Videos: Peggy Lee in Action

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...



Here's Lee in 1954 singing For You...



Here's Lee in the late 1950s singing Misty. Watch how Lee worked her eyes, from left to right and back, a clever animating style akin to the way a freestyle swimmer takes breaths...



Here's Lee in 1959 in a spectacular clip that went missing from YouTube for years but popped back in 2020. The pianists from top to bottom are Paul Smith, George Shearing and Joe Bushkin. Stop and think how many A-list pros are on the screen at once...



Here's Lee again in 1959, on the Dinah Shore Show singing a duet with Shore, who also was a master at making singing live on TV look easy...



Here's a nifty duet with Lee and Judy Garland on Garland's early 1960s TV show...



Here's Lee in 1962 singing The Best Is Yet to Come. So strange how dancers behind singers were a thing on TV variety shows in the late 1950s and early '60s, and then they weren't. Watch Lee's hands here. Like Joe Stafford, her right hand was almost like the phonograph needle on a record...



Here's Lee in 1965. Watch as she slips into character at the start of the song. And so great the camera is up close to see all of her features in action...



Here's Lee in 1966 singing So What's New?, with Artie Kane on organ...



Here's Lee in 1966 singing The Shining Sea, with words by Lee and music by  Johnny Mandel...



Bonus: Here's a duet with Lee and Steve Lawrence in 1962. Eydie Gormé must have been down with a cold and Lee pitched in on The Ed Sullivan Show. It's one of the rare instances where you can see a pro blow a lyric but recover instantly. At 1:25, Lawrence is about to sing “made for a boy and girl," when the written lyric is “made for a girl and boy." Since he was following Lee's lead, he caught himself. Most probably an auto-pilot goof from his stage act with Gormé when he's singing lead on the song...