by Joseph McLellan The first number Peggy Lee sings every night in the Ritz Terrace is “I Won’t Dance.” The Otto Harbach song is not only a good, upbeat curtain-raiser; it is, in context, an existential statement – a kind of manifesto. At the moment, Peggy Lee can’t dance; she[…]

by Lou Fournier The smell of something burning drifts into the Terrace Room of the Ritz-Carlton, where Peggy Lee is moments from opening her show. People scurry, concerned glances are exchanged, and finally everything seems settled and ready. inside some fans are suggesting that watching Peggy Lee sing in the[…]

by Curt Morgan How does a singing legend stay a legend for almost 50 years? Is it luck, chance… the blind draw of fate? Is that all there is? “Musicians keep a song fresh. You never stop listening to them and hearing what they’re doing… “I’ve been working a lot[…]

by Robert Julian The Interview In the summer of 1957, I was stretched out across the front seat of my parents’ Oldsmobile ‘98’ with my head in my mother’s lap. My father drove. The final hours of our vacation were counted off by the thump-thump-thump of the tires as they[…]

by Robert Taylor Beneath the sterling silver hairstyle, rhinestone-rimmed glasses, flawless matte makeup and dusky pink nail enamel, there is a part of Peggy Lee that remains – as one of her album titles noted – “Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota.” She was lunching with producers and reporters[…]

by Carolyn Drewes “I’ve been living a fairly reclusive life since the health problems; a lot of people don’t know whether I live on the East Coast or the West. But I had 70 for dinner Christmas Eve.” (Once she had a costume party and asked everyone to come as[…]