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."
The Man I Love
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The man I love
And he'll be big and strong
The man I love
And when he comes my way
I'll do my best
To make him stay
He'll look at me and smile
I'll understand
And in a little while
He'll take my hand
And though it seems absurd
I know we both
Won't say a word
Maybe
I shall meet him Sunday
Maybe Monday, maybe not
Still I'm sure
To meet him one day
Maybe Tuesday
Will be my good news day
He'll build a little home
Just meant for two
From which I'd never roam
Who would, would you?
And so all else above
I'm waiting
For the man I love
The song ‘The Man I Love’ by Peggy Lee is about waiting for the perfect man, who will come along and sweep her off her feet. She describes him as someone who is big, strong, and captivating. She hopes to impress him and make him stay by demonstrating her best qualities. He will be the one who will understand her without words and take her hand. The lyrics suggest that she has not yet met him, but she has faith that one day she will. She imagines that they will have a home that they will never leave and where they can be happy together. Overall, the song speaks to the longing that many people feel for someone to share their lives with, and the hope that they will eventually find that person.
Line by Line Meaning
Someday he'll come along
At some point in the future, the man I love will appear in my life
The man I love
I am in search of the ideal man who I will love
And he'll be big and strong
He will be a physically strong and powerful man, whom I can admire
And when he comes my way
When I finally meet him in my life
I'll do my best
I will try very hard
To make him stay
I will do everything I can to make him stay with me
He'll look at me and smile
He will show me kindness and affection through his smile
I'll understand
I will comprehend his feelings without him expressing them in words
And in a little while
After some time passes and we get to know each other better
He'll take my hand
He will physically show me his desire to be close to me
And though it seems absurd
Even if it seems unreasonable or unlikely
I know we both
I am confident that both of us
Won't say a word
Will not need to talk in order to communicate our feelings towards one another
Maybe
There is a possibility
I shall meet him Sunday
It could be that I will meet him on a Sunday
Maybe Monday, maybe not
It's also possible that I won't meet him on Monday
Still I'm sure
However, I am certain
To meet him one day
That I will eventually come across the man I love
Maybe Tuesday
Perhaps it could be on a Tuesday
Will be my good news day
When I do meet him, it will be a joyful moment that I anticipate
He'll build a little home
He will create a small, intimate dwelling place for us
Just meant for two
The home will be suitable for only the two of us
From which I'd never roam
I will remain content and not feel the desire to move away
Who would, would you?
Why would anyone want to leave a happy home?
And so all else above
Above all other considerations
I'm waiting
I am patiently waiting
For the man I love
For the man who will become my partner in life
Lyrics © TuneCore Inc., BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, RALEIGH MUSIC PUBLISHING, Songtrust Ave, CTM Publishing, Reservoir Media Management, Inc., Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: George Gershwin, Ira 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?