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-fiancΓ©e, 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, "MaΓ±ana", 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."
While We're Young
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Love was a star, a song unsung
Life was so new, so real so right
Ages ago last night
Today the world is old
You flew away and time grew cold
Where is that star that shone so bright
To think that spring had depended
On merely this: a look, a kiss
To think that something so splendid
Could slip away in one little daybreak
So now, let's reminisce
And recollect the sighs and the kisses
The arms that clung
When we were young last night
The song "Last Night When We Were Young" by Peggy Lee is a poignant reflection on the fleeting nature of youth and love. In the opening verse, Lee evokes a sense of nostalgia for a time when love was shiny and new, when everything felt alive and full of possibility. The love that she describes is likened to a star - bright, beautiful, and seemingly eternal. However, as the song progresses, Lee's tone becomes more melancholic. She acknowledges the passing of time and the inevitability of change, noting that the world has become old and that love has grown cold. The star that once shone so brightly has faded, becoming nothing more than a memory of a distant past.
Lee's lyrics are full of vivid imagery that captures the essence of what it feels like to look back on youthful experiences with the clarity of hindsight. She highlights the fragility of love, noting that something as simple as a look or a kiss can set the world ablaze with wonder - but that same fire can be extinguished just as quickly. The final verse of the song provides a bittersweet coda to the overall narrative, as Lee invites the listener to join her in reminiscing about the past. She encourages us to remember the moments of tenderness and passion that we shared when we were young, acknowledging that these memories are all that remain.
Overall, "Last Night When We Were Young" is a powerful example of the ability of music to evoke deep emotional responses. It speaks to the universal experience of love and loss, reminding us that no matter how bright the stars may shine, they will eventually fade away.
Line by Line Meaning
Last night when we were young
When we were younger and more innocent.
Love was a star, a song unsung
Love was bright and new, but unexplored.
Life was so new, so real so right
Life was vibrant and full of potential.
Ages ago last night
It feels like it happened a long time ago.
Today the world is old
We have grown up and the world has changed around us.
You flew away and time grew cold
You left and time seemed to come to a halt.
Where is that star that shone so bright
The love we once had seems to have disappeared.
Ages ago last night?
It feels like it happened so long ago, where did the time go?
To think that spring had depended
To realize that our happiness depended on something so simple.
On merely this: a look, a kiss
On something as simple and beautiful as a glance or a kiss.
To think that something so splendid
To realize that the love we had was something truly special.
Could slip away in one little daybreak
It's heartbreaking to realize that our love could dissipate so easily.
So now, let's reminisce
Let's look back and remember those moments fondly.
And recollect the sighs and the kisses
Let's remember the moments filled with tenderness and passion.
The arms that clung
The embrace that made us feel safe and loved.
When we were young last night
When we were young and in love, all those years ago.
Lyrics Β© S.A. MUSIC
Written by: E. Y. Harburg, Harold Arlen
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@ArtigasMillan-tx3nc
Belleza total !! ππβ€
@arnoldamaral3814
Such a beautiful soulful lady .ππππArnold Bourbon Anaral
@Ashley-oc4uy
I LOVE that dress, I wish I knew what color it was, I'm feeling deep red.
@olivierandre8658
Peggy me transporte dans ces USA dont on rΓͺvait vers les annΓ©es 1950 !!
@3t-sm954
Jazzy Belle love β€
@hitalosousa5165
ππππππ
@TerryComo2010
While a wonderful performance as usual by Ms. Lee, I much prefer the up tempo version by the late great John Gary.
@ronan1686
You should listen to Peggy March, much faster, probably my favourite version
@TerryComo2010
@@ronan1686 It's nice, faster than Peggy Lees' but slower than Mr. Gary's. Only the arrangement with the brass makes it sound faster.
@dagrote1
Sorry to be one of those guys, but it's way too active on the piano. It takes away from the melody and the lyrics. The listeners don't know what they're supposed to be listening to.