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PEGGY
MARCH (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie
Battavio, March 8, 1948, Lansdale, Pennsylvania is an American pop
singer. She is primarily remembered for her 1963 million-selling
song "I Will Follow Him".
She was discovered at age thirteen singing at her cousin's wedding
and was introduced to the record producer partnership Hugo & Luigi.
They gave her the nickname Little Peggy March because she was only
4'10" in height, she was only thirteen, the first record she did
with them was "Little Me", and her birthdate was in the month of
March.
On April 24, 1963,her single "I Will Follow Him" soared to number
one on the U.S. charts.Recorded in early January 1963 and released
January 22 of that year, March was only 14 at the time.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.
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 on became
her husband.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
in the UK Singles Chart. She recorded 18 singles for RCA between
1964 and 1971 and several albums as well, none of which charted in
any serious way in the United States. She began making a strong
presence in the European and Asian music markets, and she moved to
Germany in 1969.Her commercial success in Germany continued through
much of the 1970s and she also 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
Dich". 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. In 1984, however, Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora achieved a
major European hit single with the track "When the Rain Begins to
Fall", co-written by March. Although not a hit in the UK or in the
USA, 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.
Here's a photograph of Peggy with her grandson Fletcher and her
husband Arnie Harris
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). |
