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 Surrey With the Fringe on Top
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
When I take you out in the surrey
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top.
Watch the fringe and see how it flutters
I will ride those high steppin' strutters
Nosey pokes will peek through their shutters
And their eyes will pop!
The wheels are yeller the upholsters brown
The dash board's genuine leather
With in-sin glass curtains you can roll right down
In case there's a change in the weather
Two bright side lights winkin' and blinkin'
Ain't no fingering what I'm thinkin'
You'd be fingering if your thinkin' that I'd care to swap
For the shiny little surrey with the fringe on top.
The song, The Surrey With the Fringe On Top, by Peggy Lee, is a beautiful love song that evokes ideas of freedom, joy, and love. It is a song that talks about the experience of riding in a carriage, surrounded by all manner of farm animals, and feeling the wind on your face as you enjoy the company of your beloved. The first verse talks about the potential for chaos with all the animals that will have to make way for the surrey, while making sure that the line of sight is clear so that the two lovers can be seen.
The second verse goes on to describe the appearance of the surrey, it talks about the bright yellow wheels, and the luxurious leather upholstery. The verse also describes how the carriage is fitted with insinuating glass curtains that can be rolled down to shield the couple from the weather. It highlights the experience to be one of luxury and comfort, while also enjoying the view around them. The final verse talks about how even with all the luxury and comfort that the surrey provides, the real reward is the joy of being in love and the joy that their love brings to them.
Line by Line Meaning
Chicks and geese and ducks better scurey
Farm animals better run away when we ride in the surrey with the fringe on top.
When I take you out in the surrey
I want to take you for a ride in the surrey with the fringe on top.
Watch the fringe and see how it flutters
Pay attention to the way the fringe moves as we ride.
I will ride those high steppin' strutters
I will control the horses that pull the surrey with the fringe on top.
Nosey pokes will peek through their shutters
People will be curious and look out their windows to see us ride by.
And their eyes will pop!
They will be amazed and surprised by the sight of the surrey with the fringe on top.
The wheels are yeller the upholsters brown
The wheels are yellow and the seats are brown in color.
The dash board's genuine leather
The dashboard is made of real leather.
With in-sin glass curtains you can roll right down
The surrey has glass curtains that can be easily rolled down.
In case there's a change in the weather
So that we can adjust to any changes in the weather.
Two bright side lights winkin' and blinkin'
The surrey has two bright lights on the sides that wink and blink.
Ain't no fingering what I'm thinkin'
You can't possibly guess what I'm thinking right now.
You'd be fingering if your thinkin' that I'd care to swap
You would be mistaken if you thought that I would give up the surrey with the fringe on top for something else.
For the shiny little surrey with the fringe on top.
Because the surrey with the fringe on top is a unique and prized possession that I don't want to give up.
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Written by: Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers
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?