{"id":1020,"date":"2013-01-18T09:04:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T09:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peggylee.com\/wp\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2021-08-04T10:19:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:19:24","slug":"parsimonious-peggy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/","title":{"rendered":"Parsimonious Peggy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

author unknown<\/p>\n

You had plenty money nineteen twenty-two;
\nYou let other women make a fool of you;
\nWhy don\u2019t you do right, like some other men do?<\/em><\/p>\n

It has been a quarter of a century since a shy blonde our of Jamestown, North Dakota (real name: Norma Egstrom) sang that lament with Benny Goodman\u2019s band. She did right \u2013 and made plenty money. The intervening years have brought her smash hit records (“Lover,” “Fever”), success as a songwriter (“Ma\u00f1ana,” “It\u2019s a Good Day”), an Academy Award nomination as an actress (Pete Kelly\u2019s Blues), ardent fans (ranging from Duke Ellington to Rudolf Nureyev), and top nightclub engagements at $25,000 a week. They have also brought her serious illness and four divorces. But last week, as she finished a three-week stand at Manhattan\u2019s Copacabana, she wore it all with a light, insouciant snap of the fingers and a knowing smile. And her performance was, as always, socko.<\/p>\n

A lavish spender in private life, Peggy Lee hoards her musical resources, parceling them out with a parsimony that makes every jot count. Her sound, never big or brassy, is growing thin at the top and breathy at the bottom. So she spends her notes in the same way that dispossessed nobility lives on a dwindling income: with frugal selectivity but stylish aplomb. As she puts on weight, it becomes a little easier \u2013 but only a little \u2013 to believe that she is 47 and a grandmother. So she tones her act down to a quieter hush, focuses her emotions in an even narrower hypnotic beam, and makes the lifting of an eyebrow do what other singers strike poses to accomplish. “If I tried to be a vamp and manufacture sexiness, I\u2019d really be funny,” she says. “Anything that\u2019s forced comes over fake.”<\/p>\n

Nothing is forced in her performance. Strain only shows offstage, when she takes long rests, sits in her dressing room in a wheelchair to ease the pain of a crushed disk in her back, and dismisses visitors with the sigh, “I must do my breathing now.” Since pneumonia damaged her lungs in 1961, she has had to inflate them several times a day with a pressurized oxygen tank that accompanies her everywhere. (She calls it “Charlie.”)<\/p>\n

Her appearances are fastidiously staged and rehearsed from a black loose-leaf notebook that programs every musical sequence, every lighting cue, even every hand gesture. Even more important to her than the craft of show biz is the art of the popular song. Over the years, she has learned the arcane alchemy through which a tune can be transformed by its treatment. When her warm, smoky voice curls languidly around a lyric or teases it along with up-tempo jazz phrasing, familiar material reveals unsuspected meanings and yields new freshets of feeling. “There are always deeper layers to discover in a song,” she says. “That\u2019s why I\u2019m never bored.” Neither are her listeners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

author unknown You had plenty money nineteen twenty-two; You let other women make a fool of you; Why don\u2019t you do right, like some other men do? It has been a quarter of a century since a shy blonde our of Jamestown, North Dakota (real name: Norma Egstrom) sang that[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library"],"yoast_head":"\nParsimonious Peggy - Peggy Lee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parsimonious Peggy - Peggy Lee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"author unknown You had plenty money nineteen twenty-two; You let other women make a fool of you; Why don\u2019t you do right, like some other men do? It has been a quarter of a century since a shy blonde our of Jamestown, North Dakota (real name: Norma Egstrom) sang that[...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Peggy Lee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/misspeggylee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-18T09:04:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-04T14:19:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Peggy-Lee-og.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Torresen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"David Torresen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5858c3f21b8ac2572f3ad6d6ee48255d\"},\"headline\":\"Parsimonious Peggy\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-18T09:04:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-04T14:19:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\"},\"wordCount\":492,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Library\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\",\"name\":\"Parsimonious Peggy - Peggy Lee\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-18T09:04:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-04T14:19:24+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Parsimonious Peggy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/\",\"name\":\"Peggy Lee\",\"description\":\"The Official Site of Miss Peggy Lee\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Peggy Lee Associates\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/pl-org-logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/pl-org-logo.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":600,\"caption\":\"Peggy Lee Associates\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/misspeggylee\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/peggyleeofficial\/?hl=en\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCWfdzpDGBCOOWxWVR0fLVNw\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5858c3f21b8ac2572f3ad6d6ee48255d\",\"name\":\"David Torresen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf99d02cc4058c2b1b9997b7edc241ed8e9f4dae28767f8380afcd571571e329?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf99d02cc4058c2b1b9997b7edc241ed8e9f4dae28767f8380afcd571571e329?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"David Torresen\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/author\/dtorresen\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Parsimonious Peggy - Peggy Lee","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Parsimonious Peggy - Peggy Lee","og_description":"author unknown You had plenty money nineteen twenty-two; You let other women make a fool of you; Why don\u2019t you do right, like some other men do? It has been a quarter of a century since a shy blonde our of Jamestown, North Dakota (real name: Norma Egstrom) sang that[...]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/","og_site_name":"Peggy Lee","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/misspeggylee\/","article_published_time":"2013-01-18T09:04:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-08-04T14:19:24+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":630,"url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Peggy-Lee-og.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"David Torresen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/"},"author":{"name":"David Torresen","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5858c3f21b8ac2572f3ad6d6ee48255d"},"headline":"Parsimonious Peggy","datePublished":"2013-01-18T09:04:51+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-04T14:19:24+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/"},"wordCount":492,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Library"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/","url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/","name":"Parsimonious Peggy - Peggy Lee","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-01-18T09:04:51+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-04T14:19:24+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/parsimonious-peggy\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Parsimonious Peggy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/","name":"Peggy Lee","description":"The Official Site of Miss Peggy Lee","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#organization","name":"Peggy Lee Associates","url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/pl-org-logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/pl-org-logo.jpg","width":600,"height":600,"caption":"Peggy Lee Associates"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/misspeggylee\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/peggyleeofficial\/?hl=en","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCWfdzpDGBCOOWxWVR0fLVNw"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5858c3f21b8ac2572f3ad6d6ee48255d","name":"David Torresen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf99d02cc4058c2b1b9997b7edc241ed8e9f4dae28767f8380afcd571571e329?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf99d02cc4058c2b1b9997b7edc241ed8e9f4dae28767f8380afcd571571e329?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"David Torresen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/author\/dtorresen\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}