{"id":1039,"date":"2013-01-18T09:48:18","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T09:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peggylee.com\/wp\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2021-08-04T10:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:19:22","slug":"roy-hemming-interviews-peggy-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/roy-hemming-interviews-peggy-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Hemming Interviews Peggy Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Roy Hemming<\/p>\n

You can count on one hand the number of singers who were popular 20 or 25 years ago and who still are \u2013 especially with “the kids” who determine the Top 40. Peggy Lee is one of them.<\/p>\n

Last year she won a Grammy award for her hit recording of “Is That All There Is?” It was just one of many million-sellers she\u2019s made (and sometimes written) since her first hit, “Why Don\u2019t You Do Right?” with Benny Goodman\u2019s orchestra back in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s kept her on top? A uniquely warm and communicative style, to begin with. Also an ability to do more than keep up with changing trends, but to recognize the best of the newcomers and new things. That\u2019s why Peggy was singing the songs of the Beatles, Jim Webb, Randy Newman and others long before everyone else got on their bandwagons. As composer-arranger Johnny Mandel has said: “Peggy is one of the few singers who can bridge the generation gap without making it sound like a tree graft.”<\/p>\n

Senior\u2019s Ray Hemming interviews Miss Lee for us in New York.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most significant change you\u2019ve seen in American music over the past few decades?<\/p>\n

Getting back to the roots, to music that people can feel and relate to. During the era of progressive jazz that followed the Big Bands era, music started to take a free form that didn\u2019t really allow the proper communication between musician and audience. There was nothing to dance to. Unless you were a musician, you couldn\u2019t relate to it. It got out of touch \u2013 and the young people, especially, turned away. Then came rock, rough rock at first. It had a beat. It went back to the old blues, the old work songs. Then it went through a process of refining, and made some beautiful turns. Folk songs have also taken beautiful turns. And country \u2018n\u2019 western. We used to think of it as hillbilly; now it\u2019s being brought out with the proper respect. It\u2019s quite sophisticated. And lyrics today are saying so much more than they used to.<\/p>\n

In what ways, specifically?<\/p>\n

I think the biggest is in all the social comment. That\u2019s something we used to steer away from before. Then, I think you the freer form of today\u2019s songs means you\u2019re not limited to clever rhymes. There\u2019s more warmth and earthiness and honesty about lyrics today. Before, so many of them were just slick, or just clever for the sake of being clever.<\/p>\n

You mentioned social comment. A lot of people, of course, immediately ask: What gives performers special qualifications to comment on social and political conditions? Do they have the background, the understanding of everything they\u2019re saying?<\/p>\n

I have to say that a lot of them don\u2019t really understand all the ramifications. But it\u2019s they way they feel, and they have a right to express it. Maybe later they might feel differently, as I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve felt differently at one time about a subject than you may have later on when life sort of straightened out a few curves or gave you a few others. But for myself, I don\u2019t like to get that political \u2013 so the things I choose to sing are not that. I wish for peace, too, but I march in a different way.<\/p>\n

Do you listen to other singers\u2019 records regularly?<\/p>\n

I listen to Tony Bennett, Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, Blood Sweat and Tears, Sergio Mendes, Ray Charles. I could go on and on. Then I like to change the whole diet \u2013 like classical things\u2026<\/p>\n

Who would you say are the five or six pop singers you most respect in the world today?<\/p>\n

(After a pause.) My favorite color is plaid. No, let\u2019s not have me make enemies on that one.<\/p>\n

OK, then have there been any singers in your time who haven\u2019t gotten the breaks you felt they deserved?<\/p>\n

David Allen, I think.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most important thing you feel you can tell someone who wants to be a singer \u2013 someone who\u2019s now in high school?<\/p>\n

To learn everything they can by listening and by studying \u2013 and to get as much stage experience as they can. Very often there\u2019ll be a hit record, and the performer can\u2019t follow through and handle himself or herself well on stage. I mean they should work a little more on presentation.<\/p>\n

How would you define the means you\u2019ve used to stay on top for such a long time?<\/p>\n

I really think it\u2019s loving music. And just loving life. When you love something you work to know all about it.<\/p>\n

But how do you always get there first? You were singing Ray Charles\u2019 songs even before he himself hit it big. You were among the first to recognize the Beatles and Randy Newman. What\u2019s your secret?<\/p>\n

Maybe the answer would be the same as, you know, having a God-given talent to sing \u2013 an ear to hear. Maybe that\u2019s it. And being interested. And looking underneath the lyric to see what it says.<\/p>\n

Is there anything I\u2019ve not asked you, directed toward young people or about them, that you\u2019d like to comment on?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot I\u2019d like to say, but I don\u2019t know how to condense it. I guess I just wish a lot of them would stop complaining and protesting so much and do something. There\u2019s so much that individuals can do about whatever is bothering them \u2013 pollution, race relations, everything. Sure, the older generation has made a mess of lots of things. But I wish more young people would try to show us how to do better, not just complain about it. Sure it\u2019s harder. And it is a pretty frightening time we live in. Everything moves so fast. To try to absorb all that and think about what they\u2019re going to do about their life, that\u2019s difficult. But if they\u2019d just take a step at a time, they\u2019d find there\u2019s so much they can do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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