IN THIS ISSUE: i f An interview with PEGGY LEE Reviews of BOOKS AND BIG RECORDS to consider about GEORGE WEIN, CRAIG RAYMOND, BAND KAY KYSER and others JUMP ★ A BIG BANDLEADERS’ PRIMARY INSTRUMENT TRIVIA QUIZ NEWSLETTER ★ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR about STUDIO ORCHESTRAS, SPIKE JONES, HERB JEFFRIES, and others BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE Atlanta, GA 30355 PAID Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JIMP N EWSLETTER VOLUME LXXXVII_____________________________BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST 2003 lems than most of us experience. Later in life she took PEGGY LEE INTERVIEW engagements while requiring respirator treatments four times a day during ten years of her life. She played sold- out clubs with dangerously-high temperatures when she had to be carried off the stage to a hospital. She underwent open-heart surgery and suffered failing eye­ sight and a serious fall but continued to perform sitting in a chair until a few years before her death on January 21,2002 The Scene Veteran broadcaster and Big Band expert Fred Hall conducted the interview at Peggy Lee ’ s Bel Air home in the 1970s, at a time when she was still performing and still making records. The first question was about how her job with Goodman came about. BBJ: Did you j oin the Goodman band directly from singing in clubs? The cheerful Lee PL: Yes, I was singing in a club at that time I met him. Before that I had been singing on a radio The Background station in Fargo, North Dakota. We’ve all heard the stories about Peggy Lee ascending BBJ: Home town for you? to national fame with her performance on the Goodman recording of WHY DON’T YOU DO RIGHT?, but PL: Well, it was one of my home towns. North seldom mentioned is her unhappy childhood when she Dakota as a whole is my home town. A very was abused by her stepmother. It was no wonder she dear man, Ken Kennedy, who was the program director left home early to make her own way singing in the (at the radio station) was reponsible for really starting clubs and on radio in her native North Dakota, eventu­ me out. And Ken, really.... well, for one thing, he gave ally to be “discovered” in one of those clubs and me my name. Ken put me on the air within an hour of become a vital part of the Goodman organization. our first conversation. And he said, “Well, we have to change your name. This won’t do at all.” So we changed After Goodman, Peggy Lee became not only a top it to Peggy Lee. (It was, as you know, Norma Egstrom.) recording artist, but a composer, a radio personality and appeared in a couple of movies. IT’S A GOOD All he said was, “You look like a Peggy. What goes with Peggy? Peggy Schwartz? No. Peggy Lee.” DAY, MANANA, I DIDN’T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT YOU and the entire score for Disney’s “Lady And The Tramp” and others all came from the Peggy BBJ: In those days all singers wanted to sing with a Lee pen. band. Despite her fresh, optimistic appearance when she was PL: Well, yes. I, of course, was a big fan of Benny performing, Peggy Lee suffered more physical prob­ Goodman and I spent money I didn’t have on VOLUME LXXXVII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST 2003 the jukebox playing DON’T BE THAT WAY. Alice really something there. And later, when the record ban Goodman.... she was then Lady Duckworth.... brought came on, Benny released everything he had in the can. Benny in to hear me at the Ambassador in Chicago. My roommate then was Jane Feather, Leonard Feather’s BBJ: Mel said you had to stand on some soap boxes wife, and later she said, “Benny Goodman called and to record one sextet record. asked if you’d like to sing with his orchestra.” And I thought someone was teasing me for sure. But they PL: I never quite figured out the reason for that, but weren’t. He was all set to hire me, which was a big anytime I could sing with Mel Powell playing surprise to me. I was with the band for two years. behind me, it was such a joy. But that was true. I had to crawl up there, and very quietly in my stocking feet, BBJ: Tell us about working with pianist, composer because you know the studio is extremely live, and that and arranger Mel Powell. (Powell wrote the was the one microphone for the whole thing, including arrangement for WHY DON’T YOU DO RIGHT?) the vocals. So I really had to do an acting job there and pretend I was someplace else, instead of on those boxes. PL: Oh, I j ust can ’ t say enough good things about him. When I first joined Benny, I didn’t have BBJ: Did you go immediately to Capitol Records any rehearsal and the things were not in my key.... two from the Goodman Band? things that make it very difficult to perform. And then, add the horror, the fright, the shyness, and I caught a PL: Well, actually I married Dave Barbour and psychosomatic cold immediately because I was just intended to settle down for once and for all. I terrified. So some of those arrangements, if you was very happy being a housewife and being a mother. remember, were Eddie Sauter arrangements, and they And Dave Dexter called me up one day and asked me to were marvelous. However they had little things like a come down and sing for an album called “New Ameri­ seven-bar introduction to something, and a relative key can Jazz.” I thought, “Well, I think lean get a babysitter, to a relative, which later, everything worked out for the and I’ll just go down there and sing.” And that was good. Later I found that to be an invaluable way of sort successful, so they asked us to record more. Capitol of surprising the audience, to choose my key out of was barely beginning. The offices were up above Sy what seems to be.... Devore’s tailor shop on Sunset and Vine. BBJ: A modulation out of nowhere? PL: Yes, I would count, and walk up to the mic and start singing. Benny couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. BBJ: Was your first big record WHY DON’T YOU DO RIGHT? PL: That wasn’t the first one. I had a hit on SOMEBODY ELSE IS TAKING MY PLACE, and then I think WHY DON’T YOU DO RIGHT? certainly overshadowed everything. I was a big fan of Lil Green, and I used to play that record constantly in my dressing room, and Benny heard me playing it. He couldn’t help but hear me play it, and he finally asked me if I’d like to sing it with the band and I said, “Oh, I’d love it.” So that’s how that was bom. And I expected them to stomp and cheer because I thought there was Peggy Lee & Dave Barbour 2 VOLUME LXXXVII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST 2003 BBJ: Just above the m usic store that became easy. Why worry about all these things? I think we’re “Wallachs Music City.” Glen Wallachs, Buddy all running too fast, anyway. And I’m one of those DeSilvaandJohnnyMercerweretheownersofCapitol. runners. I think you could call me one of those workaholics. PL: And dear Glen was really.... I compare him in my mind a bit to Walt Disney. He had the same BBJ: How do you go about finding songs other than leadership quality. Such great character and enthusiasm. the standards? BBJ: Your songwriting? PL: Well, I look carefully for the songs, and then I sort of mull it around in my mind. I like things PL: I was j ust beginning to write songs as a hobby that sort of tell a story or convey an emotion. I like that when I was taking care of my house, and one-to-one feeling with the audience. I look for those Johnny heard some of those things and liked them and qualities, and naturally the music has to be great, but the he gave me some good, helpful criticism, like “Try lyric has to be first, because it has to say a particular this” or "Try that.” I just never will forget him for all thing, of course. The ideal thing, of course, is when it’s the many things he did for me. And he was instrumental the proper marriage of lyric and music.... it’s just in my being a songwriter. Then when they talked me lovely. Say, THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE, for into recording, we didn’t have any material so Johnny example. That’s a beautiful thing. said, “Do those things I heard.... those are great.” So we did them and they were hits. BBJ: There aren’t many singers around today who choose such material. BBJ: The first session? PL: I think it’s like the play is the thing. You must PL: WHAT MORE CAN A WOMAN DO? and have the material or youhave nothing. But I something called YOU WAS RIGHT, BABY, spend quite a bit of time thinking about the interpreta­ which was a funny song title with a story to it. I was j ust tion, and that seems to be my forte, interpreting. For­ sitting in the Capitol office and I saw someone hit tunately, my voice has held up.