- Peggy March
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Peggy March Birth name Margaret Annemarie Battavio Also known as Little Peggy March Born March 8, 1948 Origin Lansdale, Pennsylvania,
United StatesGenres Pop Occupations Singer Instruments Vocals Years active 1962–present Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie Battavio, March 8, 1948, Lansdale, Pennsylvania[1]) is an American pop singer. She is primarily remembered for her 1963 million-selling song "I Will Follow Him".[2]
Contents
Career
She was discovered at age thirteen singing at her cousin's wedding[2] and was introduced to the record producer partnership Hugo & Luigi. They gave her the nickname Little Peggy March because she was only 4 ft 9 in (1.45 m) tall, she was only 13, the record she did with them was "Little Me," and her birthday was in March.
On April 24, 1963,[3] her single "I Will Follow Him" soared to number one on the U.S. charts.[1] Recorded in early January 1963 and released January 22, March was only 14 at the time.[1] March became the youngest female artist with a number one hit, a record that still stands for the Billboard Hot 100. The recording also took the number one spot in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and Scandinavia. It was a translation of the French song "Chariot" recorded a year earlier by Petula Clark.[1]
March's success also came with financial trouble. She was a minor and the Coogan Law prevented her parents from managing her money. The responsibility was placed on her manager, Russell Smith. It was discovered in 1966 that he had squandered the fortune away, leaving her with $500. Peggy graduated from Lansdale Catholic High School in 1966. She soon had a new manager, Arnie Harris, who later became her husband.[1] They had one daughter, Sande, born in 1974.
Although she is remembered by some as a one-hit wonder, her singles "I Wish I Were a Princess" and "Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love" made the Top 30 in the United States, with the latter also reaching #29 on the UK Singles Chart.[4] She recorded 18 singles for RCA between 1964 and 1971 and several albums as well, none of which charted well in the United States.[1] She began making a strong presence in the European and Asian music markets and moved to Germany in 1969.[1] Her commercial success in Germany continued through much of the 1970s;[1] she tried her luck in representing Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, only to be placed second in the national final with the song "Hey! Das ist Musik für Mich". March made another Eurovision attempt in 1975, when she performed the Ralph Siegel composition "Alles geht vorüber" in the German national contest. Again she was placed second.
In 1979 she experimented with disco on the album Electrifying, but it failed to achieve commercial success. By 1981 record companies did not renew her contracts, and she moved back to the United States.[1] In 1984, however, Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora achieved a major European hit single with the track "When the Rain Begins to Fall",[5] co-written by March. Although not a hit in the UK or in the US, it went to #1 in Germany, France, The Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1998, the song entered the German Top 10 again when covered by rapper Pappa Bear. The cult film Hairspray featured "I Wish I Were a Princess" in 1988, and a retro fad in Germany brought her some continuing success starting in the mid 1990s with the album Die Freiheit Frau zu sein (1995). Her song "I Will Follow Him" was featured in the 1992 movie Sister Act. Currently she works largely in the Las Vegas music scene and has also performed at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri. In 2005, she released an album of standards, Get Happy, and most recently the album Meine Liebe ist stark genug (2008).[6]
In March 2010, Peggy March went into the studio to lay down vocals for her first album of new, original material in English in over 30 years. A collaboration with Scandinavian songwriter and producer, Soren Jensen, the album Always and Forever was released on October 13, 2010.[7]
Singles
Release Date Title US Billboard Hot 100 Chart[8] German Chart[9] UK Singles Chart[4] March 1963 "I Will Follow Him" #1 - - June 1963 "I Wish I Were a Princess" #32 - - September 1963 "Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love" #26 - #29 November 1963 "The Impossible Happened" #57 - - February 1964 "(I'm Watching) Every Little Move You Make" #84 - - May 1965 "Er schoss mir eine Rose" - #23 - July 1965 "Mit 17 hat man noch Träume" - #2 - November 1965 "Die schönen Stunden gehen schnell vorbei" - #25 - July 1966 "Hundert Jahre und noch mehr" - #40 - December 1966 "Sweetheart schenk mir einen Ring" - #23 - March 1967 "Memories of Heidelberg" - #5 - September 1967 "Romeo und Julia" - #1 - January 1968 "Telegramm aus Tennessee" - #15 - March 1968 "Canale Grande Number One" - #18 - July 1968 "Das ist Musik fûr mich" - #21 - September 1968 "Mississippi Shuffle Boat" - #30 - January 1969 "Yesterday Waltz" - #37 - April 1969 "Hey" - #29 - August 1969 "Bahama Lullabye" - #13 - November 1969 "In der Carnaby Street" - #16 - December 1969 "Mister Giacomo Puccini" - #33 - September 1970 "Die Maschen der Mānner" - #29 - August 1970 "Einmal verliebt—immer verliebt" - #23 - August 1971 "Sing, wenn du glücklich bist" - #35 - February 1972 "Ich weiss, ich verlieb mich noch heute in dich" - #38 - July 1972 "Es ist schwer, dich zu vergessen" - #30 - January 1976 "Du, mach mich nicht an" - #47 - June 1976 "Costa Brava" - #42 - September 1977 "Fly Away Pretty Flamingo" - #8 - April 1978 "Oklahoma Bay" - #44 - August 1980 "Dreh' die Uhr zurück zum Anfang" - #37 - References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Biography by Bruce Eder and Stephen Thomas Erlewine". Allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p24532/biography. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
- ^ a b Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. pp. 161/2. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
- ^ "This Day in Music". Nielsen Business Media, Inc.. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/thisday/april-24-2009-1003963126.story. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
- ^ a b Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 349. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
- ^ http://www.swisscharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Jermaine+Jackson+%26+Pia+Zadora&titel=When+The+Rain+Begins+To+Fall&cat=s
- ^ http://www.swisscharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Peggy+March&titel=Meine+Liebe+ist+stark+genug&cat=a
- ^ [1]
- ^ Allmusic - Charts & Awards
- ^ Hit Blanz - Deutsche Chart Singles 1956-1980. Taurus Press. 2000. ISBN 3-922542-24-7.
External links
Categories:- 1948 births
- Living people
- American expatriates in Germany
- American female singers
- RCA Victor artists
- People from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
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