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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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Radio & Podcasts

New Releases, Birthday Celebrations For Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Miles Davis & More

Read "New Releases, Birthday Celebrations For Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Miles Davis & More" reviewed 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) ...

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Album Review

Sara Schoenbeck: Sara Schoenbeck

Read "Sara Schoenbeck" reviewed 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 ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Singing and Plinkin'

Read "Singing and Plinkin'" reviewed 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 ...

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Book Review

Peggy Lee: A Century Of Song

Read "Peggy Lee: A Century Of Song" reviewed 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 ...

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Radio & Podcasts

I Love Being Here With You - Happy 100th Birthday to Miss Peggy Lee

Read "I Love Being Here With You - Happy 100th Birthday to Miss Peggy Lee" reviewed 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 ...

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Anatomy of a Standard

"I Don't Know Enough About You" By Dave Barbour And Peggy Lee

Read ""I Don't Know Enough About You" By Dave Barbour And Peggy Lee" reviewed 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 ...

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My Playlist

The Ultimate Peggy Lee

Read "The Ultimate Peggy Lee" reviewed by Tish Oney


In honor of the 100th birthday of Peggy Lee (which we celebrated May 26, kicking off an entire year of Peggy Lee celebrations around the world), I have been enjoying listening to this timeless artist in a number of ways. Writing my new book, Peggy Lee: A Century of Song, opened my eyes to the treasure trove of recorded music Lee left us as a rich legacy, and it was my goal to make her music the main character of ...

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Performance / Tour

Just Announced: More Artists Added To Star-studded Celebration Of Peggy Lee And Frank Sinatra In Newark on February 8th

Just Announced: More Artists Added To Star-studded Celebration Of Peggy Lee And Frank Sinatra In Newark on February 8th

Source: AMT Public Relations

Thursday, February 8, 2024 @ 7:30 p.m. New Jersey Performing Arts Center 1 Center Street Newark, New NJ 07102 $49-$99. To purchase, contact NJPAC at 1.888.GO.NJPAC / 1.888.466.5722 or visit NJPAC.org. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) celebrates the close friendship of legendary singer and songwriter Miss Peggy Lee and the greatest vocal star of all, Frank Sinatra. This one-night-only event on Thursday, February 8, 2024, features Christian McBride as Musical Director, with a lineup of ...

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Performance / Tour

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center Announces 2024 Winter Jazz Performances Including Max Roach Centennial Celebrations, All-Star Musical Exploration Of Peggy Lee-frank Sinatra, And More

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center Announces 2024 Winter Jazz Performances Including Max Roach Centennial Celebrations, All-Star Musical Exploration Of Peggy Lee-frank Sinatra, And More

Source: AMT Public Relations

Thursday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m. Max Roach Centennial: The Drum Also Waltzes Documentary Film Screening + Panel Discussion Celebrate Max Roach’s centennial with a screening of the new documentary Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes at The Newark Museum of Art. Afterwards, a panel discussion will include Max’s son Raoul Roach and the film’s director / producers Sam Pollard and Ben Shapiro. Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes explores the life and music of the legendary drummer, composer, bandleader ...

Video / DVD

Videos: Peggy Lee in Action

Videos: Peggy Lee in Action

Source: 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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Book / Magazine

'Peggy Lee: A Century of Song' by Tish Oney, Available June 2020 - Pre-Order Now.

'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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Performance / Tour

KMP Is Proud To Present Award Winning Jazz Singer, Spider Saloff In A Brand New Show, "The Cool Heat Of Peggy Lee" In It's New York Debut!

KMP Is Proud To Present Award Winning Jazz Singer, Spider Saloff In A Brand New Show, "The Cool Heat Of Peggy Lee" In It's New York Debut!

Source: Lampkin Publicity Service

Spider returns to New York in a rare appearance with a brand new show. In it's New York Debut, Saloffs' “The Cool Heat of Peggy Lee" concert includes Lee's classic jazz hits as well her pop music classics. Saloff presents all of this with her unique comic wit and a contemporary twist that will appeal to audiences of all ages! Songs include “Lover," “Why Don’t You Do Right?," “The Best is Yet to Come," and the classic, “Is That All ...

Video / DVD

Videos: Freewheeling Peggy Lee

Videos: Freewheeling Peggy Lee

Source: 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 ...

Recording

Peggy Lee: Jan. 1945

Peggy Lee: Jan. 1945

Source: 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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Video / DVD

Peggy Lee and Dave Barbour

Peggy Lee and Dave Barbour

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers


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Recording

Peggy Lee: CBS Radio Sessions

Peggy Lee: CBS Radio Sessions

Source: 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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Video / DVD

Videos: Peggy Lee

Videos: Peggy Lee

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Last night, while doing some research on YouTube, I got hung up on Peggy Lee. First I started studying how the left corner of her mouth drops slightly when she sings. Then I watched her eyes, which always seem to be soaring back and forth on a swing. At any rate, let me share with you the clips that I found deep into her YouTube category... Here's Peggy Lee and Judy Garland...   Here's Lee in 1954 at the Hollywood ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Knights of Swing...

Knights of Swing
2022

buy

Sara Schoenbeck

Pyroclastic Records
2021

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At Last: The Last...

Real Gone Music
2015

buy

Treize

Impact Jazz
2010

buy

2 Shows Nightly

Capitol Records
2009

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Black Coffee & Dream...

Capitol Records
2009

buy

Cucamonga

From: Knights of Swing (Music from...
By Peggy Lee

Videos

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