Peggy March | |
|---|---|
 March in 1967 | |
| Born | Margaret Annemarie Battavio March 8, 1948 Lansdale, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Other names | Little Peggy March |
| Occupation | Singer |
| Years active | 1962−present |
Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie Battavio, March 8, 1948) [1] is an American pop singer. In the United States, she is primarily known for her 1963 million-selling song "I Will Follow Him". [2] Although she is sometimes remembered as a one-hit wonder, she continued to have success in Europe well into the 1970s.
Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania to an Italian-American family, March was discovered at age 13 singing at her cousin's wedding [2] and was introduced to record producers Hugo & Luigi. They gave her the nickname Little Peggy March because she was 4 ft 10 in (1.47 m) tall (though she later grew to be 5ft 4in), [3] she was only 13, the record she did with them was "Little Me", and her birthday was in March. [4]
On April 24, 1963, [5] her single "I Will Follow Him" soared to number one on the United States charts. [1] She recorded the song in early January 1963 and it was released on January 22, when she was 14. [1] March became the youngest female artist with a number-one hit, at 15, in late April 1963, a record that still stands for the Billboard Hot 100. The recording also reached number one in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and Scandinavia. It failed to chart in the United Kingdom. It was a translation of the French song "Chariot" recorded a year earlier by Petula Clark. [1] March also became the first white female solo artist to hit number one on the Billboard R&B chart.
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, leaving her with $500. March graduated from Lansdale Catholic High School in 1966.
Although she is remembered in the United States 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 US, with the latter also reaching No. 29 on the UK Singles Chart. [6] As with many American artists, March's career in her native country was derailed in part by the British Invasion, which at the time was pushing many American acts out of popularity, and she had no hits at home once the Invasion began in 1964. Recording for RCA Victor, March made 18 singles from 1964 to 1971. She also cut several albums, none of which sold well in the United States. [1] She began having a strong presence in the European and Asian music markets and moved to Germany in 1969. [1] She won the Deutscher Schlager Contest in 1965 and her song "Mit 17 hat man noch Träume" ("At 17 you still have dreams") placed No. 2 in the German Singles Chart. This was followed by German songs like "In der Carnaby Street", "Einmal verliebt – immer verliebt", "Romeo und Julia" ("On Carnaby Street", "Once in Love – Always in Love", "Romeo and Juliet" ... No. 1 in German Charts), "Der Schuster macht schöne Schuhe" ("'The Cobbler Makes Beautiful Shoes"), "Telegramm aus Tennessee", "Die Maschen der Männer" and "Das sind die Träume, die man so träumt". 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 EMI did not renew her contract, 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", [7] 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 .
March currently works largely in Germany and in the Las Vegas music scene and has also performed at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri. In 2004 she was the headliner in Riff Markowitz's Fabulous Palm Springs Follies at the Plaza Theater in Palm Springs, California. [8] In 2005, she released an album of standards, Get Happy, followed by the album Meine Liebe ist stark genug (2008). [9]
In March 2010, March went into the recording studio to record 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. It was followed by a special edition for the German-speaking countries in April 2012, [10] including two duets with the Dutch singer José Hoebee, one of them being a cover version of "I Will Follow Him"; which had also been a number-one single in the Netherlands and Belgium for Hoebee in 1982 (March further recorded a subsequent recording in 2012 for a 2013 release to commemorate the song's 50th anniversary). March also recorded another version of "When the Rain Begins to Fall", as a duet with the German singer Andreas Zaron.
In 1969, March married Arnie Harris, her longtime manager. They had one daughter, Sande Ann, born in 1974. After living in Germany since 1969, March and her husband moved to Florida in 1999. [11] In 2013, Harris died. [1]
| Year | Title | Peak Chart Positions | Album | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | GER [12] | AUS | HK | FIN | PER | UK [13] | |||
| 1962 | "Little Me" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single |
| 1963 | "I Will Follow Him" | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | — | I Will Follow Him |
| "I Wish I Were a Princess" | 32 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love" | 26 | — | — | 1 | — | — | 29 | Non-album singles | |
| "The Impossible Happened | 57 | — | — | 10 | — | — | — | ||
| "(I'm Watching) Every Little Move You Make" | 84 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1964 | "Leave Me Alone" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Oh My What a Guy" | — | — | — | 10 | — | — | — | ||
| "Can't Stop Thinkin' About Him" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1965 | "Let Her Go" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Losin' My Touch" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | In Our Fashion | |
| "He Couldn't Care Less" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album singles | |
| 1966 | "He's Back Again" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Try to See It My Way" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | No Foolin' | |
| 1967 | "Foolin' Around" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album singles | |
| "This Heart Wasn't Made to Kick Around" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1968 | "If You Loved Me (Soul Coaxing-Ame Caline)" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1969 | "Boom Bang-A-Bang" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 2013 | "I Will Follow Him (50th Anniversary Edition)" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Always And Forever |
| Year | Title | GER [12] | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | "Lady Music" | 12 | Non-album singles |
| "Wenn der Silbermond" | 15 | ||
| "Hallo Boy" | 17 | Tagebuch Einer 17-jährigen | |
| "Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye" | 8 | ||
| 1965 | "Er schoss mir eine Rose" | 23 | |
| "Mit 17 hat man noch Träume" | 2 | Laß Mir Meine Träume | |
| "Kilindini Docks" | N/A | Non-album single | |
| "Die schönen Stunden gehen schnell vorbei" | 25 | Tagebuch Einer 17-jährigen | |
| 1966 | "Tausend Steine" (with Benny Thomas) | — | Laß Mir Meine Träume |
| "Hundert Jahre und noch mehr" | 18 | ||
| "Sweetheart, schenk mir einen Ring" | 40 | ||
| 1967 | "Memories of Heidelberg" | 2 | Hello Boys! |
| "Romeo und Julia" | 1 | ||
| "Telegramm aus Tennessee" | 15 | ||
| 1968 | "Canale Grande Number One" | 18 | |
| "Das ist der Musik für mich" | 21 | Non-album singles | |
| "Mississippi Shuffleboat" | 30 | ||
| 1969 | "Yesterday Waltz" | 37 | |
| "Hey" | 29 | ||
| "Bahama Lullabye" | 13 | ||
| "In der Carnaby Street" | 16 | Einmal Verliebt - Immer Verliebt | |
| "Mister Giacomo Puccini" | 33 | Non-album singles | |
| 1970 | "Vor dem Buckingham Palast" | — | |
| "Einmal verliebt - immer verliebt" | 23 | Einmal Verliebt - Immer Verliebt | |
| " Die Maschen der Männer | 29 | ||
| "Carmen aus Sevilla" | — | Non-album singles | |
| 1971 | "Sing, wenn du glücklich bist" | 35 | |
| "Hallo Partner" | — | ||
| 1972 | "Ich weiss, ich verlieb mich noch heute in dich" | 38 | |
| "Es ist schwer, dich zu vergessen" | 30 | Für Dich | |
| 1976 | "Du, mach mich nicht an" | 47 | Costa Brava |
| "Costa Brava" | 42 | ||
| 1977 | "Fly Away Pretty Flamingo" | 8 | Fly Away Pretty Flamingo |
| 1978 | "Oklahoma Bay" | 44 | |
| 1980 | "Dreh' die Uhr zurück zum Anfang" | 37 | Non-album single |
| Year | Title | IT | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | "Te Ne Vai" | 1 | Little Peggy March |
| "Passo su Passo" | — | ||
| "Gli Occhi Tuoi Sono Blu" | — |
| Year | Title | Peak Chart Position |
|---|---|---|
| US | ||
| 1963 | I Will Follow Him | 139 |
| 1965 | In Our Fashion (collaboration with Benny Thomas) | — |
| 1967 | No Foolin' | — |
| 2005 | Get Happy | — |
| 2013 | Always And Forever | — |
Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, known as Connie Francis, is an American pop singer, actress, and top-charting female vocalist of the late 1950s and early 1960s. She is estimated to have sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Gabriele Susanne Kerner, better known by her stage name Nena, is a German singer who rose to international fame in 1983 as the lead vocalist of the band Nena with the Neue Deutsche Welle song "99 Luftballons". In that same year, the band re-recorded this song in English as "99 Red Balloons". Nena's re-recording of some of the band's old hit songs as a solo artist, produced by the co-composer of most of them, her former Nena band colleague and keyboard player Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, rekindled her solo career in 2002. Combined with the success of the Nena band years, she has sold over 25 million records, making her the most successful German pop singer in chart history.
Pia Zadora is an American actress and singer. She debuted a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater, and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). She came to national attention in 1981 when, following her starring role in the highly criticized Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe Award as New Star of the Year while simultaneously winning the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress and the Worst New Star for the same performance.
Jasmin Wagner, better known as Blümchen, is a German pop and dance music singer. While she releases her English-language albums under the name Blossom, her German stage name, Blümchen, translates to "floret" or "small flower."
Sandra Ann Lauer, later Sandra Cretu, commonly known mononymously as Sandra, is a German pop singer who enjoyed mainstream popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s with a string of European hit singles, produced by her then-husband and musical partner, Michael Cretu, most notably "(I'll Never Be) Maria Magdalena" (1985), "In the Heat of the Night" (1985), "Everlasting Love" (1987), "Secret Land" (1988), "Hiroshima" (1990), and "Don't Be Aggressive" (1992). Her albums Into a Secret Land (1988) and Close to Seven (1992) have won Sandra high critical acclaim.
Münchener Freiheit is a German pop and rock band that had released nineteen studio albums by 2016, four of which have gone gold. They are named after a square in the city of Munich, meaning "Munich freedom". They are considered part of the Neue Deutsche Welle musical movement.
Claudja Barry is a Jamaican-born Canadian singer. Her successful songs were "Down and Counting", "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes", "Dancing Fever", and others. As an actress, she is known for appearing in the European versions of stage musicals AC/DC and Catch My Soul.
"Fever" is a song written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, who used the pseudonym "John Davenport". It was originally recorded by American R&B singer Little Willie John for his debut album, Fever (1956), and released as a single in April of the same year. The song topped the Billboard R&B Best Sellers in the US and peaked at number 24 on the Billboard pop chart. It was received positively by music critics and included on several lists of the best songs when it was released.
Christina Stürmer is an Austrian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Linz, she rose to fame as the runner-up of the inaugural season of the ORF eins television talent series Starmania. Following her participation, she signed with Universal Music and released her debut single "Ich lebe" which spent nine weeks atop the Austrian Singles Chart. It was followed by the release of her first two albums, Freier Fall (2003) and Soll das wirklich alles sein (2004), both of which debuted atop the Austrian Albums Chart and produced eight top ten hits, including the number-one singles "Mama " and "Vorbei".
"I Will Follow Him" is a popular song that was first recorded in 1961 by Franck Pourcel, as an instrumental entitled "Chariot". The song achieved its widest success when it was recorded by American singer Little Peggy March with English lyrics in 1963. The music was written by Franck Pourcel and Paul Mauriat. It was adapted by Arthur Altman. The completely new English lyrics were written by Norman Gimbel.
"Everybody's Somebody's Fool" is a song written by Jack Keller and Howard Greenfield that was a No. 1 hit for Connie Francis in 1960. A polka-style version in German, "Die Liebe ist ein seltsames Spiel", was the first German single recorded and released by Connie Francis, and it reached No. 1 on the single chart in 1960 in West Germany.
Ireen Sheer is a German-English singer. She had her first major hit in 1970 with Hey Pleasure Man. She had a top five hit on the German singles chart with "Goodbye Mama" in 1973. She went on to finish fourth at the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 representing Luxembourg, sixth at the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 representing Germany, and thirteenth at the Eurovision Song Contest 1985 representing Luxembourg again.
Lena Valaitis is a Lithuanian–German schlager singer who had her greatest success during the 1970s and 1980s. She finished second at the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest.
Josina van de Wijdeven, known as José Hoebee, is a Dutch pop singer. She was a member of Luv' in the late 1970s and early 1980s that scored hits in more than 15 countries. In late 1981, she went solo and was successful in her homeland and in the Flanders region of Belgium between 1982 and 1985. She formed a duo known as Bonnie & José with Bonnie St. Claire to record Dutch cover versions of ABBA's songs.
"When the Rain Begins to Fall" is a 1984 song written and composed by Peggy March, Michael Bradley, and Steve Wittmack, recorded by singers Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora, and released as a US single at the beginning of 1985. The song was performed in the movie Voyage of the Rock Aliens, in which Zadora played a lead role. The film's opening musical sequence features the official music video for the song. Filmed in Sperlonga, Italy, the music video portrays Jackson and Zadora as star-crossed lovers belonging to rival biker gangs. Before being released in the US, "When the Rain Begins to Fall" went to number one in several European countries. The song failed to capitalize on its European success in America, but did better on the US dance charts, reaching number 22. In 2022, a K-pop cover version of the song was recorded by PSY and Hwasa.
Andrea Ferber, known professionally as Andrea Berg, is a German schlager singer. She performed at carnivals as a child and began her career in 1992 after being discovered by record producer Eugen Römer. While she released her first studio album Du bist frei that same year, her commercial breakthrough took place with its follow-up Gefühle, released in 1995. The collaboration between Berg and Römer spawned a string of commercially successful albums, with her albums Machtlos (2003), Du (2004), Splitternackt (2006), and Zwischen Himmel & Erde (2009) topping the German charts. Her compilation album Best Of, released in 2001, is the album that spent the most weeks on the charts in Germany and Austria. Between 2010 and 2018, Berg worked with Dieter Bohlen, who produced her albums Schwerelos (2010), Abenteuer (2011), Atlantis (2013), and Seelenbeben (2016), all of which topped the German and Austrian album charts.
Andrea Elisabeth Maria Jürgens was a German schlager singer. She became famous as a child star in the late 1970s when she had her first hit with "Und dabei liebe ich euch beide" at age 10. She had been active in the music business ever since with more than 60 single releases.
Beatrice Egli is a Swiss pop and Schlager singer. She is the winner of season 10 of the German music competition Deutschland sucht den Superstar. Egli became the second contestant from Switzerland to win the title after another Swiss person, Luca Hänni, won the previous season of the series. She has sold over 1,000,000 records in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
"Liebe ist" is a song by German recording artist Nena. It was co-written and produced along by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen for her 13th studio album, Willst du mit mir gehn (2005). Selected as the album's lead single, it served as the theme song for the Sat.1 telenovela Verliebt in Berlin. Upon its release in February 2005, "Liebe ist" topped the German Singles Chart for two weeks, becoming Nena's second number-one hit, after 1983's "99 Luftballons", and her first chart-topper as a solo artist. The Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI) awarded the song a gold certification for shipping 150,000 units in Germany alone. A remix of "Liebe ist" for American audiences was considered but never surfaced.
James Royal is a British pop singer. His most international successful record was "Call My Name" in 1967.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
