Singer Patti Page died on New Year’s Day in California. She was 85.
Page was one of the best known voices of the 1950’s, with songs like “Tennessee Waltz” and “How Much Is That Doggie In the Window?” She was reportedly the first singers to record multiple layers of her voice on a single song. She did movies, she hosted television shows on all three of the TV networks of the day – and for a time, she and her husband Jerry lived part of the year in a farmhouse in Bath, New Hampshire.
And it was there that Patti Page the singer became Patti Page the syrup farmer. Here’s how she explained it to NHPR's program "The Front Porch" in 2001:
“Well my husband owned this farm up here in Bath, and everyone said that’s such a beautiful maple bush there, you should take advantage of it. And so he found out what he could about making maple syrup, and we started just here at the farm. I said, after a while, if my name would help at all, I wouldn’t mind putting it on the syrup.”
And with that, it became Patti Page 100% Pure Maple Syrup - and not just in name only, either.
“We have come out with a singing cap, which when you unscrew it, it’ll sing – me, my voice. And it was a song that was written just for the maple syrup.”
A singing syrup bottle? It might not quite hit the same heights as “Tennessee Waltz,” but it is one more example of the vocal power of Patti Page.
