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."
Always Something There To Remind Me
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You used to walk along with me,
And every step I take recalls
How much love, we used to be.
Oh, how can I forget you
When there is always something there to remind me
Always something there to remind me.
I was born to love you, and I will never be free
You'll always be a part of me.
When shadows fall, I pass a small cafe
Where we would dance at night
And I can't help recalling how it
Felt to kiss and hold you tight.
Oh, how can I forget you
When there is always something there to remind me
Always something there to remind me.
I was born to love you, and I will never be free
You'll always be a part of me.
If you should find you miss the sweet
And tender love we used to share
Just go back to the places where we used to go,
And I'll be there.
Oh, how can I forget you
When there is always something there to remind me
Always something there to remind me.
I was born to love you, and I will never be free
When there is, when there is
When there is always something there to remind me
Peggy Lee's song "Always Something There to Remind Me" is a poignant narrative of lost love and the difficulties of moving on. The first stanza reveals the singer's nostalgic walk through the city streets, where she used to stroll along with her beloved. Every step that she takes reminds her of the love that they shared and the time they spent together. Despite her efforts to forget her former lover, the memories of their relationship are inescapable, and she cannot help but be reminded of the love that they once shared.
In the second stanza, the singer shares a particular moment in the relationship - a sweet moment shared in a small café where they would dance at night. She remembers how it felt to hold him tight and kiss him, and that memory is something that she can't forget. The chorus repeats the central theme of the song - that there is always something there to remind her of her lost love - and that she will always carry a part of him with her.
The final stanza is the singer's message to her former lover. She acknowledges that if he should miss the love that they shared, he should go back to the places where they used to go, and she will be there. She still holds onto the hope that their love may be rekindled, and the final refrain reinforces her sentiment that she was born to love him and that she will never be free from her feelings for him.
Overall, "Always Something There to Remind Me" is a sentimental and emotionally charged song about the complexities of love, loss, and nostalgia. Peggy Lee's smooth vocals and the evocative melody create a beautiful and memorable song that captures the essence of these emotions.
Line by Line Meaning
I walk along the city streets
As I stroll through the busy streets of the town
You used to walk along with me
I can't help but think of the times when we used to walk side by side
And every step I take recalls
As I walk every step reminds me of
How much love, we used to be
Just how much we used to love each other
Oh, how can I forget you
It is impossible for me to forget about you
When there is always something there to remind me
There's always something that brings back memories of you
I was born to love you, and I will never be free
I was meant to love you and I will never be able to move on
When shadows fall, I pass a small cafe
As the sun sets, I walk by a small cafe
Where we would dance at night
Where we used to dance under the night sky
And I can't help recalling how it
I can't help but remember how it
Felt to kiss and hold you tight
Felt to hold you close and kiss you passionately
If you should find you miss the sweet
If ever you miss the tender
And tender love we used to share
Love we shared together
Just go back to the places where we used to go,
If you ever want to relive those moments, just go to the places we did
And I'll be there
And I will always be there
When there is, when there is
Whenever there's
When there is always something there to remind me
Whenever there's something that reminds me of you
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Hal David, Burt Bacharach
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?