Peggy Lee (26 May 1920 – 21 Jan 2002), was an American Grammy Award-winning… Read Full Bio ↴Peggy Lee (26 May 1920 – 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-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."
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."
Back in Your Own Back Yard
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The bird with feathers of blue
Is waiting for you
Back in your own back yard
You'll see your castle in Spain
Through your window pane
Back in your own back yard
Now you can go to the east
Go to the west
Bit some day you'll come
Weary at heart, back where you started from
You'll find your happiness lies
Right under your eyes
Back in your own back yard
The bird with feathers of blue
Is waiting for you
Back in your own back yard
You'll see your castle in Spain
Through your window pane
Back in your own back yard
Now you can fly to the east
Fly to the west
Bit some day you'll come
Weary at heart, back where you started from
You'll find your happiness lies
Right under your eyes
Back in your, your own back yard
Is waiting for you
Back in your own back yard
You'll see your castle in Spain
Through your window pane
Back in your own back yard
Now you can go to the east
Bit some day you'll come
Weary at heart, back where you started from
You'll find your happiness lies
Right under your eyes
Back in your own back yard
The bird with feathers of blue
Is waiting for you
Back in your own back yard
You'll see your castle in Spain
Through your window pane
Back in your own back yard
Now you can fly to the east
Fly to the west
Bit some day you'll come
Weary at heart, back where you started from
You'll find your happiness lies
Right under your eyes
Back in your, your own back yard
The lyrics to Peggy Lee's “Back in Your Own Back Yard” speaks of a person's yearning to be back home after travelling far and wide. The opening lines connect the returning traveller with a bird with feathers of blue, which serves as a metaphor for the happiness and comfort that awaits them. The bird is waiting, a symbol of the unrelenting pull of the familiar, and the reassurance that it brings.
The subsequent lines talk of things the traveller might have seen during their travels - their castle in Spain, for example, which they can now view clearly through their window pane. The song acknowledges that people will always be drawn to new experiences, but ultimately come back to where they started from, with an increasing appreciation for what they had before. This is reflected by the line “you'll find your happiness lies right under your eyes, back in your own back yard.”
The song will resonate with anyone who has experienced the urge to travel and explore new places, while also craving a sense of familiarity and groundedness that can only be found at home. Lee's smooth, sultry voice makes the lyrics even more effective, reminding listeners that even the most far-flung adventures eventually lead us back home to the people and places we cherish.
Line by Line Meaning
The bird with feathers of blue
Opportunities are waiting for you to come across
Is waiting for you
They will be there for you when you arrive
Back in your own back yard
You can find the fulfillment you seek within yourself
You'll see your castle in Spain
You can dream big
Through your window pane
And always have those dreams in sight
Now you can go to the east
You have the freedom to explore the world
Go to the west
And experience all the wonders it holds
But some day you'll come
But eventually, you will realize
Weary at heart, back where you started from
That your true happiness is found where you began
You'll find your happiness lies
True contentment is not found in exotic lands
Right under your eyes
But within yourself, in your own backyard
Back in your own back yard
Where you can appreciate the simple things in life
Lyrics © BOURNE CO., BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Downtown Music Publishing
Written by: Al Jolson, Billy Rose, Dave Dreyer
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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@redcatbiker
"Julia" (series 2, episode 6) brought me here.
@MiaHessMusic
Beautiful job restoring this great PL song!
@pal035s
Powerful backup from Nelson Riddle and his orchestra !
@alternateunreleasedshellac505
This is a really nice transfer. Thank you for uploading!
@TheVinylRestorationProject
This was one of our 2019 archives. Friends, a lot has happened since then, even 2019. For starters, this classic could use another 'restoration Pass' (or two) to build on what we did in 2019, especially now. I hope to eventually make that happen at some point. But there is much more work to do. Let me explain.
Folks, are you aware that there exist many, many legacy artists that unfortunately, the digital age of music has NOT been so kind? For example, one of them is Pop/Country artist, B. J. Thomas. So my studio, LegacyVMP Studio, is on a mission to try and help do our part to change this kind of business climate within the legacy audio industry that we feel is long overdue. I think the time is right for studios like mine (and others!) to take what technology now affords us and turn it into something that can be very positive for the industry as a whole. Will you help us do that?
Here are some of our more recent restorations to help illustrate what I am talking about. I want to stress with these: 1.) the power of recent advances in audio restoration technology in particular to allow studios like mine to do what we do! 2.) I want you to hear just how far our sound has come (maturity-wise) since we began this channel in the fall of 2014. First, here is one you might recognize from Glen Campbell 🙂:https://youtu.be/l17HWcbU9lI. Or, how about this from Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 that you might also recognize 🙂:https://youtu.be/X7omaR4gS_A. In addition, here is one or two (or three or four 🙂) from B. J. Thomas: (https://youtu.be/RLjsKECP3lk, https://youtu.be/5yLgrE7-B-0, https://youtu.be/BFI8yBcX0qE, and https://youtu.be/ABPOzijuam4). Thanks for listening!
We are now a professional studio, LegacyVMP Studio ( https://www.facebook.com/legacyvmpstudio) and we need your help spreading the word about what we do! Please visit our Business page and "Like/Follow Us". Thanks so much again and stay safe.
@jlee29170
Impressive.
@MrClassicalMusic1
Great restoration job!
@alternateunreleasedshellac505
Do you prefer the og mono or stereo
@TheVinylRestorationProject
Probably the mono. But I also love Alan Silverman's restoration he did a few years back from 3-track stereo. Thanks for listening and your comments. Take care for now.