The Daily Swarm

Eva Tanguay made just one recording, a version of her anthem, “I Don’t Care,” released on a 78 rpm disc in 1922 by the Los Angeles label Nordskog. By rights, this song should be as familiar as “Over the Rainbow” or “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Rapper’s Delight.” And here we arrive at the crucial fact: For roughly two decades, from 1904 until the early 1920s, Eva Tanguay was the biggest rock star in the United States.

To call Tanguay a “rock star” is anachronistic but appropriate. She was not just the pre-eminent song-and-dance woman of the vaudeville era. (One of her many nicknames was “The Girl Who Made Vaudeville Famous.”) She was the first American popular musician to achieve mass-media celebrity, with a cadre of publicists trumpeting her on- and offstage successes and outrages, and an oeuvre best summed up by the slogan that appeared frequently on theatrical marquees: “Eva Tanguay, performing songs about herself.” She was the first singer to mount nationwide solo headlining tours, drawing record-breaking crowds and shattering box-office tallies from Broadway to Butte. Newspaper accounts describe scenes of fan frenzy that foreshadowed Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theatre and Beatlemania. At the height of her stardom, Tanguay commanded an unheard of salary, $3,500 per week, out-earning the likes of Al Jolson, Harry Houdini, and Enrico Caruso.