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Peggy Lee
More than two decades have passed since Peggy Lee sang with Benny Goodman’s swing band and made her first hit recording. Yet so inexhaustible is her talent and so intense her application to her work that, almost a generation later, she stands at the peak of her career. A product of the big-band era, she derived from that apprenticeship her ability to sing anything from jazz to blues, to sing it with a beat, and with enough volume to be heard above the band. Few vocalists have had her staying power. Peggy Lee is also a successful composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, and businesswoman. To all her careers she brings a perfectionism that leaves the stamp of professionalism on everything she touches.
Of Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, a farm town on the Great Plains, on May 26, 1920. She was the seventh of eight children born to Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad, and Mrs. Egstrom, who died when the child was four years old. Encouraged by the recognition she had received for her singing with the high school glee club, the church choir, and semi-professional college bands, Norma headed for Hollywood after she graduated from high school in 1938. With her she took $18 in cash and a railroad pass she had borrowed from her father. Although she got a brief singing engagement at the Jade Room, a supper club on Hollywood Boulevard, she made little impression on the film capital, and she was reduced to working as a waitress and as a carnival spieler at a Balboa midway.
Deciding to try her luck nearer home, she found work as a singer over radio station WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, whose manager, Ken Kennedy, christened her Peggy Lee. (To supplement her income she worked for a time as a bread slicer in a Fargo bakery.) Her prospects for a career brightened when she moved to Minneapolis, where she sang in the dining room of the Radisson Hotel, appeared on a Standard Oil radio show, and sang with Sev Olsen’s band. Miss Lee broke into the big time when she became a vocalist with Will Osborne’s band, but three months after she joined the group it broke up in St. Louis, and she got a ride to California with the manager.
It was at the Doll House in Palm Springs, California that Peggy Lee first developed the soft and "cool" style that has become her trademark. Unable to shout above the clamor of the Doll House audience, Miss Lee tried to snare its attention by lowering her voice. The softer she sang the quieter the audience became. She has never forgotten the secret, and it has given her style its distinctive combination of the delicate and the driving, the husky and the purringly seductive. One of the members of the Doll House audience was Frank Bering, the owner of Chicago’s Ambassador West Hotel, who invited her to sing in his establishment’s Buttery Room.
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New Releases By Ellie Lee, Kerry Politzer, the Jihye Lee Orchestra, Peggy Lee and Miles Davis Share A Birthday & More
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast includes new releases from Ellie Lee, Natasha Blackwood, Lauren Henderson, Kerry Politzer, John Ambrosini and the Jihye Lee Orchestra, with birthday shoutouts to Peggy Lee, Miles Davis, Fats Waller, Carmen Souza, Cynthia Sayer, Denise Donatelli, Sheryl Bailey and Darcy James Argue, among others. Happy listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire.Playlist Gabriel Mark Hasselbach I'm Gonna ...
Continue ReadingNew Releases, Birthday Celebrations For Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Miles Davis & More
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast includes new releases from Gretchen Parlato & Lionel Loueke, Walter Bishop Jr., Ellie Martin, Edward Simon, The JM Jazz World Orchestra, plus birthday shoutouts to Peggy Lee, Yoko Miwa, Caity Gyorgy, Rosemary Clooney, Nadje Noordhuis and Miles Davis among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire.Playlist Krasno Moore Project (Eric Krasno, Stanton Moore) ...
Continue ReadingSara Schoenbeck: Sara Schoenbeck
by Karl Ackermann
Sara Schoenbeck is cast against type in the world of bassoonists. The versatile double reed, broad-ranged instrument dates to the Renaissance and is commonly found in wind ensembles and chamber orchestras. But Schoenbeck has brought her classical-leaning instrument to creative music in an electrifying body of work. Her self-titled leader debut is the first such project of her career. A series of nine duets allows Schoenbeck to fully explore the scope of the bassoon in close settings. Not ...
Continue ReadingSinging and Plinkin'
by Patrick Burnette
We look at two lesser known vocalists tonight and two fairly obscure pianists, and things turn out pretty well if it wasn't for that darn echo. What's going on in the Riverside studios, anyway? At some point, the episode turns into a trivia show, but at the last minute, John Cale turns up to set things right and Pat gets a few words in edgewise about the jny: Denver jazz scene.PlaylistDiscussion of Mike Nock's album Climbing ...
Continue ReadingPeggy Lee: A Century Of Song
by Ian Patterson
Peggy Lee: A Century Of Song Tish Oney 250 pages ISBN: 978-1-5381-2847-3 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2020 A Century of Song marks the centenary of Peggy Lee's birth, but coming eighteen years after her death, the title is a reminder of the enduring legacy of one of the twentieth century's greatest singers. Few are as qualified as Tish Oney to evaluate Lee's music and career. An internationally renowned jazz singer, pianist and ...
Continue ReadingI Love Being Here With You - Happy 100th Birthday to Miss Peggy Lee
by Mary Foster Conklin
The final broadcast of the month included new releases from Sherrie Maricle and the 3D Jazz Trio, Kari van der Kloot, Shelly Rudolph and Tania Grubbs, with birthday shout-outs to Peggy Lee (100 !), saxophonist Adison Evans, pianist Yoko Miwa, trumpeters Clora Bryant, Miles Davis and Samantha Boshnack. Thanks for listening and please continue supporting all of these fine musicians online, and buying their recordings in this time of lockdown. Playlist Adison Evans The Parking Song" from Meridian ...
Continue Reading"I Don't Know Enough About You" By Dave Barbour And Peggy Lee
by Tish Oney
The centennial year of another music icon has arrived. In celebrating the one hundredth birthdays of our musical forbears (as has become quite vogue in recent years), we pay special tribute to the catalogs of recordings, original works, and rich performances each has left as a legacy. This past week we celebrated the centennial birthday of American music pioneer Peggy Lee. As intricately detailed in my forthcoming book Peggy Lee: A Century of Song, Lee's prolific legacy included 1100 recorded ...
Continue ReadingVideos: Peggy Lee in Action
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday I didn't get done nearly as much as I needed to and it's Peggy Lee's fault. I watched one of her YouTube videos, and then one thing led to the next and today I have to work twice as hard. The good news for you is that my distraction resulted in today's post. Enjoy these clips of the powdery, irrepressibly upbeat, fiercely savvy and shrewdly swinging Miss fPeggy Lee: Here's Lee in 1950 with then husband, guitarist Dave Barbour... ...
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'Peggy Lee: A Century of Song' by Tish Oney, Available June 2020 - Pre-Order Now.
Source:
All About Jazz
One hundred years after the singer’s birth, Peggy Lee: A Century of Song brings to life the eventful career of an iconic performer whose contributions to the Great American Songbook, jazz, popular music, and film music remained unparalleled. Lee stood out among her peers as an exquisite singer possessing a cool vocal style, a songwriter frequently collaborating with leading composers of American jazz and film music, and a globally-loved entertainer with star quality. Tish Oney sheds new light upon this ...
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Videos: Freewheeling Peggy Lee
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
When Peggy Lee wasn't stuffed into elaborate ball gowns with cinched waists and forced to appear on TV with a glazed, ice- queen expression, she could be downright soulful and bluesy. Personally, I never cared much for Fever or any of the other hyper-stylized slow-burn songs that turned Lee into an emotionless caricature of herself. I much more prefer the down-and-dirty Peggy Lee, the emotional earthy singer who let it all out. Here are five videos of the Peggy Lee ...
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Peggy Lee: Jan. 1945
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
When did Peggy Lee become Peggy Lee? Meaning, at what point in her recording career did she cross over from a straight reader of songs to someone who was keenly hip and aware of her sly seductive powers when delivering songs? Today, we're most familiar with latter Lee, the woman with the hourglass figure in the 1940s and '50s cooly in control of her facial features as she cast a spell on viewers by moving her eyes from left to ...
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Peggy Lee: CBS Radio Sessions
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In June 1951, Peggy Lee began hosting her own radio show on CBS. She appeared on the national network twice weekly—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—for a total of 89 episodes before her stint ended in November 1952. The first 42 episodes of The Peggy Lee Show ran from June 1951 until May 1952 and were broadcast from New York, directed by Russ Case, who worked with Perry Como. Lee's marriage to guitarist Dave Barbour was fizzling in jny: Los Angeles, so ...
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Jazz Legend Peggy Lee to be Memorialized by Her Childhood Hometown (Wimbledon, North Dakota)
Source:
Michael Bloom Media Relations
(May 18, 2012 - Wimbledon, ND) World-renowned jazz legend Miss Peggy Lee is being memorialized by her childhood hometown of Wimbledon, North Dakota with a permanent installation of photos, music and memorabilia from her unparalleled career at the transportation depot where she lived a number of years as a child. The exhibition will be dedicated at a Grand Opening ceremony attended by Lee's grandchildren on Saturday, May 26, which would have been the singer's 92nd birthday. When Lee was a ...
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Celebrating Peggy Lee's 91st Birthday - Capitol/EMI To Digitally Debut 22 Classic Albums
Source:
Keyboard
CAPITOL/EMI TO DIGITALLY DEBUT 22 CLASSIC PEGGY LEE ALBUMS COMMEMORATING MUSIC & FILM LEGEND'S 91ST BIRTHDAY On Tuesday, May 24, Capitol/EMI will commemorate what would have been Peggy Lee's 91st birthday on May 26 by digitally releasing 22 classic albums from the legendary singer's Capitol Records catalog for the first time, including several out-of-print titles. The albums will be available for download purchase from all major digital service providers. Praised for her distinctive and sophisticated singing style, Peggy Lee is ...
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"Fever" Singer Peggy Lee is Hot Again
Source:
All About Jazz
Perhaps best known for her smooth, sultry 1958 cover of the rhythm-and-blues hit Fever," Peggy Lee has returned to the Billboard" Top 200 album chart hit for the first time since 1970. Lee died in 2002. Music buyers still have the fever for Peggy Lee.
Perhaps best known for her smooth, sultry 1958 cover of the rhythm-and-blues hit Fever," the late pop-jazz singer, songwriter and actress has returned to the Billboard" Top 200 album chart hit for the first time ...
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Collectors' Choice Reissues More Rare Peggy Lee Albums
Source:
Michael Bloom Media Relations
COLLECTORS' CHOICE REISSUES MORE RARE PEGGY LEE ALBUMS TWO SHOWS NIGHTLY and LET'S LOVE To Be Released January 26 TWO SHOWS NIGHTLY Perhaps the most famous album in the Peggy Lee canon is one that few people have ever heard! Culled from three nights of a three-week April run at New York's Copacabana in 1968, during which Lee played two shows per night (and three on Saturday), blending in contemporary songs with old favorites to rave reviews. Two Shows Nightly" ...
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Dee Bell
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vocalsFrancesca Rasta
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vocalsMonika Ryan
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vocalsKate Curran
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vocalsSusie Smooth Duo Patman
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vocalsKim Maguire
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vocalsJackie Lopez
vocalsDarcy Cooke
vocalsHeather Soles
vocalsShyli Madhala
vocalsMelinda Rose Rodriguez
vocalsLura
vocalsStardust Big Band
band / ensemble / orchestraLiz Cracchiolo
vocalsCrystal Clulee
vocalsEve Minor
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Cucamonga
From: Knights of Swing (Music from...By Peggy Lee