Jazz Articles about Peggy Lee

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Peggy Lee: Basin Street and Beyond

by Samuel Chell
March 31, 2009

Six classic albums from the vocalist Peggy Lee catch her at the height of her powers. One or two of these discs may be hard to find in 2009, but the effort of tracking them down, if successful, will be amply repaid.

Peggy Lee Basin Street EastBlue Note 1995

Like the LPs Ellington at Newport 1956 and Beauty and the Beat (in reference to singer Peggy Lee and pianist George Shearing), Basin ...

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Peggy Lee: Black Coffee

by David Rickert
November 19, 2004

"A Woman Alone With the Blues" features sparse piano, whispering drums, and a mournful trumpet lurking in the background. But it's the vocals that really push it over the edge. Peggy Lee doesn't sing this song; she crawls into it and huddles in the dark spaces, as she does on virtually all of the songs on 1956's Black Coffee.

Lee got her start with Benny Goodman churning out hits like “Why Don't You Do Right." She used her ...

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Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, and the Popular Singer

by Marshall Bowden
February 17, 2002

This article first appeared on All About Jazz in February 2002. Peggy Lee, the singer whose lightly husky voice sang “Why Don't You Do Right?" and many other saloon songs (as Frank Sinatra would no doubt call them) passed away January 21, 2002 at the age of 81. Born Norma Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, she headed to Hollywood, where she was a failure in her first $2 a night gig. She returned to North Dakota where she ...

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Peggy Lee: The Complete Peggy Lee & June Christy Capitol Transcription Sessions

by Dave Nathan
July 1, 2000

Mosaic Records, for more than 15 years the purveyors of fine limited edition albums, has issued a 5-CD set of transcriptions made by June Christy and Peggy Lee for Capitol. From the 30's to the early 50's, radio stations needed additional music to put together programs featuring specific artists, mostly big bands and vocalists. Record companies were reluctant to provide copies of their commercial releases feeling that if the public could hear them on the radio, they wouldn't go out ...