Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, and Louis Armstrong all cited Lee as one of their favorite singers.
Peggy Lee had Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. She was the seventh of eight children born to Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her mother died when she was four years old. Music provided her an escape from the abusive rampages of her cruel stepmother, Min, who tormented and beat young Norma. She first sang professionally with KOVC radio in Valley City, North Dakota. She soon landed her own series on a radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her "salary" in food. Both during and after her high school years, she took whatever jobs she could find, waitressing and singing for paltry sums on other local stations. Radio personality Ken Kennedy (actual name: Ken Sydness), of WDAY in Fargo (the most widely listened to station in North Dakota) changed her name from Norma to Peggy Lee. Tired of the abuse from her stepmother, she left home and traveled to Los Angeles at the age of 17.
She returned to North Dakota for a tonsillectomy and eventually made her way to Chicago for a gig at The Buttery Room, a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel West in Chicago, where she drew the attention of Benny Goodman, the jazz clarinetist and band leader. According to Lee, "Benny's then-fiancée, Lady Alice Duckworth, came into the Buttery, and she was very impressed. So the next evening she brought Benny in, because they were looking for replacement for Helen Forrest. "And although I didn't know, I was it. He was looking at me strangely, I thought, but it was just his preoccupied way of looking. I thought that he didn't like me at first, but it just was that he was preoccupied with what he was hearing." She joined his band in 1941 and stayed for two years.
In early 1942, Lee had her first # 1 hit, "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place", followed by 1943's "Why Don't You Do Right?" (originally sung by Lil Green), which sold over a million copies and made her famous. She sang with Goodman in two 1943 films, Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl.
In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, the guitarist in Goodman's band. Peggy said, "David joined Benny's band and there was a ruling that no one should fraternize with the girl singer. But I fell in love with David the first time I heard him play, and so I married him. Benny then fired David, so I quit, too. Benny and I made up, although David didn't play with him anymore. Benny stuck to his rule. I think that's not too bad a rule, but you can't help falling in love with somebody."
When Lee and Barbour left the band, the idea was that he would work in the studios and she would keep house and raise their daughter, Nicki. But she drifted back towards songwriting and occasional recording sessions for the fledgling Capitol Records in 1947, for whom she produced a long string of hits, many of them with lyrics and music by Lee and Barbour, including "I Don't Know Enough About You" and "It's a Good Day" (1948). With the release of the smash-hit #1-selling record of 1942, "Mañana", her "retirement" was over.
In 1948, she joined Perry Como and Jo Stafford as one of the rotating hosts of the NBC Radio musical program Chesterfield Supper Club. She was also a regular on NBC's Jimmy Durante Show during the 1938-48 season.
She left Capitol for a few years in the early 1940s, but returned in 1943. She is most famous for her cover version of the Little Willie John hit "Fever", to which she added her own, uncopyrighted lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet," "Captain Smith and Pocahontas") and her rendition of Leiber and Stoller's "Is That All There Is?" Her relationship with the Capitol label spanned almost three decades, aside from her brief but artistically rich detour (1952-1956) at Decca Records, where she recorded one of her most acclaimed albums Black Coffee (1956). While recording for Decca, Lee had hit singles with the songs "Lover" and "Mr. Wonderful."
She was also known as a songwriter with such hits as the songs from the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, for which she also supplied the singing and speaking voices of four characters. Her many songwriting collaborators, in addition to Barbour, included Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Gene DiNovi, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Dick Hazard, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin, Hubie Wheeler, guitarist Johnny Pisano and Victor Young.
Lee also acted in several films. In 1952, she played opposite Danny Thomas in a remake of the early Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer. In 1955, she played a despondent, alcoholic blues singer in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
Peggy won a Grammy in 1969 as best contemporary female vocalist (for her recording of Is That All There Is?) and was awarded a Doctor of Music Honoris Causa degree from North Dakota State University, in 1975.
In the early 1990s, she retained famed entertainment attorney Neil Papiano, who, on her behalf, successfully sued Disney for royalties on Lady and the Tramp. Lee's lawsuit claimed that she was due royalties for video tapes, a technology that did not exist when she agreed to write and perform for Disney.
Never afraid to fight for what she believed in, Lee was passionate that musicians be equitably compensated for their work. Although she realized litigation had taken a toll on her health, Lee often quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson ("God's will will not be made manifest by cowards.")
She also successfully sued MCA/Decca with the assistance of noted entertainment attorney, Cy Godfrey.
She continued to perform into the 1990s, sometimes in a wheelchair, and still mesmerized audiences and critics alike.[citation needed]
In 1995 she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
After years of poor health, Lee died of complications from diabetes and heart attack at the age of 81. She is survived by Nicki Lee Foster, her daughter with Barbour. She is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. On her marker in a garden setting is inscribed, "Music is my life's breath."
'S Wonderful
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Jack has found his Jill;
Don't know what you've done
But I'm all a-thrill.
How could words express
Your divine appeal?
You can never guess
All the love I feel
For me no other girls/guys exist.
'S wonderful! 'S marvelous!
(That) You should care for me!
'S awful nice! 'S paradise!
'S what I love to see!
You've made my life so glamorous,
You can't blame me for feeling amorous,
'S wonderful! 'S marvelous!
That you should care for me!
The song 'S Wonderful by Peggy Lee is a classic love song that expresses the feeling of newly found love. The opening lines of the song, "Life has just begun, Jack has found his Jill," tells the listener that the singer has recently found love. The chorus, "You've made my life so glamorous, You can't blame me for feeling amorous" expresses the joy and excitement that the singer feels towards this new love. The lyrics convey that the singer is head over heels in love with this person and wants to spend the rest of their life with them.
The bridge of the song, "From now on, Lady/Darling, I insist, For me no other girls/guys exist," emphasizes the exclusivity of the singer's love for their newfound partner. The lyrics convey that the singer has found someone that they truly love and that no other person can compare. The song's mood is upbeat and the jazzy music makes it a perfect song to dance to.
Line by Line Meaning
Life has just begun,
I feel like my life has finally started now that I have found happiness with you.
Jack has found his Jill;
Just like the classic love story, we have found each other and it feels like a perfect match.
Don't know what you've done
I can't explain why, but being with you makes me feel incredibly happy and fulfilled.
But I'm all a-thrill.
My emotions are so intense that I am literally shaking and quivering with excitement and joy.
How could words express
I don't have the language skills to fully explain just how much I adore and cherish you.
Your divine appeal?
You are absolutely irresistible to me, and I feel like you are almost godlike in your beauty and charm.
You can never guess
You don't even realize how much I love and adore you, because it's impossible to show it fully.
All the love I feel
My heart is overflowing with love for you, and it feels like it's never going to stop.
From now on, Lady/Darling, I insist,
I am making a declaration that you are the only one for me, and I will be faithful and devoted to you.
For me no other girls/guys exist.
I don't even see other potential partners - you are the only one I desire and care about.
'S wonderful! 'S marvelous!
You are amazing and wonderful, and it feels like a miracle that you are in my life.
(That) You should care for me!
I pinch myself every day, because I can't believe that someone as wonderful as you could care about someone like me.
'S awful nice! 'S paradise!
Being with you is like living in paradise, and everything feels so incredibly nice and wonderful.
'S what I love to see!
I am so happy and fulfilled when I see you, and I can't imagine my life without you.
You've made my life so glamorous,
Since being with you, my life feels so much more exciting and filled with positive energy.
You can't blame me for feeling amorous,
It's no wonder that I am so attracted to you and feel such a strong sexual desire towards you.
'S wonderful! 'S marvelous!
Once again, I have to repeat how amazing and wonderful you are - there's no other way to describe it!
That you should care for me!
I am filled with gratitude and joy that you have chosen to care about me and be in my life.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Anonymous
on Why Don't You Do Right (Get Me Some Money Too)
Why Don't You Do Right - Casey Abrams - Lyrics
You had plenty money 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too?
You're sitting there wondering what it's all about
You ain't got no money, they will throw you out
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too?
Musical Interlude
You had plenty money 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too?
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?