RIP Patti Page: A look back on my last conversation with her

Page, 77, still going strong off-Strip

She sings Saturday at Whiskey Pete's in Primm. She used to have her own private house on the grounds of the Sands, but hotels on the Strip no longer hire her.

"They want the superstars. And they don't want `has-beens,' " she says with a laugh. "I'm no superstar, not in the idiom of today. I don't kid myself."

Page, 77, was the best-selling female singer of the 1950s. She hosted and appeared on several TV shows.

"The younger people are running the businesses now" at the hotels, she says. "You get a 25-year-old, and they say, `Patti who?'

"They know the song, they don't know the name."

"Mockin' Bird Hill": "When the sun in the mornin' peeps over the hill, and kisses the roses 'round my windowsill, then my heart fills with gladness when I hear the trill of those birds, in the treetops on Mockin'bird Hill."

"Tennessee Waltz": "I was dancin' with my darlin' to the Tennessee Waltz, when an old friend, I happened to see -- I introduced her to my loved one. And while they were dancin', my friend stole my sweetheart from me."

"When I sing `Tennessee Waltz,' I think of my dad, because that was his favorite song. ... We don't (realize), when they die, how much you're gonna miss them. It makes him be there, and it's nice. And I think of my mom, because she always went along with what he said. She ruled the roost, but she went along with what he said."

Time and life race by.

"I mean, when I got all the Christmas letters this (season), each one of them started out, `Another year has gone by, I can't believe it.' And that's how I feel when I sing some of those songs: `How long ago was this?' "

"Tennessee Waltz" was a hit in 1950.

"It's kind of hard to think it's been that long ago."

"I get feedback from fans saying, `Don't ever stop,' and then they always are there when I go (on tour). But believe me, when I can't sing (someday), I won't be out there trying.

"It's nice that people remember, it really is. It doesn't change my life, but it is. You know, I worked one of the gambling casinos in Connecticut ... and 4,000 people were there. Nobody would imagine that 4,000 people would come out and see Patti Page. That is (a big audience) for this day and age. ... The younger crowd, they want somebody in diapers out there.

"I have a lot of friends in the Vegas area. Hopefully, they'll drive down that 45 minutes."