One of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was one of the best-selling female artists of the 1950s, and sold over 100 million records. Page signed with Mercury Records in 1947, and became their first successful female artist, starting with 1948's "Confess", a song with which she had competition from the version by Doris Day and Buddy Clark.Patti's version incorporated one of her trademark signatures, that of dueting with herself in many voices. This technique was used by many others but Patti started the trend.
In 1950, she had her first million-selling single "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming", and would eventually have 14 additional million-selling singles between 1950 and 1965. Unlike most pop music singers, Page blended the styles of country music into many of her most popular songs. By doing this, many of her singles also made the Billboard Country Chart. Towards the 1970s, she shifted her career towards country music, and she began charting on the country charts until 1982. She is one of the few vocalists who have made the country charts in five separate decades.
Page's signature song, "Tennessee Waltz", recorded in 1950, was one of the biggest-selling singles of the 20th century, and is also one of the two official state songs of Tennessee. The song spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard magazine's Best-Sellers List in 1950. It was so popular that it charted both in 1950 and the following year. She had three additional No. 1 hit singles between 1950 and 1953, with "All My Love (Bolero)", "I Went to Your Wedding", and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window" (the one erroneously credited to Doris Day on the internet.
When rock and roll music became popular during the second half of the 1950s, traditional pop music was becoming less popular. Page was one of the few traditional pop music singers who was able to sustain her success, continuing to have major hits into the mid-1960s with "Old Cape Cod", "Allegheny Moon", and "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". She had 24 records in the top 10, and was also the first singer to have television programs on all three major networks, including her own short-lived "The Patti Page Show" on ABC.
In 1997, Patti Page was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. She will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2013, just a little after the fact.