Features thirteen tracks recorded between 1947 and 1967
Includes duets with then-emerging vocalists Dean Martin and Mel Tormé, homages to TV characters Batman and Mr. Magoo, and six Lee written/co-written compositions
Lee’s entire Capitol and Decca catalogs now available for streaming
LOS ANGELES, CA – February 14, 2025 – Capitol Records and Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), in conjunction with Peggy Lee Associates, today release Peggy Lee: From the Vaults (Vol. 4), the final installment in the new digital series that features rare tracks previously unavailable on streaming platforms. Listen/purchase: here.
Recorded for Capitol and Decca Records between 1947 and 1967, the 13 selections on From the Vaults (Vol. 4) include duets with then-emerging vocalists Dean Martin and Mel Tormé; collaborations with distinguished jazz instrumentalists George Shearing and Toots Thielemans; homages to the cartoon characters Batman and Mr. Magoo, the latter featuring comic actor Jim Backus; and several tracks with vocal group backing. Six of the collection’s 13 tracks were written or co-written by Peggy Lee during an era when popular and jazz vocalists very rarely wrote the songs they recorded.
Peggy Lee’s 1948 duet with Dean Martin, “You Was,” dates from one of Martin’s first recording sessions for Capitol in a label affiliation that lasted 14 years and produced dozens of hit singles and albums. The only one among this collection’s 13 tracks to previously be available digitally, “You Was” is included here in improved sound quality. Although it was the sole Lee-Martin duet on record, Martin recorded solo versions of three songs Lee co-wrote, and the two artists sang duets on ten episodes of Martin’s television variety show in the 1960s and 1970s. Lee’s professional relationship with singer-songwriter Mel Tormé began in 1949 (here represented by the 1949 duet “Bless You [For the Good That’s in You],” co-written by Lee and Tormé, as well as 1951’s “Don’t Fan the Flame”), and continued with other duet pairings on record, radio and television. Lee and Tormé also co-headlined concert stages, including at Lee’s final concert performance in 1995.
Beloved jazz pianist George Shearing is featured on the collection’s opening track, “Always True to You in My Fashion,” a song from Cole Porter’s masterwork, Kiss Me, Kate. This rare live recording with Shearing and his quintet is taken from a 1959 disc jockey convention in Miami that was to have been released on the Capitol album Beauty and the Beat! but was ultimately replaced by studio recordings due to technical flaws in other portions of the live recording. Another track, from 1967, features jazz harmonicist and guitarist Toots Thielemans accompanying Lee on Walter Donaldson’s “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” an outtake from Lee’s Capitol album Something Groovy! (1967). Other distinguished jazz personnel on From the Vaults (Vol. 4) include Sy Oliver, conductor on the Decca version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (Lee had previously recorded the spiritual for Capitol), and several prominent jazzmen – among them Benny Carter, Billy May and Red Norvo – featured on “Ja-Da,” an instrumental track that features Lee performing on drums as part of Capitol’s stunt configuration Ten Cats and a Mouse.
Lee was very rarely backed by vocal groups in her catalog of over 1,100 masters, but they are heard here on the tracks “When You Speak with Your Eyes” (with the Guadalajara Boys, a song co-written by Lee, her first husband, Dave Barbour, and Cuban composer, pianist and bandleader Rene Touzet), “Wandering Swallow” (with the Jud Conlon Singers, with whom Lee frequently sang on Bing Crosby’s radio show), and an unidentified group on “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
From the mid-1950s come two whimsical songs involving the popular cartoon character Mr. Magoo voiced by comic actor Jim Backus: “Three Cheers for Mr. Magoo” and “Mr. Magoo Does the Cha Cha Cha,” both written by Lee, the latter in collaboration with jazz pianist Gene DiNovi. From the mid-1960s comes another cartoon homage, this time to Batman, who was then at the height of his popularity through the ABC television series. Lee co-wrote the comic number “That Man” with her longtime Capitol producer Dave Cavanaugh, incorporating “Pow!,” “Zowie!,” and other exclamations regularly featured on the program.
With the release of the four-volume From the Vaults digital series, Lee’s entire catalog of issued master recordings from the Universal family of labels — Capitol, Decca, A&M, and Polydor — now becomes fully accessible via digital streaming.
To read a full track history, visit here.
To read about previous volumes of From the Vaults: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3.
From the Vaults (Vol. 4) Track Listing
1. Always True to You in My Fashion (Cole Porter)
Recorded May 29, 1959 – featuring George Shearing
2. You’re Driving Me Crazy (Walter Donaldson)
Recorded June 7, 1967 – featuring Toots Thielemans
3. Mister Magoo Does the Cha Cha Cha (Gene DiNovi, Peggy Lee)
Recorded June 3, 1955 – featuring Jim Backus
4. Don’t Fan the Flame (Hal Dickinson, Jack Elliot)
Recorded July 10, 1951 – duet with Mel Tormé
5. Three Cheers for Mister Magoo (Peggy Lee)
Recorded June 3, 1955 – featuring Jim Backus
6. That Man (Dave Cavanaugh [using name Bill Schluger], Peggy Lee)
Recorded February 1, 1966 – alternate version with character sound effects
7. Bless You (For the Good That’s in You) (Peggy Lee, Mel Tormé)
Recorded November 16, 1949 – duet with Mel Tormé
8. You Was (Sonny Burke, Paul Francis Webster)
Recorded December 14, 1948 – duet with Dean Martin
9. My Small Señor (Dave Barbour, Peggy Lee)
Recorded December 2, 1949 – featuring the Guadalajara Boys
10. Wandering Swallow (Harold Stevens, Irving Taylor)
Recorded May 16, 1951 – featuring the Jud Conlon Singers
11. When You Speak with Your Eyes (Dave Barbour, Peggy Lee, Rene Touzet)
Recorded December 2, 1949 – featuring the Guadalajara Boys
12. Ja-Da (Bob Carleton)
Recorded October 13, 1947 – instrumental by Ten Cats and a Mouse
13. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Traditional)
Recorded January 6, 1956 – accompanied by Sy Oliver