by Charles Champlin I am absolutely persuaded that amid the crackling thunder of the city in flames, some Roman lover turned to his lady, gestured at Nero and said, “He’s playing our song.” We’ve never been exactly sure what our song was, fire sirens in the rain or my scratchy[…]

author unknown In New York last week the new Peggy Lee recalled her old self: “Remember those singers with the big bands? Between numbers they’d snap their fingers, and tap their feet as if they had trouble sitting. Not me. Sitting in front of the Benny Goodman band, I was[…]

by Earl Wilson The get-well telegrams and phone calls to Peggy Lee had come from such friends as Frank Sinatra and Doris Duke. There was a note of alarm in them – for Peggy was under an oxygen tent, fighting pneumonia, at Polyclinic Hospital. Her daugher, Nicki Barbour, just 18,[…]

by Thomas C. Wheeler Peggy Lee has the sturdy figure of a North Dakota farm girl, which she originally was. But when she sweeps onto the nightclub stage, her platinum blond hair shining and her hazel eyes glittering, a transformation takes place. As she bows and blows kisses, she seems[…]

When Peggy Lee recorded “Where or When” and “The Way You Look Tonight” with the Benny Goodman Sextet 25 years ago, her performance was noted for directness, simplicity and a perfection of phrasing. In the years between, Miss Lee has sung much and traveled far. Her perfection in phrasing has[…]

by Joseph Wershba Jazz historian Leonard Feather has already written the definitive critique of Peggy Lee: “If you don’t feel a thrill when Peggy sings, you are dead, Jack.” But this doesn’t completely explain how a nice, shy, flaxen-haired, Gretchen-faced Swedish-Norwegian girl from the plains of North Dakota became a[…]