ last week. The Andrews Sisters had sold the 8,000,000th of the discs for which Decca Records pays them 2¢ apiece. The Andrews girls are the first sister act to owe fame & fortune to the juke box alone.
• They sing in harmony which is not merely close but adhesive. Tall, dark La-Verne, 25, is a sort of baritone, and the one who worries about getting places on time. Tomboy Maxene, 23, a soprano of sorts, handles the Andrews checkbook. Blonde, merry Patty, 22, likes to clown, says: "I'm happy because I got no brains

• The catchy little ditty called Rum & Coca-Cola has been banned by all four major networks, but it is sweeping the U.S. Its sheet-music sales have climbed to a whopping 37,000 a day. Recordings of it by the Andrews Sisters and others are selling like cigarets.

  Rum & Coca-Cola has been banned from the radio on two counts: 1) free advertising for a well-known soft drink, 2) the reference to rum and the general lustiness of the lyrics might corrupt the youth of the land.

• disagreements did not, however, prevent the USO from successfully meeting its  aim of helping to sustain the morale of the armed forces during World War II.
• Star entertainers such as Bob Hope and the Andrews Sisters were especially  prominent in bringing first-rate performances to troops stationed around the  world.

• • the impact of the sisters, a quick history, thought that pattys feelings for walter wechsler is the beginning of the end of the famous trio ( it was an affair), also maxene divorced levi

• most successful female group of the pre-rock era.
• Patty (1920), Maxene (1917), and LaVerne (1915
• Inspired by the harmonies and sound of the Boswell Sisters, the Andrews girls began as imitators but eventually developed their own clean, fresh, and unique vocal sound.
• • 1936 met vic shoen
• In the fall of 1933, while performing in a Minneapolis kiddie revue, the trio came to the attention of bandleader

  Larry Rich
• Though none of the sisters could read music, their collective ears were so well tuned they could pick up a song just by hearing one or two plays.
• Maria Cramer, and after hearing the girls’ story she confronted Swanson, asking why he wouldn’t give the girls a chance to sing on his radio show.  Swanson said he couldn’t afford them, but Miss Cramer pressed on, asking ”Well what can you afford?”  The beleaguered bandleader said $15, $5 each, to which Maxene responded, “We’ll take it!”  Swanson was stuck.  After all, Maria Cramer was the owner of the Edison Hotel.
• “Why Talk About Love” (1937),
• Bei Mir Bist Du Schon,” and its January 1938
• “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (#12)
• In all, they had nine chart singles in 1938
• 1939 they had six chart records,
• “Hold Tight Hold Tight” (#2). 
• Yiddish

  (“Joseph Joseph,”  # 18, 1938), Latin American (Say SiSi,” #4, 1940), Italian (The Woodpecker Song,” # 6, 1940), Russian (Pross-Tchai Goodbye,”  #15, 1939) and even Czechoslovakian (Beer Barrel Polka,” #4 1939).
• 1944 hit “Don’t Fence Me In” with Bing Crosby (which followed “A Hot Time in the Town of Berlin,” also with Bing and also a number one record).
• During the war years the Andrews racked up an incredible 38 Billboard best-sellers, including nine with Crosby
• 1941 pop-jazz classic “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” (#6),
• By the end of the war, the Andrews trio had sold over 30 million records
• “Strip Poker” (#6), “Is You or Is You Ain’t My Baby: (#2), “Get Your Kicks On Route 66” (#14, “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the  Bar” (#2), and “Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat” (#10).
• postwar years were good to The Andrews Sisters: they hit the Billboard Best Seller list with 51 additional 78s between 1946 and 1951,
• “Sabre Dance” in the spring of 1948 with Harmoni-Cats
•  By the time they called it quits as a trio in 1951 The Andrews Sisters had amassed a phenomenal 113 chart singles, sold 75 million records, and recorded ore than 1800 songs earning them 19 gold records and eight number ones. By the 1950s, they had appeared in 22 films.  Their last number one was “I Want To Be Loved: in the summer of 1950
• mid-‘60s the trio began performing again on television, but activity halted in 1967 when LaVerne died
• In 1974 Patty and Maxene appeared before audiences in the nostalgia-packed Broadway hit Over There
• For their professionalism, sound quality, and success, The Andrews Sisters ruled pop music of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

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