Peggy Lee (26 May 1920 β 21 Jan 2002), was an American Grammy Award-winning… Read Full Bio ↴Peggy Lee (26 May 1920 β 21 Jan 2002), was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz/popular music singer-songwriter and Academy Award-nominated actress. She was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota. Lee has been cited as an influence by such diverse artists as Bobby Darin, Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, Madonna, Shirley Horn, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, Dusty Springfield, Dr. John, and numerous others. As a songwriter, she collaborated with Sonny Burke, Victor Young, Francis Lai, Dave Grusin, John Chiodini, her husband Dave Barbour, and Duke Ellington, who stated, 'If I'm the Duke, then Peggy's the Queen.' As an actress, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Pete Kelly's Blues. She had a contralto singing range.
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-fiancΓ©e, 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, "MaΓ±ana", 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."
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-fiancΓ©e, 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, "MaΓ±ana", 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."
Alright
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
Anything you say, I'll do
As long as it's me and you
All that I am asking
All I want from you
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
All that I am asking
All I want from you is
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win!
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
Anything you say, I'll do
As long as it's me and you
All that I am asking
All I want from you
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
All that I am asking
All I want from you is
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win!
In Peggy Lee's song "Alright," the singer expresses their love and devotion to their partner. They use repetition of the phrases "well alright, okay, you win" and "I'm in love with you" to emphasize their willingness to do anything for their partner and to confirm their love. The singer pleads for their partner to reciprocate their feelings and desires, stating that they just want to be loved back in the same way.
The lyrics suggest that the singer is willing to sacrifice their own desires and needs for the sake of the relationship. They want their partner to take charge, to tell them what to do, and to guide them in the relationship. The line "as long as it's me and you" suggests that the singer is loyal and committed to their partner, no matter what.
Overall, the lyrics of "Alright" convey a sense of deep love and devotion, as well as a willingness to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work.
Line by Line Meaning
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm surrendering to you and your desires
I'm in love with you
I have strong feelings of affection towards you
Baby, what can I do?
What actions can I take to show my love for you?
I'll do anything you say
I'm willing to do whatever you request
It's just got to be that way
I understand that your needs are of utmost importance
As long as it's me and you
As long as we are together
All that I am asking
This is my request
All I want from you
This is what I desire from you
Just love me like I love you
Please show me the same level of love that I am showing you
And it won't be hard to do
It will be easy to do if we both put in the effort
Baby, one thing more
I have one more thing to add
If you're going to be my man
If you are committed to being with me
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Please take my hand and lead the way in our relationship
Well alright, okay, you win!
I am fully giving in to your wishes and desires
Lyrics Β© Peermusic Publishing
Written by: MAYME WATTS, SID WYCHE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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@alexandraababii3698
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
Anything you say, I'll do
As long as it's me and you
All that I am asking
All I want from you
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
All that I am asking
All I want from you is
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win!
@bernardrubin5816
I remember sitting in a car when I was about 4 years old in 1959 with my Bubba and Dad listening to this on the car radio and my Bubba was making gestures to me and following the music. A wonderful memory.
@thebeardedjohn
Dang one foot in the grave much, old timer?
@mzreid6386
Hallelujah- no blaring trumpets! The singer in the foreground- and the song is not buried.
@abigalebuss359
This song is 5 years older than I am, so even though I knew of Peggy Lee because of my parents listening to her I didn't remember ever hearing this song until just recently when the oldies radio station started playing it. I'm so glad that I found this on YouTube, it's a favorite of mine.
@thebeardedjohn
How's the retirement home, grandpa? Lmao
@jessicagregg6584
The embodiment of elegant jazz music and sophisticated style. A legend in every sense of the word.
@fransabia8498
When singers could really sing. Love it!
@stevehughes1510
That subtle smoky voice of hers just gets me every time..........lordy lord............too good.
@syadel
Peggy Lee was a great singer with a great style.
@alexandraababii3698
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
Anything you say, I'll do
As long as it's me and you
All that I am asking
All I want from you
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, what can I do?
I'll do anything you say
It's just got to be that way
All that I am asking
All I want from you is
Just love me like I love you
And it won't be hard to do
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win
I'm in love with you
Well alright, okay, you win
Baby, one thing more
If you're going to be my man
Sweet baby, take me by the hand
Well alright, okay, you win!