Swing It!: The Andrews Sisters Story

The Andrews Sisters - Maxene, Patty, and LaVerne remain the best selling female vocal group of all time, charting more top 10 Billboard hits than Elvis or the Beatles and placing hits on the Billboard Top 40 charts 113 times in 15 years. In 1937, as America pulled itself out of the Great Depression only to face the ominous clouds of war looming over Europe and East Asia, a young and vivacious trio of sisters from Minneapolis burst upon the music scene with tight harmonies framing perfectly syncopated rhythms. They would revolutionize and forever change popular music. With their first hit "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon", the sisters essentially vocalized the big band sound of the era. They went on to introduce a vocal form of boogie-woogie, originally a piano style, and were responsible for bringing various forms of ethnic music into the mainstream of American popular culture. The trio's popularity soared throughout the 1940s, with hundreds of recordings, live shows, radio performances, and appearances in 17 Hollywood musicals. But they are perhaps best remembered for their tireless devotion to entertaining troops overseas during World War II. In 1953 the Andrews Sisters disbanded under the pressures of fame, changing music styles, and sibling rivalry, reuniting once again in 1956 to record and tour throughout the 1960s. But theirs have always been known as the voices that defined an era.