[Dixielandjazz] The Andrews Sisters: editorials - Chicago Tribune, February 1, 2013

[Robert Ringwald]

The Andrews Magic
Chicago Tribune, February 1, 2013
Somewhere in the middle of the last century, when people actually snapped their fingers
to music and bounced their backsides all over the place jitterbugging, Patty Andrews
was at the center of it all. She was easily the most fluid in one of the greatest
girl groups of all times, the Andrews Sisters.
The group's lead singer, she died Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 94
years old.
The Andrews Sisters were not the first of the big girl groups. That would have been
the Boswell Sisters out of New Orleans, who mixed harmony and syncopation in such
grand measures that even today their recordings are a delight.
But hit the right spot on YouTube and you can still find Patty at the center of a
signature piece -- with Maxene and LaVerne on either side -- that defines why the
Andrews Sisters were so great. The clip is from the movie "Buck Privates." In the
scene, Lou Costello is getting ready to box, but he needs some time to put on his
trunks. A bugler opens the first bars of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," and the camera
shifts to three girls at the bar, the only girls in the room, surrounded by dozens
of soldiers. They put their sodas on the bar and dance into the scene.
Patty is the one in the middle and gets a solo.
You can see it right away, she is an Andrews sister plus about 10 percent of something
magical. Hands. Legs. Hips. Shoulders. Voice. All fluid, perfectly matched and here,
seven decades later, still stunning to watch for music and dance lovers. Small wonder
the trio had 90 hits and a bundle more with crooner Bing Crosby.
They were all great singers, but she was the best.
Was it the era that created them, or did they create the era? It was powerful, syncopated
music at a time when the nation really needed to move its hips a bit. The Andrews
Sisters had their own imitators. The McGuire Sisters, Bette Midler and too many others
to list tried to capture some of that Andrews magic.
The Andrews Sisters are all dead now. Patty, the youngest, was the last to go.
Someone should at least pick up a bugle in her honor and play those first couple
of bars of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," so we can remember what "hot" once meant.
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Andrews Sisters: Never Out of Uniform
Boston Globe, February 1, 2013
Like so much else about the World War II era, the Andrews Sisters have been consigned
to History Channel documentaries and film clips on the Internet. So it may be a shock
to realize that one of the sisters had spent the last few decades in Arizona, in
a quiet retirement, as much of a throwback as the nonagenarian GIs who don their
old uniforms and offer a crisp salute. Patty Andrews, who died this week at 94, was
part of one of the biggest-selling groups of her era, an act that was as emblematic
of the '40s as the Supremes were of the '60s.
The Andrews Sisters' heyday coincided with the biggest event of the 20th century,
for which the they provided an indelible soundtrack. "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" buoyed
the spirits of millions of soldiers overseas and their families on the home front.
And the Andrews Sisters' recording of it still generates heat on YouTube, sparked
by Patty's impassioned vocals.
-30-


-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure."
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