The Capitol Years, Part 2
The Peggy Lee Discography and Videography

Return to Table of Contents

Note

This page is currently being updated. The finished version will contain additional issues, personnel, and other details. The prospective date for the online debut of the updated page is May, 2008.

Meanwhile, I have made a few basic additions for the benefit of readers in search of recommended CD's. Such recommended items are now easy to locate in the page, because their titles are in capitals and bold lettering. For instance, the following CD set is a highly recommended anthology of Peggy Lee's Capitol recordings: THE SINGLES COLLECTION. Recommendations are based primarily on above-average sound quality and overall production (design, liner notes, track information).

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), unknown (cl, tb, b, p, d), Dave Barbour (g), Peggy Lee (v)

Between 1944 and 1945, Peggy Lee had recorded only four Capitol sessions. This scarcity of recording activity suggests that she had not yet committed herself to a full recording career. During those two years, various factors may have heightened her interest in pursuing a full-singing career. To wit: husband Barbour's encouragement and co-participation in her limited recording activity, and good-to-enthusiastic word of mouth about her earliest songwriting efforts on record (e.g., "What More Can A Woman Do" would be covered by Sarah Vaughan in 1945 and by Joe Mooney in 1947; "I Don't Know Enough About You," would find Lee's own version in competition for airplay with those of The Mills Brothers and even Benny Goodman. who had assigned the vocal to Lee's former duet partner, Art Lund).

More generally, Peggy Lee's earliest solo attempts had evinced a continued pattern of popular success -- a success which should have pleased and motivated the singer. By Lee's own account, the radio airplay given to her 1944 sides with The Capitol Jazzmen ("Ain't Goin' No Place," "That Old Feeling") was gratifying. Moreover, songs from her two 1945 sessions had proved bona fide hits ("Waitin' For The Train To Come In," "I Don't Know Enough About You," "I'm Glad I Waited For You"), and ditto for of the songs that she recorded during her only session for the first half of 1946 ("Linger In My Arms A Little Longer, Baby"). Even a belatedly released Benny Goodman cut ("How Deep Is The Ocean") had made it to the 1945 airplay lists.

During the second half of 1946, Peggy Lee will return to the music business in full force, recording studio sessions at a steady rate, participating in numerous radio shows, and doing concert appearances with Barbour.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), unknown (cl, t, tb, b, p, d), Dave Barbour (g), Peggy Lee (v)

Capitol's files list "Don't Be So Mean To Baby" as unissued, "I've Had My Moments" as rejected.

For the originally issued version of "Don't Be So Mean To Baby," see session dated October 16, 1946.

For two other studio versions of "I've Had My Moments," one of them released in 2008, see sessions dated July 23, 1946 (including note) and November 26, 1947. See also pages for MacGregor and Capitol Transcriptions.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Frank DeVol (con), Lee Gillette (pdr), Frank Devol and His Orchestra (acc), unknown (str), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Heinie Beau (cl), unknown (cl, t, tb, b, p, d), Dave Barbour (g), Peggy Lee (v)

For two other Capitol studio versions of "I've Had My Moments," both of them unreleased see sessions dated July 12, 1946 and November 26, 1947. The title had also been recorded by Lee earlier on, twice, on two transcriptions, both of which have been commercially issued. (See both MacGregor and Capitol radio transcriptions.)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

For the earlier version of "Don't Be So Mean To Baby" that was first releaed in 2008, see session dated July 12, 1946.

Peggy Lee's Capitol versions of the traditional "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" were probably adapted by her and Dave Barbour. For the version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" that Capitol released originally, in 1947, see session dated January 29, 1947.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Hank D'Amico (cl), Jake Koven (t), Dave Barbour (g), Bob Haggart (b), Sanford Gold (p), Johnny Blowers (d), Peggy Lee (v)

"(It's) The Bluest Kind Of Blues" is a vocal version of "Nuages," the celebrated instrumental by guitarist Django Reinhardt (whose birth name was Jean Baptiste). In Capitol CD 73435 27564 2 1, annotator Gene Lees erroneously refers to this song as a vocal version of the Theme for "The Jackie Gleason Show."

Capitol CD 077779782628 gives a different dating for "You Can Depend On Me:" October 17, 1946.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Dave Barbour (con, g), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Heinie Beau (cl, as), Dave Cavanaugh (ts), Chuck Gentry (bar), Red Nichols (c), Bill Davis (b), Tommy Linehan (p), Nick Fatool (d), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

This version of the traditional "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was adapted by Dave Barbour and Peggy Lee. Another Capitol version had been recorded earlier, on October 17, 1946, and remained unissued until 32008. (Lee had further recorded the number as a Capitol radio transcription, on June 11, 1946, and would record it once more, in an entirely different style and arrangement, for the Decca label, on January 6, 1956.)

Benny Goodman (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Benny Goodman (cl), Dave Barbour (g), Harry Babasin (b), Tommy Todd (p), Ernie Felice (pac), Tommy Romersa (d), Peggy Lee (v)

Recording Location

Mosaic's CD The Complete Capitol Small Group Recordings Of Benny Goodman 1944-1955 lists Radio Recorders as the location for all 1947 Capitol sessions by Benny Goodman.


Masters (And Royalties)

1. Eight, Nine And Ten
Benny Goodman, who had joined the Capitol label in January, recorded "Eight, Nine and Ten" again, on June 3, 1947. That remake version, also on Capitol, does not feature Peggy Lee. (Goodman himself sings instead.) Royalties for the
March 28 track were to be split between Goodman and Lee, which might well account for Goodman's decision to re-record the tune with himself as vocalist.
See also personnel notes under session dated December 2, 1947.

2. Non-Lee Masters
Also recorded during this session were the instrumentals (master 1800-6) and
"I Never Knew (I Could Love Anybody)" (master 1802-3).


Crossreferences (Benny Goodman)

For other Capitol recordings involving Lee and Goodman, see the first of two sessions dated December 2, 1947, and also the September 12, 1947 session.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Ray Linn (t), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Frank DeVol (con), Lee Gillette (pdr), Frank Devol and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Lee Gillette (pdr), Paul Weston and his Orchestra (acc), Benny Goodman (cl), Peggy Lee, Johnny Mercer, The Pied Pipers, Margaret Whiting (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Heinie Beau (a), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), unknown (t, b, p, d), Dave Barbour (g), Peggy Lee (v)

Heinie Beau arranger of "Golden Earrings" only. Arranger(s) of other songs unknown.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Heinie Beau (a), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), unknown (t, b, p, d), Dave Barbour (g), Peggy Lee (v)

For an unissued version of "Golden Earrings," see session dated September 23, 1947.

Lee Gillette (pdr), Paul Weston (cl), Eddie Miller (as), Benny Carter (ts), Dave Cavanaugh (bar), Dave Barbour (t), Billy May, Bobby Sherwood (tb), Hal Derwin (g), Frank DeVol (b), Red Norvo (p), Peggy Lee (d)

Session credited on the original 78 to Ten Cats And A Mouse. Peggy Lee is billed as The Mouse.

Both numbers are instrumentals. Each of the session's 11 artists plays a different instrument from the one associated with him or her.

The original 78 issue credits "Three O'Clock Jump" to "Felis Domestica," presumably a tongue-in-cheek pseudonym designating a non-existing composer.

"Felis Domestica" is Latin for "domestic cats," and hence another allusion to the sessions' musicians ("Ten Cats").

"Three O'Clock Jump" receives a different title ("Three-Thirty Jump") on Capitol CD 077779782628. Unaware of any valid reasons for the change, the discographers have kept the title found on both the original 78 issue and the Mosaic sets. Billy May discographer Jack Mirtle states that it was "an untitled blues at the time of recording."

Mirtle further states that "no original Artist Performance files [are] remaining at Capitol with regard to this session," and that Capitol's master computer file is his source for the dating.

Also recorded on this date were master 2345 ("Hollyridge Drive") and 2346 ("Under A Blanket Of Blue"), both instrumentals performed by Red Norvo's Nine, which included six of the Ten Cats, albeit no Mouse.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Heinie Beau (a, cl), Benny Carter (a, as), Billy May, Harold Mooney (a), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), Herbert Haymer (ts), Ray Linn, Rubin "Zeke" Zarchy (t), unknown (tb), Dave Barbour (g), Red Callender (b), Buddy Cole (p), Red Norvo (vib), Nick Fatool (d), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Billy May (a), Dave Barbour and His Orchestra (acc), unknown (str), Peggy Lee (v)