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Peggy Lee Lover Living Era CD AJA 5644

1. Lover
2. Be Anything, but Be Mine
3. I’m Glad There is You
4. Just One of Those Things
5. Watermelon Weather (with Bing Crosby)
6. Sans Souci
7. I Hear Music Now
8. Where Can I Go Without You
9. I’ve got You Under My Skin
10. Black Coffee
11. I Didn’t Know What Time it Was
12. Easy Living
13. Love Me or Leave Me
14. A Woman Alone with the Blues
15. My Heart Belongs to Daddy
16. Baubles, Bangles and Beads
17. Johnny Guitar
18. Autumn in Rome
19. Love, You Didn’t do Right by Me
20. The Gypsy with Fire in His Shoes
21. It Must Be So (with the Mills Brothers)
22. Bella Notte
23. The Siamese Cat Song
24. He’s a Tramp
25. I Don’t want to Play in Your Yard
26. The Golden Wedding Ring
27. What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry
28. He Needs Me.

Peggy Lee was one of the really great female vocalists, in a group that included Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and a very few more. It is interesting to note that all these super stars learned their craft singing with the Big Bands of the day, in Peggy Lee’s case in was the Benny Goodman Band school of hard knocks! These bands had all the best musicians and they would not accept vocalists who were not up to the same standard.

Most of this album is of really good songs sung either with large orchestras or small group jazz outfits and they sound as fresh as the day they were recorded. The only exceptions are a few novelty tracks, that no doubt the A&R men of the day persuaded her to record, with a view to a ’hit’ record.

The best tracks as far as I am concerned are those recorded with a quartet consisting of Pete Condoli - trumpet, Jimmy Rowles - piano, Max Wayne - bass, Ed Shaghnessy - drums. Fortunately there are quite a few of them (9 to 15), this formula allows Peggy to demonstrate the full range of her vocal abilities, but throughout the album she demonstrates perfect diction, intonation and a wonderful sense of timing. She even turns some numbers that are not particularly good into something special.

If you are not fortunate enough to own a Peggy Lee, get this one. They are not producing singers of this quality any more and even if they did, today’s music business is not geared up to appreciate them.

Don Mather
 

see also review by Tony Augarde

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