{"id":1031,"date":"2013-01-18T09:33:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T09:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peggylee.com\/wp\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2021-08-04T10:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:19:22","slug":"peggy-lee-lyricist-composer-and-singer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/peggy-lee-lyricist-composer-and-singer\/","title":{"rendered":"Peggy Lee \u2013 Lyricist, Composer, and Singer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Amy Lee<\/p>\n

Peggy Lee came into the sitting room of her Waldorf Towers suite in flowered pajamas, her blond-blond hair parted in the middle and tied in two pigtails with fat white cotton cord. It was the same beautiful face belonging to the sophisticated singer of “Fever,” “Hallelujah, I Love Him So,” “Golden Earrings” and a thousand other songs cherished by TV watchers, record collectors, jazz buffs. The face that brings whistles and sighs, yet, here, so ice-cream-and-cake, so girl-you-knew-at-school.<\/p>\n

She apologized for being late \u2013 the thousand things \u2013 gowns, phones, hair. “This is infinity,” she said, sitting down on a small sofa. It was past mid-afternoon. Lamps were on, creating the illusion of half-dark daytime in which performers go through their offstage routines. “I wonder sometimes how I can go out there and say \u2018la.\u2019”<\/p>\n

Quite beyond \u2018la,\u2019 for her spring appearance in the Waldorf\u2019s Empire Room Peggy Lee sang 32 numbers nightly, 16 in each hour-and-over show. With an 18-piece band behind her (“three guitars, not just for rhythm but playing lines and figurations”) she sang the Peggy Lee gamut: from numbers in her current Capitol album (A Natural Woman, ST-183) that have her singing urgent new-old messages in the urgent rock-folk-gospel style \u2013 and to which her subtly plaintive voice can so naturally adapt \u2013 to her first great hit as vocalist with the Benny Goodman band, “Why Don\u2019t You Do Right?”<\/p>\n

“Everyone thinks I wrote that. I didn\u2019t. Lil Green wrote it. She was a blues singer from the Bessie Smith days. I used to play her record over and over backstage at the Paramount. After a week, Benny finally noticed and made some profound remark like, \u2018I guess you like that.\u2019”<\/p>\n

He could have said the same thing a few years earlier to teenage Peggy Lee, had he been in Balboa, California, to see her putting her hard-saved nickels in a jukebox to play her favorite Benny Goodman record, “Don\u2019t Be That Way.”<\/p>\n

“That was my one treat,” she said of the early California hard times.<\/p>\n

Just out of high school, and with $18 and hope, Peggy Lee, nee Norma Deloris Egstrom, had left Jamestown, North Dakota, to get a singing job in Hollywood. The one she got was brief and led to no fame and no fortune. A non-singing job had brought her to Balboa and the jukebox. There she met two musicians and sang for them.<\/p>\n

“They were impressed that I could sing Gershwin and Kern.” It was recognition but of no cash value.<\/p>\n

Gershwin and Kern, along with her favorite singers Maxine Sullivan and Bing Crosby, she had heard on the radio back home. “I always had my ear on the radio.”<\/p>\n

Listening and singing were as much a part of Peggy\u2019s growing up as the chores she shared with her brothers and sisters, keeping house for their widowed father, a railroad agent. Her debut as a singer came at age four.<\/p>\n

“I sang with several other children at a Lutheran church. Something about an olive branch. I was so nervous I clutched the skirt of the kid next to me and began rolling it up.” Her hands clutched and rolled up an imaginary skirt. “She was crying and trying to pull it down. I got panicky when it came to my turn to sing. I don\u2019t remember whether I sang or not.”<\/p>\n

“I had my first professional job at 14. I\u2019d been singing in glee clubs, but this time I got paid, so I was a professional. And I sang with a territory band. Remember those? It was a great experience.”<\/p>\n

She smiled. “Anyone who gets out of there should have a diploma.”<\/p>\n

Miss Lee\u2019s “diploma” came, after her teen-age return from Hollywood, via a singing spot on radio station WDAY, Fargo, which led to other radio dates and hotel appearances, and eventually to the Goodman band, the start of the fame and fortune still piling up. A two-year contract that will gross about $1 million brings her into the new International Hotel, Las Vegas, for several appearances, starting with a four-week engagement for the grand opening July 2.<\/p>\n

The pigtailed blonde on the sofa, with her Scandinavian milk-and-fresh-bread look, said, “I feel sorry for kids today. They have all this tension. They don\u2019t know how to do the most basic things, like giving a birthday party, or bobbing for apples. They don\u2019t know how much fun these things are. I had a family that was \u2013 I guess \u2013 old-fashioned.<\/p>\n

Peggy Lee\u2019s North Dakota childhood taught her lessons of work and discipline that, applied to her many talents, have put her not only into the Hall of Fame of her home state but also into that music hall of fame with the Sinatras, the Crosbys, the Ellas, the Billie Holidays, and onto the all-time hit parade.<\/p>\n

As lyricist and composer she has collaborated with Dave Barbour (“Ma\u00f1ana,” “It\u2019s a Good Day,” “I Don\u2019t Know Enough About You”) Victor Young (“Where Can I Go without You?,” and themes from the films Johnny Guitar and About Mrs. Leslie), Sonny Burke (score of Walt Disney\u2019s Lady and the Tramp), Quincy Jones (“Happy Feet” and “Stay with Me” in the Cary Grant film Walk, Don\u2019t Run), Johnny Pisano from the Tijuana Brass (“So What\u2019s New?”). She wrote the lyrics for the theme of The Russians Are Coming, and has recently received a bid to collaborate with songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen.<\/p>\n

One of her tunes, “Lean on Me,” written with guitarist Mundell Lowe and pianist Mike Melvoin, shares the tracks \u2013 and contemporary beat and mood \u2013 of her new album with such fare as Randy Newman\u2019s “I Think It\u2019s Gonna Rain Today,” Otis Redding\u2019s “The Dock of the Bay,” and “Spinning Wheel,” associated with the Blood, Sweat and Tears group.<\/p>\n

About music today she said: “After all the confusion, the hard rock, the attitude, I think it\u2019s going to be better. Young musicians will do better things. They are already.” The measure of her judgment is her own perfectionist standards. In October, TV viewers will get some idea of those standards when Miss Lee\u2019s demonstration of how she prepares for a performance is telecast over the National Educational Television network.<\/p>\n

For refreshment she paints. For good purpose, also. “Paintings are so good for charity. They can be auctioned.” In May she contributed several paintings for a benefit for retarded children in Los Angeles. For the dedication of the Hollywood Museum in 1962 she contributed 10 works of art. She has been cited for cultural service by the Los Angeles City Council and the American Federation of Musicians.<\/p>\n

“My things are impressionistic, I guess you\u2019d say. New York is my favorite subject. Now I\u2019m painting small things, flowers in bowls, happy things.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Amy Lee Peggy Lee came into the sitting room of her Waldorf Towers suite in flowered pajamas, her blond-blond hair parted in the middle and tied in two pigtails with fat white cotton cord. 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