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."
You Don't Know
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You don't no how much I love you
You don't no how much I care
You don't know much I need you
Without you life I can't bear
You don't know baby, you don't know baby,
You don't know baby, no you don't,
No you can't know how I feel
The flame that you left is still burning
Burning down deep in my soul
I think of all your loving and kissing
It's you I wanna hold
You don't know baby, you don't know baby,
You don't know baby, no you don't,
You don't know baby, no you don't,
No you can't know how I feel
All of my friends call me crazy
For actin' the way that I do
But I just can't help myself
'Cause I'm still in love with you
You don't know baby, you don't know baby,
You don't know baby, no you don't,
You don't know baby, no you don't,
No you can't know how I feel
You don't know baby, no you don't,
No you can't know how I feel
The lyrics of Peggy Lee's song "You Don't Know" speak of unrequited love and the pain that comes with it. The singer is communicating to her love interest that they don't truly understand the depth of her love, care, and need for them. She communicates that without them, she cannot bear life. The flame that her love interest has ignited within her soul is still burning, and she yearns for their love and affection. The singer knows that her friends think she's crazy for holding onto this love, but she can't help it because she is still in love with them. The singer's emotions are raw and vulnerable, and she is asking her love interest to acknowledge the depth of her feelings and hopefully reciprocate them.
The song captures the essence of unrequited love and the pain that comes with it. The singer's emotions are relatable and sincere, making it a timeless classic. Peggy Lee's voice is smooth and melodic, making the song even more poignant. The lyrics describe the confusion, anguish, and heartache that come with loving someone who doesn't love you back. Despite the pain, the singer's love remains strong, and she hopes that her love interest can one day understand the depth of her feelings.
Line by Line Meaning
You don't no how much I love you
You lack the awareness of the extent to which I love you
You don't no how much I care
You lack the awareness of the extent to which I care for you
You don't know much I need you
You lack the awareness of how much I need you
Without you life I can't bear
My life cannot be sustained without you
You don't know baby, you don't know baby,
You lack awareness, my dear, you lack awareness
No you can't know how I feel
It's impossible for you to comprehend the depth of my emotions
The flame that you left is still burning
The passion you ignited still burns strong within me
Burning down deep in my soul
It burns within the depths of my soul
I think of all your loving and kissing
Memories of your love and affection fill my thoughts
It's you I wanna hold
I long to embrace you once again
All of my friends call me crazy
My actions prompt my friends to question my sanity
For actin' the way that I do
They cannot understand why I behave as I do
But I just can't help myself
My love for you is too strong to resist
'Cause I'm still in love with you
Because I still harbor strong feelings of love for you
Contributed by Maria D. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
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?