Bette Midler Divine Miss M," on Atlantic Records in December 1972. The album was co-produced by Barry Manilow, who was Bette's arranger and music conductor at the time. It reached Billboard's Top 10 and became a million-selling Platinum-certified album, earning Midler the 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. It featured three hit singles—"Do You Wanna Dance?", "Friends", and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"—the third of which became Midler's first No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit. "Bugle Boy" became a successful rock cover of the classic swing tune originally introduced and popularized in 1941 by the Andrews Sisters, to whom Midler has repeatedly referred
Bette Midler as her idols and inspiration, as far back as her first appearances on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". Midler told Carson in an interview that she always wanted to move like the sisters, and Patty Andrews remembered: "When I first heard the introduction on the radio, I thought it was our old record. When Bette opened at the Amphitheater in Los Angeles, Maxene and I went backstage to see her. Her first words were, 'What else did you record? During another Midler concert, Maxene went on stage and presented her with an honorary bugle. Bette recorded other Andrews Sisters