Girlbandobit: Patty Andrews

It's easy to look at The Andrews Sisters - whose youngest sister, Patty, has died - and see a rather bland, middle-of-the-road act. But a line from Patty's obituary crystalizes what an extraordinary proposition they were with their first single:

But Kapp then heard them sing the tune and realised that three Norwegian-Greek-American girls singing a song in Yiddish – with a great deal of added English – did, after all, have something.

Decca thought that this was a recipe for a "race record" - Decca have a record of poor judgement. America disagreed.

Patty Andrews died on 30th January; she was 94.