{"id":652,"date":"2013-01-17T17:41:44","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T17:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peggylee.com\/wp\/?p=652"},"modified":"2021-08-04T10:19:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:19:27","slug":"peggy-sets-a-feverish-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/peggy-sets-a-feverish-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"Peggy Sets a Feverish Pace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Don Bailer<\/p>\n

Draw up your chairs, chillun, and we will now discuss Peggy Lee\u2019s fever. Actually, she has two of them. One is going up, one is going down. One is on a record, the other is on a chart..<\/p>\n

I can tell by the look on your faces you aren\u2019t following me, so we\u2019ll start over.<\/p>\n

Peggy has two fevers. One is her latest record zoom, “Fever,” which is threatening the thermometer of top sellers in a national epidemic.<\/p>\n

The other one is “glandular fever,” a bug which belts determinedly ambitious people who work too hard like Peggy does \u2013 sort of a purposeful people eater.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the one that\u2019s going down. The doctor says she can get out of bed and go back to work in about two weeks.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the current status of Peggy\u2019s two fevers. One, you see, is pretty far-in-height. The other is just center-grade. In another couple of weeks it won\u2019t even be around to any degree.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, “Fever,” the record, continues to confound and flabbergast lesser musical medicos than Miss Lee.<\/p>\n

“What\u2019s a song like that doing on the bestseller list?” they query each other. “Sure it\u2019s great, but this is rock \u2018n\u2019 roll market..<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a blues type of song,” she points out. “it has a moderate tempo, but a very intense tempo, a good, simple, basic rhythm.<\/p>\n

“Take a look at the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll stuff and see why it has appeal for young people. It appeals because it stresses simple, basic rhythm. They can get up and dance to it. They may not pay attention to, or even know, the words. It\u2019s the rhythm.<\/p>\n

“The young people, and anyone else for that matter, will respond to good songs if they have a basic good rhythm.”<\/p>\n

“Fever” illustrates her point in more ways that one, because it was taken away from the rock \u2018n\u2019 rollers.<\/p>\n

About November of last year, bass player Max Bennett came to Peggy and said he wanted her to hear a song, a real bang-away rock \u2018n\u2019 roll version of “Fever” \u2013 but which he said had a great bass line, that basic roadbed upon which a song is built.<\/p>\n

They then sat down and stripped the song to the bass line \u2013 and rebuilt it a la Lee.<\/p>\n

If you can stand to dissect the lovely thing when you listen to it, you\u2019ll find that Peggy\u2019s accompaniment amounts to a total of a drum, a bass and fingers, those provocatively snappy fingers.<\/p>\n

There is a progression through three keys during the number, which builds a more intense feeling each time the key changes.<\/p>\n

Just those ingredients \u2013 and that “very definite, very simple sense of rhythm” \u2013 sent Peggy\u2019s “Fever” into orbit around the nation\u2019s record spindles \u2013 flying right in the face of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll faddism. Another Peggy Lee smash.<\/p>\n

Forgive the spirit of ho-hum, but successes have become so commonplace with her.<\/p>\n

Probably her best seller of all time, “Why Don\u2019t You Do Right?,” which actually is considered a “Benny Goodman record” rather than a Peggy Lee record, was made back in 1943. That was a top seller for three years and still sells.<\/p>\n

Then there was “Ma\u00f1ana,” which sold nearly two million; “It\u2019s a Good Day,” which passed a million; “Lover” and “Golden Earrings,” and on into some 300 songs she has recorded.<\/p>\n

In her spare time she composes things like the lyrics for Lady and the Tramp<\/em>, the theme songs for Johnny Guitar<\/em> and About Mrs. Leslie<\/em>, book and music for George Pal\u2019s tom thumb<\/em> and the theme for Pal\u2019s version of H. G. Wells\u2019 The Time Machine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And in spare, spare time she does things like write verses for commercial greeting cards and \u2013 well, on doctor\u2019s orders, she had to stay in bed the past couple weeks, and here what she\u2019s done \u2013 in bed yet:<\/p>\n

She\u2019s written one short story and started on two others; she\u2019s written a new lyric and a series of hand-clapping-type spirituals for inclusion in at least two, possibly three, new albums she has been working on \u2013 from bed \u2013 with Capitol Records.<\/p>\n

Outside of that she hasn\u2019t done a thing except two oil paintings and a piece of clay sculpture, but then, of course, she\u2019s supposed to be resting. Fever, you know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Don Bailer Draw up your chairs, chillun, and we will now discuss Peggy Lee\u2019s fever. Actually, she has two of them. One is going up, one is going down. One is on a record, the other is on a chart.. I can tell by the look on your faces[…]<\/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-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library"],"yoast_head":"\nPeggy Sets a Feverish Pace - 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\/peggy-sets-a-feverish-pace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peggy Sets a Feverish Pace - Peggy Lee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Don Bailer Draw up your chairs, chillun, and we will now discuss Peggy Lee\u2019s fever. 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