Launched in 2023, Verve Records’ Great Women of Song is a series of CD, vinyl and digital releases highlighting beloved and influential singers who recorded for Verve Records and other labels that now fall under the Universal Music Group umbrella. Peggy Lee’s entry in the series, which draws entirely from her five-year affiliation with Decca Records (1952-56), joins other volumes for Blossom Dearie, Ella Fitzgerald, Astrud Gilberto, Billie Holiday, Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae, Helen Merrill, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. Great Women of Song: Peggy Lee contains 16 tracks and is available as a CD, a digital download, a standard black LP, and a limited edition “opaque custard” color LP. All four formats can be ordered here.
Six of the collection’s tracks are taken from Lee’s essential album Black Coffee. There are two tracks each from her albums Dream Street and Miss Wonderful, and additional tracks from Decca singles, including Lee’s major chart hit “Lover.” Also featured are commercial versions of songs from Lee’s Warner Bros. films The Jazz Singer and Pete Kelly’s Blues, and another song from the Paramount film White Christmas, with Lee replacing the contractually unavailable Rosemary Clooney on the Decca album Selections from Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.
Great Women of Song: Peggy Lee features songs by major contributors to the American songbook: Cole Porter (“It’s All Right with Me,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”), Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (“I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” “Lover”), and George and Ira Gershwin (“They Can’t Take That Away from Me”). Lee’s own songwriting is represented on four tracks, including two collaborations with husband Dave Barbour (“I Don’t Know Enough About You,” “Take a Little Time to Smile”), one with Victor Young (“Johnny Guitar”), and a Jazz Singer song with words and music by Lee (“This Is a Very Special Day”).
To view other releases in the Great Women of Song series, visit this Verve Records page.
Great Women of Song: Peggy Lee Track Listing
Dates in parentheses denote recording date
1. I Don’t Know Enough About You (Dave Barbour, Peggy Lee) (1/6/56)
2. Love Me or Leave Me (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn) (4/30/53)
3. Black Coffee (Sonny Burke, Paul Francis Webster) (5/4/53)
4. Take a Little Time to Smile (Dave Barbour, Peggy Lee) (6/8/56)
5. Bye Bye Blackbird (Mort Dixon, Ray Henderson) (5/10/55)
6. It’s All Right with Me (Cole Porter) (6/5/56)
7. My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Cole Porter) (5/1/53)
8. Love, You Didn’t Do Right by Me (Irving Berlin) (9/19/54)
9. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers) (4/30/53)
10. Lover (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers) (5/1/52)
11. Johnny Guitar (Peggy Lee, Victor Young) (3/1/54)
12. So Blue (Lew Brown, Helen Crawford, Buddy G. DeSylva, Ray Henderson) (6/5/56)
13. Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You (Andy Razaf, Don Redman) (4/3/56)
14. They Can’t Take That Away from Me (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) (1/6/56)
15. Easy Living (Ralph Rainger, Leo Robin) (5/1/53)
16. This Is a Very Special Day (Peggy Lee) (12/16/52)