In search of Eva Tanguay, the first rock star. To begin, a few
facts. The singer, actress, and vaudeville star Eva Tanguay was
born in 1878 in Marbleton, a small town in Quebec, Canada; grew
up in Holyoke, Mass.; and died on Jan. 11, 1947, in Los Angeles,
where she lived her last years in a style that some suggest was
the model for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard—in a Hollywood
bungalow festooned with yellowing newspaper clippings and
memorabilia from her heyday. 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