That she was a most extraordinary talent was the impression I got while reading up on Peggy and listening to her music last week. Peggy is one of those incredible girl singers that I turn to when Britney and Westlife become too much for me to handle. Her CDs are ever handy in a niche she shares with Ella, Judy, Billie, Jane, Sarah and Rosemary. They all have great voices, impeccable phrasing and that very personal way of performing a song that makes it doubly expressive. Not one of them sounds like another, Peggy most of all.
My favorite is The Peggy Lee Songbook: There’ll Be Another Spring. This is a 1990 compilation of her recording of her own compositions. Some I’ve never heard before like the lovely Circle in the Sky and Over the Wheel. Others though have become classics like Where Can I Go without You, There’ll Be Another Spring, He’s a Tramp and the song with which she made the transition into the pop realm of the ’60s Fever. Peggy wrote the lyrics of that Grammy nominated song, which even Elvis Presley chose to cover.
The album amazes because despite the years the arrangements do not sound dated at all. Truly incredible is Peggy Lee’s singing. She whispers. She purrs. But she drops no notes nor a syllable. Every song comes out perfect. Showbiz lore says she came across her unique singing style when she was performing in clubs where the patrons preferred to listen to themselves talk than to the singer. So what Peggy did was to lower the volume of her voice until her audience was forced to keep quiet in order to hear what she was singing. And they liked what they heard. So much so that Peggy Lee soon became a top vocalist and jazz artist and remained so for more than 50 years.
Peggy started singing with Benny Goodman during the big band era. Her first hit happened in 1942, with her own composition Why Don’t You Do Right? The song was one of the first recordings to sell over a million copies in the history of popular music. This was followed by more hits over the years. Another million seller in Golden Earrings, You was Right Baby, It’s a Good Day, What More than a Woman Do? I Don’t Know Enough About You, I’m a Woman, Lover, Pass Me By, Where or When, The Way You Look Tonight, Cest Magnifique, Is That All There is, Big Spender and others. Manana, another one of her own works, set a record when it sold more than two million copies in 1948. This stayed unbroken until the ’60s when four mop-topped boys from Liverpool invaded America.
Aside from Lady and the Tramp, she also wrote songs for other films like Johnny Guitar, that starred Joan Crawford, About Mrs. Leslie, Johnny Trouble, The Bullfighter and the Lady, The Rawhide Years, Anatomy of a Murder, Joyhouse, The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, Walk Don’t Run, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Rider on the Run, and The Nickel Ride. As an actress, she starred in The Jazz Singer for which she also wrote the theme song. This is a Very Special Day and Pete Kelly’s Blues for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She was nominated for several Grammys and won one for Vocal Performance for Is That All There Is? in 1969.
Peggy Lee passed away last Jan. 22 at 81. She died of heart attack in her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles.