Recording career

In 1947, she recorded a song called Confess which had a portion requiring one singer to answer another. (The other hit version involved a duet of Doris Day and Buddy Clark.) Because of a low budget, a second singer could not be hired, so Jack Rael suggested that Page sing the second part as well. The novelty of her doing two voices on one record possibly contributed to the song becoming a Top 20 hit for her.

At the time, most record companies had a director of Artists and Repertory (the A&R man), who tightly controlled all the choices of artist-song assignments, and Mercury Records' A&R man was Mitch Miller, who became famous later on as the A&R man who brought Columbia Records into a dominant position in pop music in the early 1950s). After recording Confess, Page (or Rael, or both) liked the multiple-voice idea so much, that she asked to do an entire song as a quartet. Miller was skeptical, until Page recorded a four-bar song demo in four different voices, and played the sample for Miller[citation needed].

Reluctantly[citation needed], Miller permitted it, and the song, With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming became another big hit for Page, her first to sell a million. Although both Mary Ford and Jane Turzy became known for it, Page was actually the first singer to record multiple tracks on the same song (Confess). On some of the records, she was billed as Vocal by Patti Page, Patti Page, and Patti Page, and in at least one case (With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming), she was given quadruple billing.

Page's first number one hit was All My Love. It was based on Maurice Ravel's Bolero. All My Love was #1 for five weeks in 1950.

Her biggest hit was The Tennessee Waltz, which was also released in 1950. The Tennessee Waltz was #1 for thirteen weeks in 1950. In 1963, she left Mercury Records for Columbia Records, returning to Mercury in 1971. While at Columbia, she scored her most recent Top 10 pop hit in 1965 with the title song from the Bette Davis film Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. In 1973, she went back to the Columbia again, recording for their Epic Records subsidiary.

Page had a huge hit in 1953, (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, a novelty song that written by Bob Merrill in 1952. It was adapted from a well-known Victorian music hall song. Page recorded it in 1952, and it made #1 on the Billboard and Cash Box charts in 1953. To say that it was a major hit would be a tremendous understatement; it was almost constantly on the radio at that time.[citation needed]