Peggy March
(born Margaret Annemarie Battavio
, March 8, 1948, Lansdale, Pennsylvania [1]) is an American pop music singer. She is primarily remembered for her 1963 million-selling song "I Will Follow Him". [2]
|
LITTLE PEGGY MARCH TICKETS
|
Career
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,
[3] 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.
[4] 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.
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. Her song "I Will Follow Him" was featured in the 1992 movie
Sister Act
. Currently she works largely in the
Las Vegas music scene. March also currently performs at
Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in
Branson, Missouri.
Singles
| Release Date
| Title
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart [5]
| German Chart [6]
| UK Singles Chart |
| March 1963
| "I Will Follow Him"
| #1
| -
| -
|
| June 1963
| "I Wish I Were a Princess"
| #32
| -
| -
|
| September 1963
| "Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love"
| #26
| -
| #29
|
| November 1963
| "The Impossible Happened"
| #57
| -
| -
|
| February 1964
| "(I'm Watching) Every Little Move You Make"
| #84
| -
| -
|
| May 1965
| "Er schoss mir eine Rose"
| -
| #23
| -
|
| July 1965
| "Mit 17 hat man noch Träume"
| -
| #2
| -
|
| November 1965
| "Die schönen Stunden gehen schnell vorbei"
| -
| #25
| -
|
| July 1966
| "Hundert Jahre und noch mehr"
| -
| #40
| -
|
| December 1966
| "Sweetheart schenk mir einen Ring"
| -
| #23
| -
|
| March 1967
| "Memories of Heidelberg"
| -
| #5
| -
|
| September 1967
| "Romeo und Julia"
| -
| #1
| -
|
| January 1968
| "Telegramm aus Tennessee"
| -
| #15
| -
|
| March 1968
| "Canale Grande Number One"
| -
| #18
| -
|
| July 1968
| "Das ist Musik fûr mich"
| -
| #21
| -
|
| September 1968
| "Mississippi Shuffle Boat"
| -
| #30
| -
|
| January 1969
| "Yesterday Waltz"
| -
| #37
| -
|
| April 1969
| "Hey"
| -
| #29
| -
|
| August 1969
| "Bahama Lullabye"
| -
| #13
| -
|
| November 1969
| "In der Carnaby Street"
| -
| #16
| -
|
| December 1969
| "Mister Giacomo Puccini"
| -
| #33
| -
|
| September 1970
| "Die Maschen der Manner"
| -
| #29
| -
|
| August 1970
| "Einmal verliebt—immer verliebt"
| -
| #23
| -
|
| August 1971
| "Sing, wenn du glücklich bist"
| -
| #35
| -
|
| February 1972
| "Ich weiss, ich verlieb mich noch heute in dich"
| -
| #38
| -
|
| July 1972
| "Es ist schwer, dich zu vergessen"
| -
| #30
| -
|
| January 1976
| "Du, mach mich nicht an"
| -
| #47
| -
|
| June 1976
| "Costa Brava"
| -
| #42
| -
|
| September 1977
| "Fly Away Pretty Flamingo"
| -
| #8
| -
|
| April 1978
| "Oklahoma Bay"
| -
| #44
| -
|
| August 1980
| "Dreh' die Uhr zuruck zum Anfang"
| -
| #37
| -
|
References
- Biography by Bruce Eder and Stephen Thomas Erlewine
- The Book of Golden Discs
- This Day in Music
- British Hit Singles & Albums
- Allmusic - Charts & Awards
- Hit Blanz - Deutsche Chart Singles 1956-1980