The girls started singing as youngsters—at parties, dances, wherever there was an audience.
And soon they were doing local radio shows and ˝Kiddie Reviews˝ on stage in their hometown of Minneapolis. Patty was only 10 at the time.
Many a lean year followed, as the girls did the five-a-day vaudeville bit and other appearances during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.
Along the way, they met a young trumpeter/arranger named Vic Schoen, whose own musical notions blended beautifully with the developing Andrews Sisters style of singing. He was to be involved in most of their future triumphs.
Their big break-through—that ˝overnight˝ success—came in 1937 with their recorded version of a Yiddish song, BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON. A reasonable translation of that title is ˝You’re Beautiful To Me˝—and that aptly summed up the public’s reaction to the Andrews Sisters, too.
It was only the first of a parade of hits—each topping the million sale mark: the rollicking BEER BARREL POLKA...the sophisticated Calypso cadences of RUM AND COCA COLA...the timeless sentimentality of (I’LL BE WITH YOU) IN APPLE BLOSSOM TIME.
Among the other smash successes in this Top Twelve collection of their greatest, you’ll also find the driving tempo of BEAT ME DADDY EIGHT TO THE BAR... the Andrews Sisters approach to an Al Jolson classic—SONNY BOY...the lovely and lyrical I CAN DREAM, CAN’T I (with Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra).
A follow-up to their ˝Bei Mir˝ hit in another Yiddish song, JOSEPH, JOSEPH... their fantastic novelty hit (with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra) on HOLD TIGHT (I WANT SOME SEA FOOD MAMA)...and, of course, another roll-out-the-raves performance for PENNSYLVANIA POLKA, DON’T SIT UNDER THE APPLE TREE (WITH ANYONE ELSE BUT ME) one of the biggest hits of World War II and last but certainly not least the Johnny Mercer Hit STRIP POLKA.