Patti Page - Confess

Page was born Clara Ann Fowler on November 8, 1927, in Claremore, Oklahoma (although some sources give Muskogee, Oklahoma).[1] She was born into a large and poor family. Her father worked on the MKT railroad, while her mother and older sisters picked cotton. As she related on television many years later, the family went without electricity, and therefore she could not read after dark. She attended Daniel Webster High School in Tulsa, from which she graduated in 1945.

Fowler became a featured singer on a 15-minute radio program on radio station KTUL, Tulsa, Oklahoma at age 18. The program was sponsored by the "Page Milk Company."On the air, Fowler was dubbed "Patti Page," after the Page Milk Company. In 1946, Jack Rael, a saxophone player and band manager, came to Tulsa to do a one-night show. Rael heard Page on the radio and liked her voice. Rael asked her to join the band he managed, the "Jimmy Joy Band." Rael would later become Page's personal manager, after leaving the band.

Page toured with the "Jimmy Joy Band" throughout the country in the mid-1940s. The band eventually ended up in Chicago, Illinois in 1947. In Chicago, Page sang with a small group led by popular orchestra leader, Benny Goodman. This helped Page gain her first recording contract with Mercury Records the same year. Page became Mercury Records' "girl singer."

Page recorded her first hit single in 1947 titled "Confess," during a strike meaning background singers were not available to provide harmony vocals for the song. Instead, Page and the label decided to overdub her vocals on the song, in harmony. Mitch Miller, who produced for Mercury Records, was able to overdub Page's voice, due to his well-known use of technology. Thus, Page became the first pop artist to overdub her vocals on a song. This idea would later be used on Page's biggest hit singles in the 1950s. In 1948, "Confess" became a Top 15 hit on Billboard magazine, peaking at #12 on the "Best-Sellers" chart, becoming her first major hit on the pop chart. Page followed the single with four more in 1948-1949, only one of which was a Top 20 hit, "So in Love" (1949). Page also had a Top 15 hit on the Billboard magazine country chart in 1949 with "Money, Marbles, and Chalk."