Performing Conformity, Unleashing Craft: Female Vocalists of Postwar Pop, 1945-1956 Sarah Elizabeth Culpeper Charlottesville, Virginia B.A., University of Toronto, 1998 B.F.A., Concordia University, 2002 M.A., McGill University, 2005 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music University of Virginia December, 2013 Abstract Performing Conformity, Unleashing Craft: Female Vocalists of Postwar Pop, 1945-1956 By Sarah Elizabeth Culpeper This dissertation centers on female postwar pop singers and the hit records they made between the years 1945 and 1956. I consider the vocal styles of Doris Day, Patti Page and Mary Ford in combination with the personae and images they projected through records and other media. The project serves in part to document and recuperate the sometimes-disparaged genre of postwar pop, and to restore its neglected female singers to popular music history narratives. I glean my understanding of the singing voice from pedagogy and science literature, and from these sources I build a technique-based analytical vocabulary for vocal style. I apply this vocabulary to close readings and interpretations of the singers’ hit recordings, and I bring my readings into dialogue with historical reception discourse. To understand how the singers may have resonated with postwar audiences beyond the vocal dimension, I connect the images they projected to historical scholarship about gender and sexuality in postwar America. All three singers presented a degree of conformity while also complicating the era’s mores. Day never transgressed norms of postwar sexual propriety, yet the discourse around her appeal suggests that audiences found her sexually desirable. Page presented a placid poise in her media appearances, something that contrasted strikingly with her reputation as a dazzlingly powerful singer. Ford and her husband Les Paul often presented themselves as an ideal postwar couple, and yet a narrative of marital fracture seeps into some of these presentations. I argue that the vocal craft of Day, Page and Ford centered on relaxed pop singing: a style that has since fallen out of favor in the popular sphere, and for this reason can be difficult to appreciate today. But when Day, Page and Ford made records, they presented unique articulations of the desirable pop singing aesthetic of the era: one that was characterized by a smooth vocal tone, and the conveyance of ease and warmth. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables v List of Figures vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. Framing the Study of Postwar Pop Singers 7 2. Doris Day: Workaround Technique, Safe Sexuality 45 3. Patti Page: Placidity, Poise and Power 100 4. Mary Ford: Unsung Talent, Interactive Muse 152 Conclusion 200 Appendix 204 Bibliography 207 v List of Tables TABLE 1.1 STYLE CATEGORIES FOR POSTWAR POP RECORDINGS 1945-1956 ................................................................................ 9 TABLE 1.2 PROPORTION OF SINGERS TO BANDLEADERS/INSTRUMENTALISTS COMPRISING THE TOP 10 ARTISTS OF THE DECADE 1930-1950 ........................................................................................................................................................................... 10 TABLE 1.3 PROPORTION OF SINGERS TO BANDLEADERS/INSTRUMENTALISTS COMPRISING THE TOP 20 ARTISTS FOR FIVE-YEAR INCREMENTS, 1940-1954 ................................................................................................................................................... 11 TABLE 1.4 TOP 20 POP ARTISTS 1950-1954 ............................................................................................................................... 12 TABLE 1.5: COMMON DESCRIPTORS USED IN THE HISTORICAL RECEPTION OF DORIS DAY, PATTI PAGE AND MARY FORD ....... 13 TABLE 1.6 BATEMAN’S PROPOSED VOCAL REGISTER AND MECHANISM CATEGORIES FOR THE FEMALE VOICE ............................ 38 TABLE 1.7 ADAPTED TERMS FOR AND HYPOTHESIZED USAGE OF VOCAL REGISTER AND MECHANISM CATEGORIES FOR THE FEMALE VOICE ........................................................................................................................................................................ 38 TABLE 2.1 HIT SONGS RECORDED BY LES BROWN FEATURING DORIS DAY ................................................................................... 50 TABLE 2.2 DORIS DAY’S HIT SINGLES AS SOLOIST ........................................................................................................................... 50 TABLE 2.3 DORIS DAY’S ALBUMS RELEASED 1949-1957 ............................................................................................................ 51 TABLE 2.4 DORIS DAY’S PRONUNCIATION IN “SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY” (SECOND A SECTION) .................................................. 68 TABLE 2.5 DORIS DAY’S WARNER BROTHERS FILMS (1948-1954) ............................................................................................ 80 TABLE 3.1 HIT SINGLES RECORDED BY PATTI PAGE ...................................................................................................................... 102 TABLE 3.2 PATTI PAGE’S TELEVISION SHOWS ............................................................................................................................... 103 TABLE 3.3 STYLE OF PAGE’S 34 TOP-CHARTING SINGLES ............................................................................................................ 126 TABLE 3.4 STYLE OF PAGE’S 34 TOP-CHARTING SINGLES: COUNT AND PROPORTION ................................................................ 126 TABLE 3.5 VOCAL TEXTURES ON PAGE’S 34 TOP-CHARTING SINGLES: DESCRIPTIONS, CODES ................................................... 133 TABLE 3.6 VOCAL TEXTURE ON PAGE’S 34 TOP-CHARTING SINGLES .......................................................................................... 133 TABLE 3.7 VOCAL TEXTURE ON PAGE’S 34 TOP-CHARTING SINGLES: COUNT AND PROPORTIONS ............................................. 134 TABLE 3.8 BREATH CONTROL: COMPARISON OF JONI JAMES AND PATTI PAGE IN “WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE ME” .............. 137 TABLE 3.9 ELEMENTS OF CLASSICAL VOCAL TECHNIQUE APPLICABLE TO PAGE’S SINGING ......................................................... 141 TABLE 3.10: CODES FOR PAGE’S VOCAL STYLE ............................................................................................................................ 148 TABLE 3.11 PAGE’S VOCAL STYLE ACROSS RECORDINGS .............................................................................................................. 149 TABLE 3.12 DISTRIBUTION OF VOCAL MODE ACROSS PATTI PAGE’S TOP 34 HIT SINGLES ......................................................... 150 TABLE 4.1 LES PAUL AND MARY FORD: SINGLES CHARTING IN TOP 20, 1950-1955 .............................................................. 155 TABLE 4.2 LES PAUL AND MARY FORD: RADIO AND TELEVISION PROGRAMS ............................................................................. 155 TABLE 4.3 SUMMARY OF VOCAL TEXTURES AND FORD’S VOICE QUALITY ACROSS TOP SINGLES ACCORDING TO SONG STYLE .. 161 TABLE 4.4 AVERAGE SINGING RANGES ON 4 HIGHEST CHARTING SINGLES BY FORD, PAGE AND DAY ....................................... 161 TABLE 4.5 COMPARISON OF FORD’S AVERAGE RANGE IN TOP 5 HIGHEST CHARTING SINGLES TO AVERAGE ACROSS 5 LOWEST RANGE SONGS AND 5 HIGHEST RANGE SONGS .................................................................................................................... 162 TABLE 4.6 HARMONIC PROGRESSION OF “TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS” ....................................................................................... 178 TABLE 4.7 BASIC FORM OF “HOW HIGH THE MOON” (32-BAR CHORUS ABAB’) .................................................................... 188 TABLE 4.8 COMPARISON OF FORMAL STRUCTURES IN FIVE RECORDINGS OF “HOW HIGH THE MOON” .................................. 188 TABLE 4.9: FORMAL STRUCTURE OF LES PAUL/MARY FORD’S “HOW HIGH THE MOON” ....................................................... 189 TABLE 4.10 TEXTURE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SECTION 1 AND SECTION 3 OF “HOW HIGH THE MOON” ................................. 189 TABLE 4.11: “VAYA CON DIOS” FORM AND LYRICS .................................................................................................................... 197 vi List of Figures FIGURE 1.1 DIVERSITY OF STYLES REPRESENTED IN TOP CHARTING RECORDS OF MARY FORD, PATTI PAGE AND DORIS DAY ... 13 FIGURE 1.2 REGISTRATION MODEL FOR FEMALE POP AND CLASSICAL SINGERS ............................................................................ 39 FIGURE 2.1 MAJOR-MINOR THIRD ALTERNATION IN “SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY” ......................................................................... 68 FIGURE 2.2 MELODIC EXCERPT SHOWING CLIMACTIC NOTE IN “SECRET LOVE” .......................................................................... 73 FIGURE 2.3 SPECTROGRAM VIEW OF DAY’S BELTED B4 ON LYRIC “NOW” IN “SECRET LOVE” ................................................... 74 FIGURE 3.1 EXCERPT OF “CONFESS” SHOWING CALL AND RESPONSE OVERDUBBING ............................................................... 128 FIGURE 3.2 EXCERPT OF “WITH MY EYES WIDE OPEN” SHOWING OVERDUBBED 4-PART HARMONY .................................... 133 FIGURE 3.3 “SPRING IS HERE” EXCERPT .....................................................................................................................................