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."
Sometime I'm Happy
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Sweetheart, when you are not near.
All that you claim must be true,
For I'm just the same as you;
Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm blue,
My disposition depends on you.
I never mind the rain from the skies,If I can find the sun in your eyes.
Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you,
But when I hate you, it's 'cause I love you.
That's how I am so what can I do?
I'm happy when I'm with you.
Stars are smiling at me from your eyes.
Sunbeams now there will be in the skies.
Tell me that you will be true!
That will all depend on you,
Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm blue,
My disposition depends on you.
I never mind the rain from the skies,
If I can find the sun in your eyes.
Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you,
But when I hate you, it's 'cause I love you.
That's how I am so what can I do?
I'm happy when I'm with you.
Peggy Lee's song "Sometimes I'm Happy" is an emotional rollercoaster of a love song. The first stanza describes the singer's immense longing and misery when they are apart from their lover. The second stanza then describes the joy and happiness they feel when their lover is present. This "sometimes happy, sometimes blue" pattern is then repeated throughout the song.
The chorus is where the true emotional complexity of the song comes through. The singer admits that their feelings towards their lover are not always positive. They can go from loving their partner to hating them in the blink of an eye. However, even when they hate their partner, it is because they still love them. This volatile emotional state is what defines the singer's personality, and they accept it as who they are. The song ends with the singer declaring that they are happiest when they are with their lover, suggesting that no matter how tumultuous their emotions are, their love is worth it.
Overall, Peggy Lee's "Sometimes I'm Happy" is an honest representation of the complicated emotions that come with being in a passionate relationship. It speaks to the highs and lows of love, and how those emotions can change in an instant. The song's honest portrayal of love makes it a timeless classic.
Line by Line Meaning
Ev'ry day seems like a year,
The absence of my darling makes each day pass slowly.
Sweetheart, when you are not near.
My ultimate happiness exists only next to my beloved.
All that you claim must be true,
I trust every word that comes out of your mouth.
For I'm just the same as you;
Our emotions are identical and deeply intertwined.
Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm blue,
My emotional state depends wholly on my partner's presence and love.
My disposition depends on you.
My personality and demeanor are shaped entirely by the love and attention of my significant other.
I never mind the rain from the skies,
Even a stormy day holds no power over me if I behold the radiance of love in your eyes.
If I can find the sun in your eyes.
When I gaze upon my lover, the warmth of their affection fills my heart and soul with joy.
Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you,
My unpredictable swings between love and hate are born entirely of the passion and intensity that we share.
But when I hate you, it's 'cause I love you.
Even my moments of fury and anger are merely the flip side of my deep, enduring love for my partner.
That's how I am so what can I do?
I cannot change my nature or emotions, and must accept the passionate duality that comes with being in love with you.
I'm happy when I'm with you.
The only true source of joy and contentment in my life is the presence of my beloved.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Peermusic Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Cloud9, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Clifford Grey, Irving Caesar, Vincent Youmans
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?