Peggy Lee
Black Coffee
Who would have thought Norma Deloris Egstrom would have had a voice like this?
Record label: Decca
Produced: Cy Godfrey
Recorded: New York City; April 30, May 1 and 4, 1953
Released: 1953
Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Peggy Lee (v); Pete Condoli (t); Jimmy Rowles (p); Max Wayne (b); Ed Shaughnessy (d)
Track listing: Black Coffee; I’ve Got You Under My Skin; Easy Living; My Heart Belongs To Daddy (S); A Woman Alone With The Blues; I Didn’t Know What Time It Was; When The World Was Young; Love Me Or Leave Me
Running time: 20.35
Current CD: Verve 9863193 reissue of the 1956 12-inch edition with additional tracks: It Ain’t Necessarily So; Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You?; You’re My Thrill, There’s A Small Hotel
Further listening: The Man I Love, a bundle of string-laden ballads, recorded with an orchestra conducted by Frank Sinatra and containing a superlative The Folks That Live On The Hill.
Further reading: The Life And Music of Miss Peggy Lee (Peter Richmond, 2006); Miss Peggy Lee (1992), an autobiography that fills many gaps without being entirely satisfactory; www.peggylee.com
Download: Not currently legally available
Undoubtedly among the finest female singers to grace the world of popular music, Peggy Lee was vocally equipped to sing blues, jazz, Broadway standards or even cornball material, though she generally steered clear of the latter. She was also an accomplished songwriter; she fashioned the soundtrack for The Lady And The Tramp and picked up an Oscar nomination for her acting ability. All this and beauty too.
It was a long road to her debut album. Born Norma Deloris Egstrom, she began as a teenage singer in 1936 with the Jack Wardlow Band, then joined Will Osborne (1940–41) before becoming part of vocal group The Four Of Us. Heard by King of Swing Benny Goodman, she became vocalist with his highly rated outfit, cutting her first records within days of taking the job and notching her first hit that same year with a cover of Duke Ellington’s I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good. After several other hits with the Goodman outfit, she married the band’s guitarist, Dave Barbour, whose own band featured on many of her initial solo recordings. Signed first to Capitol and then to Decca, Peg notched over 30 hit singles of varying quality (one was titled Bum, Bum, I Wonder Who I Am) between 1945 and 1953, when the opportunity arose to cut her first long-player.
It was released in ten-inch form with a mere eight tracks (four other songs, recorded at a Los Angeles session in April 1956 were added when the record eventually appeared as a 12-inch). But with those original eight tracks the singer established herself in the very top echelon, alongside Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Though there was no outlet for her R&B talents, later manifest on such singles as The Comeback, Black Coffee allowed Peg the opportunity to swing effortlessly and phrase with dangerous abandon on such songs as I’ve Got You Under My Skin, faultlessly conjure a four-in-the-morning mood on the torchy title track, or interpret Johnny Mercer’s superb lyric to When The World Was Young in such a manner that, to date, no one has yet managed to extract from it so much emotion or bestow it with such fragility.
Julie London
Julie Is Her Name
Intimate and sensual torch song motherlode.
Record label: Liberty
Produced: Bobby Troup
Recorded: 1955
Released: December 1955
Chart peaks: None (UK) 2 (US)
Personnel: Julie London (v); Barney Kessel (g); Ray Leatherwood (b)
Track Listing: Cry Me A River; I Should Care; I’m In The Mood For Love; I’m Glad There Is You; Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man; I Love You; Say It Isn’t So; It Never Entered My Mind; Easy Street;’ S Wonderful; No Moon At All; Laura; Gone With The Wind
Running time: 31.11
Current CD: Hallmark 706452 adds: Lonely Girl; Fools Rush In; Moments Like This; I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City; It’s The Talk Of The Town; What’ll I Do; When Your Lover Has Gone; Don’t Take Your Love From Me; Where Or When; All Alone; Mean To Me; How Deep Is The Ocean; Remember
Further listening: Julie Is Her Name Vol 2 (1956)
Further reading: www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/baccarach/387/Bio.htm (fan site)
Download: iTunes
‘The girl with the come-hither voice,’ said Bill Balance in his sleevenotes – never mind that she was a married woman with two children. Her voice, a husky instrument that lingered on syllables like honey oozing off a spoon, was the sexiest entreaty American music could offer in 1955. Elvis may have been knocking on the door, but the torch singers of the ’50s – Holiday, Lee, Vaughan, Fitzgerald – still held American men spellbound, and the statuesque Miss London – already with a modest movie career behind her – came to represent the genre.
She had already done plenty of work as a nightclub singer, encouraged by her pianist husband Bobby Troup, but Liberty was the only label interested in taking a chance on recording her. Troup insisted that she be recorded in the same setting as her live act – no orchestra, not even a piano, and just the bare strings of guitar and acoustic bass in support. Every song a ballad and nothing uptempo. Kessel (who also played on some of The Coasters’ records from the same period) offers trim accompaniments that introduce just a lick of jazz, but nothing to disturb the besotted listener. The mood had to be ‘round midnight’, and even though there are 13 songs on the record, it barely exceeds half an hour in length. Troup’s instincts were right. Released as a single, Cry Me A River was a major hit, and suddenly everyone knew that her name was Julie. The other songs are similarly lonesome, but here and there Julie flirts with a sort of blues feel, particularly on Easy Street. There is a little vibrato at the end of each line, just enough to make a strong man’s legs go weak, and when she disappears with Gone With The Wind, it’s as if someone has opened a window and she has just drifted off, a copper-haired phantom. Julie made many more albums for Liberty, and many of them were gorgeous, but this one still says it all.
The Four Freshmen
Four Freshmen And Five Trombones
Best album by vocal group that influenced The Beach Boys.
Record label: Capitol
Produced: Dave Cavanagh and Pete Rugolo
Recorded: Capitol Studios, Hollywood; 1955
Released: February 1956
Chart peaks: 6 (UK) 6 (US)
Personnel: Ross Barbour, Bob Flanigan, Ken Errair, Don Barbour (v); Frank Rosolino, Harry Betts Jr, Milt Bernhardt, Tommy Pederson, George Roberts (tb); Claude Williamson (p); Barney Kessel (g); Shelly Manne (d); Joe Mondragon (b)
Track listing: Angel Eyes; Love Is Just Around The Corner; Mamselle; Speak Low; The Last Time I Saw Paris; Somebody Loves Me; You Stepped Out Of A Dream; I Remember You; Love; Love Is Here To Stay; You Made Me Love You; Guilty
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