LaVerne (Andrews) Rogers (1911 - 1967)

Born 6 Jul 1911 in Mound, Minnesota, USA

Died 8 May 1967 at age 55 in Los Angeles, California

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Biography

The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras.

The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn (January 3, 1916 – October 21, 1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" (February 16, 1918 – January 30, 2013).

Throughout their career, the sisters sold over 75 million records (the last official count released by MCA Records in the mid-1970s).

Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of rhythm and blues or jump blues.

The Andrews Sisters' harmonies and songs are still influential today, and have been copied and recorded by entertainers such as Bette Midler, Christina Aguilera, Pentatonix, and others. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.

Writing for Bloomberg, Mark Schoifet said the sisters became the most popular female vocal group of the first half of the 20th century. They are still widely acclaimed today for their famous close harmonies. They were inducted into the Minnesota Rock/Country Hall of Fame in May of 2006.

Early Lives

The sisters were born to Peter Andreos (anglicized to "Andrews" upon arriving in the US) and Olga (née Sollie); their father was Greek and their mother a Norwegian-American of the Lutheran faith.

Patty, the youngest and the lead singer of the group, was 7 when the group was formed, and 12 when they won first prize at a talent contest at the local Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, where LaVerne played piano accompaniment for the silent film showings in exchange for free dancing lessons for herself and her sisters. Following the collapse of their father's Minneapolis restaurant, the sisters went on the road to support the family.

Personal Lives

LaVerne Andrews married Lou Rogers, a trumpet player in Vic Schoen's band, in 1948. The two remained together until LaVerne's death from cancer on May 8, 1967 (Lou died in 1995). The ashes of LaVerne and Maxene Andrews are interred in the Columbarium of Memory of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, close to the ashes of their parents.

Maxene Andrews married music publisher Lou Levy in 1941, separating in 1949. Levy was the sisters' manager from 1937 to 1951. She died on October 21, 1995, after suffering a heart attack while vacationing on Cape Cod with her daughter/manager Lynda Wells.

Patty Andrews married agent Marty Melcher in 1947 and left him in 1949, when he pursued a romantic relationship with Doris Day. She then married Walter Weschler, the trio's pianist, in 1951. She died of natural causes at her home in Northridge, California, on January 30, 2013 at the age of 94. Weschler, her husband of nearly 60 years, had died on August 28, 2010, at the age of 88.

Legacy

Most of the Andrews Sisters' music has been restored and released in compact disc form. Over 300 of their original Decca recordings, a good portion of which was hit material, has yet to be released by MCA/Decca in over 50 years. Many of these Decca recordings have been used in such television shows and Hollywood movies as Homefront, ER, Agent Carter, The Brink's Job, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Swing Shift, Raggedy Man, Summer of '42, Slaughterhouse-Five, Maria's Lovers, Harlem Nights, In Dreams, Murder in the First, L.A. Confidential, American Horror Story, Just Shoot Me, Gilmore Girls, Mama's Family, War and Remembrance, Jakob the Liar, Lolita, The Polar Express, The Chronicles of Narnia, Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!). Comical references to the trio in television sitcoms can be found as early as I Love Lucy and as recently as Everybody Loves Raymond.

In 2007, their version of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" was included in the game BioShock, a first-person shooter that takes place in an alternate history 1960, and later in 2008, their song "Civilization" (with Danny Kaye) was included in the Atomic Age-inspired video game Fallout 3. The 2010 video game Mafia II features numerous Andrews Sisters songs, with "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "Strip Polka" and "Rum And Coca-Cola". The 2011 video game L.A. Noire features the song "Pistol Packin' Mama", where the sisters perform a duet with Bing Crosby. The sisters were again featured in a Fallout game in 2015, when their songs "Pistol Packin' Mama" and "Civilization" were featured in the game Fallout 4.

Christina Aguilera used the Andrews Sisters' "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" to inspire her song "Candyman" (released as a single in 2007) from her hit album Back to Basics. The song was co-written by Linda Perry. The London-based trio the Puppini Sisters uses their style harmonies on several Andrews Sisters and other hits of the 1940s and 1950s as well as later rock and disco hits. The trio has said their name is a tribute to The Andrews Sisters. The National WW2 Museum's Victory Belles are proud to pay tribute to the Andrews Sisters performing their music daily in the Stage Door Canteen in New Orleans. The Manhattan Dolls, a New York City-based touring group, performs both the popular tunes sung by the Andrews Sisters and some of the more obscure tunes such as "Well Alright" and "South American Way" as well.

In 2008 and 2009, the BBC produced The Andrews Sisters: Queens of the Music Machines, a one-hour documentary on the history of the Andrews Sisters from their upbringing to the present. The American premier of the show was June 21, 2009, in their birthplace of Mound, Minnesota. In 2008, Mound dedicated "The Andrews Sisters Trail". The sisters spent summers in Mound with their uncles Pete and Ed Solie, who had a grocery store there. Maxene Andrews always said that the summers in Mound created a major sense of "normalcy" and "a wonderful childhood" in a life that otherwise centered on the sisters' careers. The Westonka Historical Society has a large collection of Andrews Sisters memorabilia.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andrews_Sisters

• https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1679536/bio

• https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2013/01/31/133568889/patty-andrews-leader-of-the-andrews-sisters-dies