Patty Andrews, R.I.P.

Above, the Andrews Sisters.  Patty Andrews is at center with Maxine Andrews on the left and LaVerne
Andrews on the right..

The last surviving member of the famous Andrews Sisters has died.

CBS News is reporting that Patty Andrews passed away today at age 94:

Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio whose hits such as the rollicking "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" and the poignant "I Can Dream, Can't I?" captured the home-front spirit of World War II, died Wednesday. She was 94. 

Andrews died of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement. 

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home. 

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time" with a sincerity that caused hardened soldiers far from home to weep. 

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" in 1937 and continuing with "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar," ''Rum and Coca-Cola" and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records, several of them gold (over a million copies).

I remember seeing the Andrews Sisters for the first time in the Abbott and Costello hit, Buck Privates.  I saw Patty Andrews in November 2005 at Noel Neill's 85th birthday luncheon party.

Along with many others of the era, the Andrews Sisters cheered up the country during World War II.  The Andrews Sisters were almost to the 1940s like the Beatles were to the 1960s.

To read the full article, go here.