The Boogey, Woogey Bugle Boy of Company B is Playing Taps

Patty Andrews, the last of the Andrews Sisters, who showed the Greatest Generation that all you needed to defeat evil is a snappy beat and flawless harmony and that the dearth of public bugling is the reason the war in Afghanistan has dragged on this long, has died at age of 94. With Patty signing soprano alongside Maxene and LaVerne, The Andrews Sisters sold tens of millions of records and more than their share of war bonds as hyper-patriotism ruled the day in 1940s America. Their snappy recordings of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B)” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me),” performed with Bing Crosby and the Glenn Miller Orchestra to boost morale on the home front and the front lines for troops. In 1940 they were signed by Universal and appeared in more than a dozen films in the next 7 years, stretching their range to play a singing trio in comedies starring the Ritz Brothers (Argentine Nights), Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (Buck Privates, In the Navy and Hold That Ghost), and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (Road to Rio). After selling more than 75 million records, Patty decided to go solo in 1953 – which her sisters found out in the trade publications, rather than straight from her. That worked so well that by 1956 they were back together, but the world had moved on from harmonizing to rock and or roll. LaVerne died in 1967, and with no acceptable replacements, Maxene and Patty went their own ways, with Patty continuing to perform at supermarket openings and county fairs. The girls reunited for the last time for a Broadway run in Over Here!, a musical set during World War II, until a bitter money dispute ending the run, scuttling plans for a national tour, and leaving them largely estranged until Maxene’s death in 1995.