Peggy Lee’s affect on the music business can hardly be overstated. She’s beloved by artists as various as Paul McCartney and Billie Eilish. Whereas many concentrate on her performances, nonetheless, a lesser recognized facet of her expertise is her songwriting.
Lee started writing songs together with her husband, jazz guitarist David Barbour, after they married in 1943. The wedding could not have lasted, however Peggy would proceed to jot down over the course of her decades-long profession. By the tip, she had credit on greater than 270 songs. In 1999, she was inducted into the Songwriters Corridor of Fame.
Again when Lee started writing songs, it was removed from the norm for an artist – particularly a feminine. It’s but another excuse why she stays an iconic determine. In celebration of the just lately launched From the Vaults, Vol. 3, which highlights uncommon tracks presently unavailable on streaming platforms, right here’s a choice of ten songs written by Peggy Lee.
Hearken to From the Vaults Vol. 3 now, a launch which accommodates the Peggy Lee composition “I Love You But I Don’t Like You.”
What Extra Can A Girl Do?
Written in 1944 and launched in 1945, “What More Can a Woman Do?” was Lee’s first composition to be recorded. Written shortly after she was married to David Barbour, it’s a love tune. “I was washing dishes and just sang out my love for him,” she mirrored in Miss Peggy Lee, An Autobiography.
5 months after the discharge of Peggy’s authentic, Sarah Vaughan recorded the tune, accompanied by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, imbuing the tune with a brand new emotional weight. The tune was additionally featured because the title observe on Huge Maybelle’s 1960 album. She as soon as once more modified up the instrumentation and shifted the tune into an R&B body, reflecting simply how versatile Peggy’s lyrics may very well be.
I Don’t Know Sufficient About You
Peggy’s first songwriting hit was 1946’s “I Don’t Know Enough About You,” one other co-composition together with her husband David Barbour. The tune peaked at quantity 7 on the favored music charts. The tune mixes humor and vulnerability as Lee sings a couple of lover she simply can’t determine. “I know a little bit about biology / And a little more about psychology / I’m a little gem in geology / But I don’t know enough about you,” she laments.
Mañana
1948 was the yr Peggy landed her first No.1 hit, “Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me.)” The observe stayed on the high for 9 weeks, remained on the charts for 21 weeks, and was Capitol Data’ most profitable single by a singer-songwriter till the Beatles got here alongside.
Lee was impressed to jot down the lighthearted tune after her husband survived an almost deadly ulcer and the couple took a visit to Mexico whereas he recuperated. “I was so impressed with the seemingly happy, relaxed spirit of the place that… it inspired me to write. David got his guitar out, and we had so much fun putting it together.”
How Unusual
Transferring into the Fifties, Lee started to experiment with completely different songwriters and completely different mediums. Her first tune for a movie soundtrack was “How Strange” from The Bullfighter and the Girl. She labored with composer, arranger, and conductor Victor Younger on the observe, and the 2 would go on to type a inventive partnership. The tune’s romantic lyrics – “How strange, how still / I seem to be losing my will / An angel is breathing on me / And it’s making me see I’m in love” – are an ideal match for a movie about love and hazard.
The place Can I Go With out You
“Where Can I Go Without You” was recorded in the identical session as “How Strange,” and marked one other inventive collaboration with Victor Younger. The tune peaked at solely 28 on the charts, however it could turn into one in all Lee’s most profitable ballads, coated by a protracted listing of artists together with Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Dean Martin, Nina Simone, Dionne Warwick, and Feist.
Younger’s loss of life in 1956 meant their partnership was short-lived, nevertheless it left a deep impression on Lee. “When Victor Young asked me to write some lyrics for him, you can’t imagine how thrilled I was,” Peggy later wrote in her autobiography. “He was like God to musicians. He was small in stature, but a giant nonetheless… When he talked to you he would make little karate chops with his hand, as if he were measuring off bars of music. I suppose the whole world was music to him.”
He’s a Tramp
The 1955 Disney movie Girl and the Tramp showcased the expansion of Peggy’s skills but once more. It was her first full movie rating, and he or she labored with composer Sonny Burke to jot down the now-beloved songs, together with “He’s a Tramp,” “Bella Notte,” and “La La Lu.” She additionally lent her singing and talking voice to 4 of the movie’s characters: the human mom Darling, the Pekingese Peg, named after Peggy herself, and the Siamese cats Si and Am. “He’s a Tramp” is Peg’s huge tune, a standout second.
In her autobiography, Lee wrote, “No question, every person that worked on the film was touched by Mr. Disney’s genius. An Italian award was given to Lady and the Tramp that read, ‘In this troubled world, a visible island of poetry.’ Well said.”
Fever
Lee’s signature tune, “Fever,” was not truly an authentic quantity. Written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, the latter of whom was credited with the pseudonym “John Davenport,” the observe was first launched by American R&B singer Little Willie John in 1956. Two years later, Lee launched her model of the observe, with a set of latest lyrics and a special association. Peggy’s lyrics about Romeo and Juliet and Captain Smith and Pocahontas have been so memorable that they’ve been sung in most subsequent covers of the tune.
I’m Gonna Go Fishin’
One other one in all Lee’s inventive collaborators was the one and solely Duke Ellington. Lee had already recorded a lot of Ellington’s songs for her catalog by the point he invited her to jot down lyrics for one in all his compositions. “I’m Gonna Go Fishin’” was meant for the 1959 courtroom drama Anatomy of a Homicide starring James Stewart – a strikingly completely different style of movie than Lee was used to writing for.
She later recalled her writing course of in her autobiography: “I remember [Ellington] bringing me the tape with the theme music from the movie Anatomy of a Murder. He just said, ‘Here you are, Your Highness – write this.’ (Duke had nicknamed me ‘The Queen.’) It seemed like a challenge to write a lyric about a murder, but for those of you who write lyrics… I just got lucky and found the poetic symbol: the fisherman. Jimmy Stewart played the detective who liked to go fishing and think about solving a case. The man who committed the crime, the one who will be caught, was the trout… When I gave Duke Ellington the lyrics he liked it all, and that was enough for me.”
Keep With Me
Peggy started collaborating with Quincy Jones within the early Sixties, and he would go on to rearrange and conduct two of her albums. The duo additionally co-wrote a lot of songs collectively, together with two tracks for the 1966 comedy Stroll Don’t Run starring Peggy’s pal Cary Grant. These songs have been “Happy Feet,” the movie’s theme, and “Stay With Me,” a breezy observe with salsa-inspired guitars. Lee didn’t sing both of them within the movie, however she recorded her personal variations the identical yr.
One Beating A Day
Within the early Nineteen Eighties, Peggy tried to jot down her first autobiography, however ended up writing a one-woman present. The short-lived Broadway present mixed a set of her hits alongside 16 new songs, written by Lee and composer Paul Horner. One of many present’s most memorable songs was “One Beating A Day,” which recounted the abuse Peggy suffered by the hands of her step-mother. In lesser arms, this might be a disturbing and unhappy story. Peggy’s darkish humorousness, nonetheless, reworked it right into a full-on Calypso musical quantity. “[Telling my story] with songs made it more positive, and that’s the whole idea,” she defined of the present. “She didn’t make me hate anybody. She only made me love everybody. The joke is on her.”
Hearken to From the Vaults Vol. 3 now, a launch which accommodates the Peggy Lee composition “I Love You But I Don’t Like You.”
