The Decca Years
The Peggy Lee Bio-Discography And Videography
by Iván Santiago

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Peggy Lee's Recording Career, 1952-1957

For a general account of Peggy Lee years at Decca Records, see this page's final note. Among the sub-topics discussed therein: The Switch From Capitol To Decca, Total Number Of Decca Masters, Unissued Decca Recordings, and Departure From Decca.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins (con), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

The Lover Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Although not compiled until 1964, the Decca album Lover actually contains numbers that Peggy Lee had recorded back in 1952, on the following dates: April 23 and 28, May 1, July 31, November 28, and December 16. The album's cohesiveness comes from the fact that Gordon Jenkins conducted all of those 1952 monophonic dates. Lover was released both in mono and in "hi-fi stereophonic" sound, which was Decca's name for its brand of simulated stereo.


Songs

1. "Be Anything (But Be Mine)" In The Charts
Peggy Lee's very first single on Decca (28142) garnered favorable reviews, as well as airplay and sales. According to Joel Whitburn's estimates in his book Pop Memories, 1890-1954, "Be Anything (But Be Mine") peaked at #21, after debuting on the week of May 24, 1952. It was one of four competing versions to make the charts. Mercury's Eddy Howard And His Orchestra placed the highest, at number 7. Versions by Champ Butler and Helen O'Connell placed lower than Lee's, at 26 and 27, respectively.

(Decades after her stay at Decca, Peggy Lee and others erroneously remembered the song "Lover" as her earliest hit on the label. Although "Lover" was her biggest hit for the record company, and certainly one of her earliest, it was not her very first.)

Peggy Lee's first Decca hit was also her 27th solo hit. If her 10 charting numbers as Benny Goodman's vocalist are also included, then "Be Anything" becomes her 37th entry in Billboard's charts.


Arrangements

The notes of original Decca LP Lover suggest that Gordon Jenkins arranged all of its songs. The claim seems likely, but i this discography I'm abstaining from trusting collective arrangement credits, which often prove to be inflated, or partially false.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins (con), Milt Gabler (pdr), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra (acc), Others Unknown (orc), Art Drellinger, Jack Greenberg, Tom Parshley, Milt Yaner (sax), Art Ryerson (g), Jack Lesberg (b), Bernie Leighton (p), unknown (d), Peggy Lee (v)

Arrangements And Cross-references (Film)

1. "Lover"
Peggy Lee conceived the original arrangement of "Lover," and Gordon Jenkins did the orchestration for the studio recording.

Lee's inspiration for the arrangement came from watching scenes featuring the Spanish Foreign Legion, in the 1935 movie La Bandera. Some of the scenes showed the legion's horses changing pace, from gait to gallop, at the command of a banner waved by the film's star, Jean Gabin. Lee's mind associated the horses' gallop with Latin rhythms, and the waving banner with musical keys. Relying on such associations, she conceived a piece in which musical keys are frequently raised, and in which multiple time signatures are combined. "Using the different tempos," she said in an interview, "made it seem like we were changing the keys, which we were to a certain extent, but it made it sound like we were going faster, you know?"

The singer initially met with her rhythm section, to explain her concept to them. She let the musicians know the tempo in which she wanted to sing the number, and discussed with them her desire to have a large number of percussionists involved -- eventually, there would be eight of them. As Lee herself tells it, "[t]he bongos would be playing straight eights. The congas would be playing six-eight and other Latin rhythms, and the drums played a straight fast four. We tried this in clubs and concerts, and people went wild over it, including some pros."

After meeting with such success in concert, an elated Lee proceeded to try to record the number, first for Capitol, which nixed the idea, and then for Decca, where Jenkins was enlisted to orchestrate the piece. Years later, when a modest Jenkins was asked about this arrangement, he said that "it was absolutely her idea. She laid it out for me -- not literally the music notes but the tempo and the Latin drummers, the whole pseudo-sexy feel of this thing, changing keys a couple of times, the whole thing was dictated by her. Everybody's running around saying what a brilliant arranger I was, but the whole conception of the thing was hers."

For her part, Lee retorted, "[w]ell that's ridiculous. I just had an idea for the rhythm section, nothing to do with the whole orchestration, and he brought my concept to life. I had no idea that he could embellish so beautifully."


At The Recording Session

This master of "Lover" was rejected. (The song was successfully re-recorded on May 1, 1952.) According to Lee herself, the acoustics at Liederkranz Hall, along with the presence of eight percussionists, made it impossible to pick up her vocal on "Lover."

Gordon Jenkins had a different recollection of the events. In 1977, he told the British press that the recording "was a pain in the ass (laughter). Oh, my God, what a disaster. I must have had 40 guys, then we had 4 Latin cats, and they were out in center field some place -- way the hell out. We're going at a big, fast tempo, and it's just murder trying to keep the thing together, and then Peggy stops and announces that she can't sing in tune because my drummer isn't playing on the cymbal. She must hear him play on the cymbal, or she can't sing. It was a buzz cymbal, a great big thing with a little piece of metal to give it extra vibration. She just wanted the guy to keep playing that thing all the way through. I said, 'Peggy, if he plays on the cymbal, this is going to be the worst shambles you've ever seen in your life.' And for the moment it went right down the drain; she went home and gave up the date. What are you gonna do? That's not my fault. I just went down to the saloon. But when we called a new session about 3 days later, some other drummer showed up, and we went ahead and made the record."


Personnel

In his notes for Decca LP Dxsb 7164, Leonard Feather reports that over 36 musicians participated in this recording session, not including the unidentified voices in charge of the background vocals.


Songwriters:

1. Richard Rodgers
Peggy Lee writes in her autobiography that Richard Rodgers "was usually very strict about how his songs were interpreted. In fact, when we would receive his scores at Capitol, he would send instructions on how they were to be performed. All of us respected him so highly that we were happy to follow his orders. A bit later on, when I did Lover, apparently I forgot that."

Lee picked the song "Lover" as a suitable candidate for her La bandera-inspired arrangement because of the composition's spare and passionate lyrics, which mirrored the movie's romantic storyline. Lee might have also watched the movie Love Me Tonight (1932), in which case her association of this song with horses would not be surprising. In an scene from that movie, operetta singer-actress Jeannette MacDonald sings "Lover" (with partially different lyrics) while she rides a carriage pulled by a favorite horse of hers. (I am not aware, however, of any Lee mentions of this 1932 film.)

Not surprisingly, Lee's radical re-thinking of the melody resulted in strongly worded displeasure from the original composer, who had written the number as a waltz. The most pointed remark that he is said to have uttered: "I don't know why Peggy picked on me when she could have f*ck*d up 'Silent Night'." Other received accounts quote a more diplomatic lament: "my little waltz, my little waltz." (It's worth noting that, before 1952, Rodgers' waltz had already been re-cast into a danceable uptempo, by acts such as Gene Krupa and Frank Sinatra. Rodgers was probably aware of and unhappy with those earlier uptempo versions, yet he is not known to have expressed his displeasure as strongly as he did in the case of Lee's version . The composer's mortification in 1952 might have had more to do with the fact that, unlike those earlier and more modest experiments, Lee's version was enthusiastically received by the public and by some professionals -- in particular, by various arrangers, who called the recording an innovative concept.)

Rodgers eventually changed his tune (as it were). According to Lee in her autobiography, years later the composer told her that he was using her recording in lectures, as an illustration of how songs can remain vibrant despite changing trends in music. Lee also refers to an appreciative telegram that Rodgers sent her after she had participated in a 1976 televised tribute in his honor. She directly quotes him as having written: "[y]ou interpret my songs any way you like. I trust your taste." Presumably with his blessing, she then appeared in a tribute to Rodgers that was televised in 1977. But long before that year, Lee had certainly been interpreting the composer's songs in "any way she liked." Her extensive repertoire of recordings by Rodgers (about 30 compositions) often shows an innovative, experimental approach to the music.


Songs And Cross-references

1. "Lover" In The Charts And In Lee's Discography
The song "Lover" was Peggy Lee's second chart hit on Decca. For other specifics, see notes under session dated May 1, 1952. Notice that, over the decades, Lee kept doing this song at the studio, in concert and televison, with different arrangements; see, for instance, studio session dated March 8, 1977 and, from her television page, her 1967 special.

2. "Just One Of Those Things" In The Charts
"Just One Of Those Things" was Peggy Lee's fourth hit at Decca Records. (For her second and third chart hits, see sessions below.) According to Joel Whitburn, the song charted on the week of August 2, 1952, and peaked at #14 . It was this standard's second (and last) time in the charts, after a 1935 top ten version by Richard Himber And His Orchestra.


The Lover Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 23 and 28, May 1, July 31, November 28, and December 16, 1952. See further comments under April 23, 1952 session.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins (con), Milt Gabler (pdr), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra (acc), Others Unknown (orc), Art Drellinger, Jack Greenberg, Tom Parshley, Milt Yaner (sax), Art Ryerson (g), Jack Lesberg (b), Bernie Leighton (p), Harry Jaeger (d), Peggy Lee (v)

At The Recording Session

Lee's first attempt at recording "Lover," on April 28, had failed, to her great disappointment. Amidst a 36-piece orchestra (+) that included eight percussionists, the microphones had not picked up the vocal to her satisfaction. (For other reasons why the original vocal was rejected, see notes under session dated April 28, 1952.)

During this second "Lover" session, Lee was placed in an isolation booth. The success of this idea, never previously attempted by Lee, would lead her to favor this method, particularly when recording ballads, which required a greater feel of intimacy and concentration from her.


Personnel

1. Milt Gabler, Morty Palitz
There is some discrepancy about the identity of the A&R man who presided over the "Lover" session(s). Lee's autobiography makes passing reference to Morty Palitz, and other texts have followed suit. However, Milt Gabler is given credit in literature about him. (He is also mentioned as one of the person who, along with Sonny Burke, saw her rendition of "Lover" at The Copacabana, and signed her to Decca Records.) It could be that both men were involved or present during the sessions. It could also be that Lee has wrongly referred to Palitz, rather than Gabler, in her autobiography.


Songs

1. "Lover"
One of the reasons for Peggy Lee's switch of labels in 1952 was her desire to record the song "Lover," and her disappointment with Capitol's refusal to let her do so. An unidentified producer at Capitol objected on the shaky grounds that the label already had a hit recording of "Lover," by Les Paul (which has been released three years earlier!), and thus didn't need another. Lee protested, arguing that she definitely had another hit version in her hands and citing the enthusiastic reaction that her arrangement of this number was receiving live in concert.

Nothing else is known about the reasoning behind Capitol's refusal, other than the aforementioned reference to Les Paul's hit. I suspect that Capitol was unwilling to spend money in what might have sounded like a costly experiment (given the prospective use of a large orchestra), with no guarantee of commercial success.

Lee seems to have felt stung by the label's lack of confidence. After Decca's producer Milt Gabler offered a record contract, and added that he would like her to record "Lover," Peggy Lee proceeded to sign with Decca.

2. "Lover" In The Charts
"Lover" was Peggy Lee's second hit for Decca Records. According to Joel Whitburn's estimates in his book Pop Memories, 1890-1954, the song peaked at #3, after debuting on the week of June 7, 1952. The recording is said to have sold a quarter of a million in its first two weeks, and was eventually certified a million seller (It thus was Lee's second recording to hit the million mark, after her 1948 Capitol hit "Mañana"). It was also the standard's fourth time in the charts, following a couple of hit versions from back in 1933 (when the song was brand new), plus an innovative (multi-track) 1948 version by Les Paul, which peaked at #21.


The Lover Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 23 and 28, May 1, July 31, November 28, and December 16, 1952. See further comments under April 23, 1952 session.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Vic Schoen And His Orchestra (acc), Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee (v)

Songs

1. "Watermelon Weather" In The Charts
The duet "Watermelon Weather" became Peggy Lee's third hit on Decca Records. The song peaked at #28, and it had charted on the week of July 26, 1952, according to Joel Whitburn's chart estimates. Competing against the Decca version by Crosby and Lee was another duet, by Perry Como and Eddie Fisher, on RCA Victor. RCA won the battle in the charts, as their duet peaked at # 19.


Cross-references (Radio As Source)

Bing Crosby and Peggy Lee were heard singing "The Moon Came Up With A Great Idea Last Night" and "Watermelon Weather" on radio broadcasts from "Chesterfield Presents The Bing Crosby Show." (See this discography's page for Radio Broadcasts, once it opens for viewing.) "Watermelon Weather" was heard on a June 18, 1952 broadcast. Seven days later, "The Moon Came Up With A Great Idea Last Night" was heard on the show, too. Because Crosby's Chesterfield programs were usually taped and occasionally released on commercial record, the possibility exists that the Decca single contains the actual radio numbers. That possibility notwithstanding, the chronology of events makes it likelier that Crosby and Lee recorded the songs for Decca first, and later reprised them on his radio show. My own listening leads me to believe that the single is different from the radio versions, though very similar. For other studio recordings associated with Crosby's radio shows, see also notes under sessions dated November 17, 1952 and November 22, 1955.

Axel Stordahl (con), Peggy Lee (v)

The Road To Bali Sessions (Cross-references: Film)

In 1952, Decca Records and Bing Crosby dedicated three sessions to songs from the Paramount movie Road To Bali. Peggy Lee participated in two of the three dates (June 20 and 24). The third session (June 23) featured Crosby solos only.

Starring Crosby with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, the movie would be released the following year (1953). All three movie stars sing in the film's soundtrack, and all three seem to have been under contract with Decca Records during the early 1950's. Yet Peggy Lee was asked to record Lamour's soundtrack numbers.

For other instances in which Peggy Lee fulfilled a similar role, see sessions dated September 16, 1953, and April 10, 1954, both of them dedicated to songs from the movie Irving Berlin's White Christmas. On a related note, this Decca page contains numerous sessions dedicated to numbers from movies starring Peggy Lee, and movies for whose soundtracks Lee had co-written material. Perhaps this association with the world of the movies, so prevalent during Lee's Decca years, explains the label's decision to have her fill in the female role during both the Road To Bali and the Irving Berlin's White Christmas sessions. Another factor to weigh in is Lee's friendship with the star of both films, and a precedent: Crosby had probably arranged for Lee to have a cameo in an earlier movie of his, Mr. Music (1950).


Session's Masters

Also recorded during this session was master L6817 ("To See You Is To Love You"), sung by Bing Crosby, sans Peggy Lee. The session was thus shared by Crosby and Lee.

Bing Crosby (ldr), Sonny Burke and His Orchestra (acc), Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Peggy Lee (v)

The Road To Bali Sessions (Cross-references: Film)

For details about the Road To Bali sessions, see previous session, dated June 20, 1952.


Session's Masters

Also recorded during this session was master 6821 ("The Road To Bali"), a vocal duet by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, sans Lee.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v), The Gordon Jenkins Chorus (bkv)

The Lover Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 23 and 28, May 1, July 31, November 28, and December 16, 1952. See further comments under April 23, 1952 session.


Songs

1. "Sans Souci"
Mysteriously, the song "Sans Souci" receives the alternate title "Cyprus" in some sources, including ASCAP. It's worth noting that the lyrics seem to allude to a story -- to a character in exile, or perchance to an illegal alien. Was this vocal intended for a movie or for a Broadway musical? I have not found any helpful information on this subject matter.

It is also worth noting that Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke are not the only songwriters to give the title "Sans Souci" to a composition. Among others, Johnny Mercer and Count Basie composed numbers bearing the same title. (Mercer's "Sans Souci" is actually contemporaneous with Lee's. His was part of the musical Top Banana, which debuted on November 1, 1951.)

Lee's "Sans Souci" was a favorite of arranger Gordon Jenkins. In his own words: "Peggy just sees and hears things differently than other people. Good singer. Real good. 'Sans Souci,' which she wrote, is on the flip side [of our hit record 'Lover'] and that's the one I liked. It was recorded extremely well for those days." Jenkins' recollection of "Sans Souci" as the flip side of a "Lover" single is erroneous.

2. "River River" In The Charts
This song was Peggy Lee's fifth hit on Decca Records. According to Joel Whitburn, "River River" peaked at #23. It had debuted on the week of November 22, 1952.


Arrangements

1. Gordon Jenkins
The arranging credit for "Sans Souci" is found in Peggy Lee's 1990 album There'll Be Another Spring: The Peggy Lee Songbook. The arranger of "River River" is also believed to have been Jenkins, although any factual corroboration has yet to come forth.

Bing Crosby (ldr), Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires, John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra (acc), Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee (v)

Cross-references (Radio As Source)

During this Bing Crosby session, the Old Groaner also recorded masters 6894 ("Fatherly Advice"), 6895 ("Sleigh Ride"), and 6896 ("I Love My Baby"), none of them with Peggy Lee. "Little Jack Frost Get Lost" and "Sleigh Ride" were the session numbers chosen for release on Decca single (9) 28463.

Crosby discographer Timothy A. Morgereth asserts that all four titles in this session are test pressings transcribed from radio broadcasts. Indeed, Bing Crosby and Peggy Lee sang "Little Jack Frost Get Lost" on a January 11, 1950 broadcast of "Chesterfield Presents The Bing Crosby Show." In further support of his assertion, Morgereth notes that the matrical numbers for this Decca session do not follow the numerical sequence to which Decca "religiously adhered."

Aural comparison of the radio and studio versions suggests that they might be one and the same. (There is always the possibility that the test pressing in question contained a rehearsal of the broadcast, rather than the broadcast version itself.) The most obvious difference between radio broadcast and studio version pertains to the respective endings. The audience's final applause is absent from the Decca master.

For issues containing the original radio version, this discography's radio pages should be consulted (once they are complete and available for viewing). See also notes under Decca sessions dated May 16, 1952 and November 22, 1955.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra, The Gordon Jenkins Chorus (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

The Lover Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 23 and 28, May 1, July 31, November 28, and December 16, 1952. See further comments under April 23, 1952 session.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra, The Gordon Jenkins Chorus (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

The Jazz Singer Session (Cross-references: Film)

Both songs in this session were written for the 1953 Warner Brothers movie The Jazz Singer, starring Danny Thomas and Peggy Lee. (In connection to this movie, this discography's film page should also be consulted, once it is open for viewing.)


Songs

1. "I Hear The Music Now"
The melody of "I Hear The Music Now" is based on a theme by the French composer Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896), best remembered for his opera Mignon. My thanks to Michael J. White for first alerting me to the connection. See also [upcoming] notes about the song "Once In A Lifetime," under the session dated September 14, 1950.


Issues

1. Songs From The Jazz Singer (10" LP)
RCA Victor Lpm 3118 is a 10" LP that features only Danny Thomas singing numbers from the movie, including "This Is A Very Special Day."


The Lover Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 23 and 28, May 1, July 31, November 28, and December 16, 1952. See further comments under April 23, 1952 session.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Victor Young and His Singing Strings (acc), Peggy Lee (v), unknown (bkv)

Songs And Cross-references (Film)

1. "How Strange" And The Bullfighter And The Lady
"How Strange" was the love theme of the Republic movie The Bullfighter And The Lady, starring Robert Stack, and scored by Victor Young. An instrumental version of "How Strange" is indeed heard throughout the movie. Also heard during a very early scene is a version with vocals in Spanish. The scene in question takes place at a Mexican night club, in which the protagonists meet. The voice of a female vocalist is barely heard in the background, singing Spanish lyrics that seem to concentrate on romantic sorrow and longing ("me hablas de tu dolor ... el dolor de tu amor ... quisiera tenerte en mis brazos"). The melody is definitely that of "How Strange," but the Spanish lyrics bear no connection with the ones written by Peggy Lee, nor is Lee the Spanish-singing vocalist in this scene.

In a later scene, a female vocalist is actually seen, dressed in full traditional Mexican regalia, and singing in Spanish. She is presumably the same vocalist heard earlier. (This second time, she again sings of sorrow and unrequited love, but to a melody other than that of "How Strange." This Spanish singer is left unidentified in the movie's credits.

The movie was released in 1951 (two years before this studio session). Probably, Peggy Lee added English lyrics to the instrumental belatedly, at the suggestion of Victor Young himself, with whom she was collaborating in other projects around this session's time.

My thanks to George McGhee for his very kind assistance during the research of this movie. For another sports/love film in which Robert Stack also happens to star, and in which the film's theme is actually sung by Peggy Lee in the movie soundtrack, see session dated January 19, 1955.

2. "Where Can I Go Without You" In The Charts
Peggy Lee's ballad "Where Can I Go Without You" was her eighth Decca hit. Joel Whitburn's tabulations shows her version peaking at # 28, after debuting on the week of March 13, 1954.

Curiously, Decca issued "Where Can I Go Without You" on single almost a year after it had been recorded. A plausible explanation: in late 1953, after Peggy Lee's chart success with her version of the romantic showtune "Baubles, Bangles And Beads," Decca might have wanted to capitalize with the release of another suitably romantic number.

"Where Can I Go Without You" was also the eighth self-penned chart entry of Peggy Lee's career. (For the previous, seventh one, see session dated September 16, 1953. As for Lee's next self-penned chart entries, they won't appear until the mid 1960's. See session dated February 1, 1966. Consider also "Fever," recorded on August 19, 1958, which featured uncredited lyrics by Lee. She would actually record a steady number of self-penned songs from 1953 to 1966, and some of them would go on to be popular, recorded by many other artists--"I Love Being Here With You," "I'm Gonna Go Fishin' ," "Things Are Swingin'," etc. But those likely chart entries were adversely affected by Billboard's then-lack of interest in tabulating airplay from adult contemporary radio stations.)



Personnel

1. Dave Barbour
My discographical sources give conflicting information about this session's accompaniment. Decca's files name Dave Barbour & His Orchestra. On the other hand, the Decca EP Songs In An Intimate Style identifies Victor Young & His Singing Strings as the accompaniment, and so do later issues of the song. Close listening strongly suggests the presence of Young, who is also the composer of both songs from this session. Since I hear no indication of Barbour's presence, I have tentatively chosen to give credit to Victor Young alone.

2. Background Voices
Unknown "vapor voices" on "How Strange" only.


Arrangements

1. Hal Mooney
Peggy Lee kept two arrangements of "Where Can I Go Without You" in her music library. One of them is by Hal Mooney, with whom she worked during her Decca years. I have thus tentatively credited him with this session's arrangement.


Issues

1. Classics And Collectibles [CD]
A handful of songs in this otherwise superior release fails to live to expectations. "How Strange" is one of them. The track was apparently newly remixed, or otherwise a previously unreleased mix was used. This different mix distances Lee's vocal from the mike, making her sound remote, Overall, it misses the vibrant audio fidelity of the orginal, vinyl release. That vibrancy can be heard in the Laserlight CD, but this one is also an unsatisfactory transfer. It suffers from background noise, and a general wobbliness to its sound.

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

Songs

1. "Who's Gonna Pay The Check" In The Charts
"Who's Gonna Pay The Check," a tongue-in-cheek novelty sung in a mock, pseudo-Italian accent, became Peggy Lee's sixth hit on Decca Records. This was also Lee's seventh
climb on the charts with a number that she herself had authored. (Her other six self-penned chart entries had happened whie she was a Capitol artist. On this seventh occasion, she was responsible not only for the lyrics, but also for the music.) According to Joel Whitburn, the song peaked at #22, after debuting on the week of May 22, 1953.


Arrangements

1. Joe Lipman
Peggy Lee kept a Joe Lipman arrangement of "Who's Gonna Pay The Check" in her music library. It is not known if Lipman's arrangement was written exclusively for Lee's live shows, or if it was (also) used for this session.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Milt Gabler (pdr), Walter "Pete" Candoli (t), Max Wayne (b), James "Jimmy" Rowles (p), Ed Shaughnessy (d), Peggy Lee (v)

The Black Coffee Album Sessions

This is the first of four sessions dedicated to the jazz-oriented LP Black Coffee. For a complete look, see also 1953 sessions dated May 1 and May 4, as well as one 1956 session, dated April 3.

Little is known about the genesis of Peggy Lee's most acclaimed album. Could it have been the idea of Milt Gabler (the man who had signed Lee, and who was a jazz buff)? To judge from a comment made by Pete Candoli (and quoted in a biography about Lee), Gabler was not responsible for the idea. According to Candoli, the head of A&R at Decca "was a nice guy," who would say to Lee and her session musicians, " '[y]ou guys do what you want. It's your show.' "

The idea for the album is likelier to have come from Peggy Lee herself. She would have simply decided to record the jazzier material that she and her musicians favored in concert, during this period of her career. Indeed, an inspection of contemporaneous concert reviews evince a connection between her live and her album's repertoire. As early as April 1951 (The Copacabana, New York), Peggy Lee was singing onstage future album numbers, such as "A Woman Alone With The Blues."

At New York's club La Vie En Rose, merely a month before the recording date, she would further sing at least three numbers also found in the album: "I've Got You Under My Skin," "My Heart Belongs To Daddy," and "Easy Living." Appearing with her during that gig at La Vie En Rose were three of the four musicians who participated in the Black Coffee sessions: Pete Candoli, Jimmy Rowles, and Ed Shaughnessy.

An obvious incentive for recording this repertoire must have been the overwhelmingly positive response that her nightclub act was receiving. The reviews had actually been ecstatic. To wit: "... an electric singer with a driving beat on some songs and a sensual appeal on torcheroos ... one of those shows that happen rarely. Only a top-flight act could follow her ..." "She rides, slides and glides over a flock of songs that run out the string, encasing her versatility, pace and handling." "Peggy Lee ... proved that you can entertain an audience without falling back on either this week's Hit Parade or special material." "Peggy gave the greatest performance we have seen delivered by any singer in a Manhattan club in the last five years."


Arrangements

1. "I've Got You Under My Skin"
In addition to Jimmy Rowles' arrangement, Peggy Lee kept in her sheet music library another one, by Dick Hazard. The latter was probably intended for concert performances in the 1960s, or late 1950s.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Milt Gabler (pdr), Walter "Pete" Candoli (t), Max Wayne (b), James "Jimmy" Rowles (p), Ed Shaughnessy (d), Peggy Lee (v)

The Black Coffee Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 30, 1953. May 1 and 4, 1953. April 3, 1956.


Arrangements

1. Jimmy Rowles
As mentioned in a previous session, the songs recorded during the Black Coffee sessions (April 30, May 1 and May 4 , 1953) were mostly numbers that Peggy Lee and her musicians were doing in concert. When done live, the songs probably had head arrangements, with significant input from Lee herself, and from the musicians' group, which included Jimmy Rowles.

The identification of Rowles as the official arranger of the sessions relies on the following comments, made by Peggy Lee for a Goldmine article written by William Ruhlman, and published on May 26, 1995: "Jimmy Rowles did all those arrangements. The figures in there are all Jimmy's ..." In 1954, Lee had also told Ralph Gleason that Rowles contributed most of her arrangements, "though we work out a lot of head things" (Downbeat article, July 14, 1954). Furthermore, in an apparent reference to her Decca years, Lee writes in her autobiography that "Jimmy Rowles and Marty Paich did a lot of arranging for me -- and Jimmy! He's a champ."

2. "A Woman Alone With The Blues"
In her sheet music library, Peggy Lee kept two arrangements of this songs, both presumably written long after this recording date. One arrangement is by Dave Grusin, the other by Bob Ross.


Personnel And Cross-references

1. Pete Candoli
Presumably because he was under contract with another record label, Pete Candoli is listed under the pseudonym Cootie Chesterfield in the back cover of the Black Coffee album.

2. Joe Mondragon
In the biography Fever: The Life And Music Of Peggy Lee, Pete Candoli is quoted as saying, in passing, that Mondragon was the bassist of the album Black Coffee. This comment seems to be erroneous, and is left uncorrected or untouched in the biography. The bassist listed in the album's back cover is Max Wayne. Mondragon was, however, Peggy Lee's bassist in live dates from the early 1950's. (The biography also ties the album to the month of August, without any clarifying explanation. August was the month on which the album was originally released.)

3. Jimmy Rowles
For a vocal duet by Peggy Lee and Jimmy Rowles, see also session dated May 24, 1954.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Milt Gabler (pdr), Walter "Pete" Candoli (t), Max Wayne (b), James "Jimmy" Rowles (p), Ed Shaughnessy (d), Peggy Lee (v)

The Black Coffee Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Dates: April 30, 1953. May 1 and 4, 1953. April 3, 1956.


Songs And Songwriters

1. "Black Coffee"
The music of "Black Coffee" was the source of a minor dispute over its authorship. Sonny Burke is said to have paid a fee to pianist Mary Lou Williams, who argued that the song was musically similar to her own "What's The Story, Morning Glory." Williams' composition had become popular twenty years earlier, in the 1930's.

There is a good chance that neither composer deserves original credit. The musical phrase at the center of the dispute seems to date farther back in time. In the 1920's, it was heard in another song, "Aunt Hagar's Blues," which W. C. Handy co-wrote and published at that time. Handy, known nowadays as the father of the blues, was heavily inspired by the Southern black oral tradition of blues and spirituals. All three aforementioned songs ("Aunt Hagar's Blues," "What's Your Story, Morning Glory," and "Black Coffee") might thus be using variations on a traditional blues riff.


Collectors' Corner

1. The 10" and 12" LP Covers Of Black Coffee
Priced by record collectors, the 1953 and 1956 versions of the album Black Coffee feature different covers. They can be seen here:

http://www.peggylee.com/pics/covers/peg259.jpg
http://www.peggylee.com/pics/covers/peg50.jpg

For the songs that were added to the 12" version of the album, see session dated April 3, 1956.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Sy Oliver (con), Peggy Lee (v)

The Songs In An Intimate Style Album Sessions (Cross-references)

Unlike Black Coffee, this 10" LP does not seem to have been primarily conceived by the singer herself. Instead, it was apparently assembled by Decca. The notes in the back cover state that "Peggy's preceding album, Black Coffee, was ... followed by demands for a new group of Peggy Lee songs. This collection is the answer to that demand." Most likely, Decca also wanted to capitalize on Peggy Lee's recent success with the song "Baubles, Bangles And Beads," which opens the album. Songs In An Intimate Style is actually an excellent program of beautifully sung ballads. (And, thrown in for good measure amidst the more traditional ballads, there is also a cute and charming tune, "Apples, Peaches And Cherries.")

The 1953 release date for Songs In An Intimate Style is tentative, and to be considered for the EP version only. The 10" LP is known to have been released on August 9, 1954.

The core of the album is this September 14 session. Also part of the album are two of the four songs from the next session, dated September 16. (The other two tunes were made for release as a holiday single). To fill out the rest of the album, Decca searched for other suitably intimate ballads from Peggy Lee's catalogue, and found them in sessions dated February 13, 1953 and November 28, 1952.


Songs & Cross-references (Film)

1. "Love You So", "I Love You So" And About Mrs. Leslie
The Decca EP Songs In An Intimate Style credits "Love You So" to Bill Walker. Curiously, Peggy Lee and Victor Young are credited with writing a a song with a similar title, "I Love You So." Lee and Young's song was copyrighted one year later, however, and is listed as the theme of the 1954 Paramount movie About Mrs. Leslie.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Victor Young (con), Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires (acc, bkv), Peggy Lee (v)

Songs

1. "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" In The Charts
The song "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" comes from the Broadway musical Kismet, which premiered to popular success on December 3, 1953. Columbia would release the Broadway cast album soon afterwards, in 1954. Meanwhile the other record labels rushed to release competing versions of the show's songs, as recorded by their respective rosters of artists. At Decca, Danny Kaye, Peggy Lee and The Four Aces were enlisted for this purpose.

Peggy Lee's version of "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" entered the charts just on the same week
that the musical opened. In Joel Whitburn's estimation, Lee's seventh hit recording for Decca peaked at # 30. (For her subsequent, eight chart entry, go back to session dated February 13, 1953.) Other artists' versions of the soon-to-be-standard did not chart.


Songwriters

1. Alexander Borodin
The music of Kismet was adapted from the works of Russian composer Alexander Borodin. Like most of the other selections in Kismet, "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" borrows from Borodin's opera Prince Igor -- and also from his second string quartet.


Arrangers And Arrangements

1. Marty Paich
"Baubles, Bangles And Beads" and "That's What A Woman Is For" probably arranged by Marty Paich. In an interview, Peggy Lee confirmed the Paich credit for the first song. The more tentative credit for the second song relies on the fact that Lee kept a Paich arrangement of "That's What A Woman Is For" in her music library. Lee also kept a second arrangement of "Baubles, Bangles And Beads," credited to Benny Carter. Perhaps Carter's arrangement was the one used by Lee for a televised, 1959 version of the song, listed in this discography's TV pages. (n. b. : Those pages are not yet open for viewing).


Personnel

Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires on "It's Christmas Time" and "Ring Those Christmas Bells" only.


The Songs In An Intimate Style Album Sessions (Cross-references)

See album note under session dated September 14, 1953.


Collectors' Corner

1. Around The Christmas Tree (Decca LP Dl 9056)
Decca swo versions of this LP, both with the same cover and catalogue numbers. The track listing is, however, different. Only one version includes Lee's "Ring Those Christmas Bells."

Peggy Lee (ldr), Victor Young (con), Victor Young and His Singing Strings (acc), Vicente Gomez (g), unknown (b, p), Peggy Lee (v)

Cross-references (Film)

A Session Dedicated To Movie Themes
This session contains the theme songs from two movies released in 1954, Indiscretion Of An American Wife [aka Terminal Station] and Johnny Guitar. Patti Page is heard in the soundtrack of the former, and Peggy Lee is heard in the soundtrack of the latter. Lee's soundtrack version is different from the Decca recording. (For more details, see this discography's film page, once it is finished.)


Issues: The Fabulous Peggy Lee Album

This album was released by Decca in 1964, eight years after Peggy Lee had left the label. It collects songs from many sessions. Before 1964, most of those songs had not yet been in LP. Besides this session's two numbers, the album also includes a couple of performances from a session dated June 8, 1956. The other eight songs come from the following sessions: February 18 and September 14 (both 1953), May 24 and 26 (both 1954), January 19, February 11, June 3 (all 1955) and April 3 (1956). The Fabulous Peggy Lee was released both in mono and in "hi-fi stereophonic" sound, which was Decca's name for its brand of simulated stereo.


Personnel

1. Vicente Gómez
In her autobiography, Peggy Lee writes the following, in connection to the song "Johnny Guitar:" "Vincent Gomez played the guitar, Victor Young conducted." I am tentatively assuming that she is referring to Vicente Gómez, a Madrid-born classical guitarist. Gómez had recorded for Decca in the late 1930's, had then become a movie performer during the 1940's and 1950's, and would open LA's Academy of Spanish Arts in 1953.


Arrangements

1. Victor Young
The arranging credit for "Johnny Guitar" is found in Peggy Lee's 1990 album There'll Be Another Spring: The Peggy Lee Songbook. The credit for "Autumn In Rome" is based on the fact that Peggy Lee kept on her music library a Young arrangement of that song.


Masters (And Issues)

1. "Autumn In Rome"
The originally issued version of "Autumn In Rome" opens with the sound of chirping birds. Derided as "corny" by music critics in 1954, that overdub has been eliminated from the recently issued Universal/MCA CD Love Songs. This birdless version can also be heard in the licensed CD released by Marks & Spencer (titled Peggy Lee).

2. "Johnny Guitar"
Close listening of the two takes of "Johnny Guitar" make their differences readily apparent. Among the many divergences in phrasing, notice the way in which Lee pronounces the final r of the word "guitar," around 1:52. Listen also to her intonation of the final line, and to the guitar playing throughout. Her notes tend to be held longer in the alternate take, too. As aptly summarized by Steve Dodd, who first alerted me to the existence of two takes, the earlier take shows a more emotional approach, the alternate take a more declamatory style.

Each of these takes have a fairly clear distribution. The originally-released take appears on LPs, and on CDs which initially came out as LPs, such as Perfect-Lee!. The alternate take is found on CDs only. I have encountered only three exceptions to this rule; the following CDs have no LP counterpart, but do use the master take: Universal's official set Classics And Collectibles, Proper's Public Domain compilation Miss Wonderful, and the old bootleg Why Don't You Do Right, from "The Entertainers" series.

Notice also that there is more Peggy Lee versions of "Johnny Guitar," not listed in this page. One of them is the version heeard in the movie itself, which has been issued in one LP and a couple of CDs. That version will be found in this discography's page for movie soundtracks, once that page opens for viewing.


Collectors' Corner

1. The Many Japanese Sleeves Of "Johnny Guitar" (45)
Apparently a perennial favorite in Japan, the 45that contains "Johnny Guitar" and "Autumn In Rome" has been released with different cover artwork over the years.

Ds 98 (#1): A Peggy Lee head shot is prominently featured, next to a still of Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden, both stars lying down (in hiding, during a gunfight?). Hayden on one knee. Yellow background. The Peggy Lee drawing is based on a photo that was used as the cover of a Lee LP released by Camay Records.

Ds 98 (#2): Two stills from the movie, both showing Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden, one by the bar and the other a head shot in which Hayden consoles Crawford. Green background. No Peggy Lee.

Ds 98 (#3): One still from the movie, showing Joan Crawford (in shirt and cowboy pants), and Sterling Hayden facing another actor. Blue background, film roll used as a framing device. No Peggy Lee.

Ds 98 (#4): As #3, but the background is blue-green, and the chosen still is not the one used for cover #3, but the same one used on cover #1.

D 237: Still from the movie, showing Joan Crawford, with arms crossed, looking at Sterling Hayden, guitar in hand. The background is three quarters green, one quarter red. No Peggy Lee.

Joseph J. Lilley Orchestra and Chorus (acc), Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Peggy Lee, Trudy Stevens (v)

The White Christmas Album Sessions (Cross-references)

This was one of Bing Crosby's three Decca sessions dedicated to songs from the 1954 Paramount movie Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Also recorded during this April 10 session was "The Old Man / Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army," sung by Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, without Peggy Lee. The other Crosby sessions took place on May 21 and September 9, 1954, and neither featured Peggy Lee.

In addition to those three sessions with Crosby, there were separate White Christmas sessions for Danny Kaye and for Peggy Lee, the latter dated May 24, 1954.

The movie starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. The soundtrack features Crosby, Kaye, and Clooney, but not Vera Ellen, who was not known to sing professionally. Trudy Stevens thus overdubbed Vera Ellen's singing parts. The Decca album, based on the soundtrack, does not feature Clooney; see below, session dated May 24, 1954.


Issues

1. The LP Selections From Irving Berlin's White Christmas In The Charts
From 1945 to 1954, Billboard Magazine had periodically published a chart that consisted of only 5 positions. In 1955, the album chart finally became a regular, biweekly feature, and the number of slots was increased to 15.

On January 1, 1955, Selections From Irving Berlin's White Christmas entered the Best-Selling Popular Albums chart. It peaked at number 2.

Joseph Lilley (con), Benny Carter (as), James "Jimmy" Rowles (p, v), Peggy Lee (v)

The White Christmas Album Sessions (Cross-references: Film)

The songs "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" and "Sisters" were written for the Paramount movie Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Peggy Lee's recorded them for Decca's studio version of that soundtrack. See note under session dated April 10, 1954.

The stars of the movie are Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. Dubbing Ellen's singing parts in the soundtrack is Trudi Stevens. All of them also sing in Decca's own version of the soundtrack, except for Clooney, who at the time was under contract with Columbia Records. Peggy Lee was thus asked to record the numbers that Clooney sings in the movie. (Meanwhile, Columbia had Clooney under contract, but not the male stars. In June, Clooney wound up recording not only her own numbers, but also those that were sung by Crosby and Kaye in the movie.)


Songs

1. "Sisters"
In the movie's soundtrack, "Sisters" is sung by Rosemary Clooney and Trudy Stevens. (Clooney also recorded a version of the song for Columbia, in which she is accompanied by her real-life sister, Betty Clooney.)

In the Decca version of the song, Peggy Lee plays the role of both titular sisters.
This point needs to be stressed because various secondary sources have made assertions to the contrary. Although Trudi Stevens is the other female singer heard throughout the Decca album, the duet "Sisters" does not feature Stevens at all -- or any singer other than Lee, for that matter. Peggy Lee duets with herself, humorously giving each sibling a different intonation. Thanks to the technique of doubletrack taping, the "two Lees" are intermittently heard in unison, too.


Personnel

1. Jimmy Rowles, vocalist
Shared vocal with Jimmy Rowles on "It's Because We're In Love" only. This appear to be the pianist's very first vocal on record, long before his one and only all-vocals album, Kinda Groovy!, recorded for Capitol on October 23, 24 and 26 of 1962. That album is tied to Peggy Lee, too. According to the album's liner notes, she told producer Dave Cavanaugh about the pianist's singing ability, and said that Cavanaugh should really give him a listen. The producer asked for a test of his voice, to which an apparently startled Rowles asked, "who says that I can sing?" "Peggy Lee," answered Cavanaugh. Rowles apparently did not sing again on record until the 1970's, but once he got started again, he sprinkled many of his mostly instrumental albums with a few vocals. (He's estimated to have recorded as many as 60 vocals.)


Issues

1. The Ultimate White Christmas (CD)
Castle Pulse's CD The Ultimate White Christmas wrongly credits Peggy Lee's version of "Sisters" as a duet with Trudy Stevens. Lee actually does both vocal parts in the song. (Incidentally, this Public Domain compact disc combines the Decca album with Rosemary Clooney's equivalent material for Columbia.)

2. Classics And Collectibles (CD)
Regrettably, two of the 52 tracks in the excellent CD set Classics And Collectibles suffer from significant mastering defects. Both defects occur in doubletracked numbers, for which Peggy Lee overdubbed her voice, thereby duetting with herself: "The Siamese Cat Song" and "Sisters." The defect might be appreciated by those fans and collectors who already have the correct versions of the song in other discs. More casual listeners are advised to look for other CD's with correctly mastered versions of the two songs. (For additional comments about Classics And Collectibles, see also notes under session dated December 6, 1954.)

Peggy Lee (ldr), The Sy Oliver Orchestra (acc), Laurindo Almeida (g), Sammy Davis, Jr., Peggy Lee (v)

Cross-references (Film)

1. The Rawhide Years
"The Gypsy With Fire In His Shoes" was written for the Universal western The Rawhide Years, which was released in 1956.

Personnel

1. Sammy Davis, Jr
Heel dancing and spoken asides by Sammy Davis, Jr.'s, on "The Gypsy With Fire In His Shoes" only.  Davis, Jr. delivers his asides in Spanish, and does not sing. (In her autobiography, Lee reports that "Dan Dailey tried to do a flamenco dance on the recording, but somehow it didn't work. Sammy Davis, Jr. came in, danced on a wooden platform, overdubbing, and this time it was perfect. Like he is.")

2. Laurindo Almeida
Five guitarists are known to have played on "Love Letters," but their identity remains unknown. Given his songwriting credit for "The Gypsy With Fire In His Shoes," Laurindo Almeida is a near-certain candidate, and is thus tentatively included in this session's personnel.


Arrangements

1. "Love Letters"
In addition to this arrangement by Victor Young, Peggy Lee's music sheet library contains a later one, by Mickey Ingalls.

Peggy Lee, The Mills Brothers (ldr), Sy Oliver (con), Peggy Lee, Donald Mills, Harry Mills, Herbert Mills, John Mills (v)

Cross-references (Photography)

1. The Mills Brothers With Peggy Lee
For a photo from this session, showing all 4 singers "caught in the act," see Robert Strom's book Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle, page 63.

Given the single's original release on the month of December, these two Lee-penned songs could have been meant as seasonal offerings. (Although not holiday numbers in the strict sense of the term, they are imbued in a festive, seasonal spirit. The gospel-styled "Straight Ahead" is a fast and fervent handclapper. "It Must Be So" unrelentingly celebrates the joys of living and loving.) "Straight Ahead" was also included in a various-artists 16" ET for the March Of Dimes campaigns.


Arrangements And Personnel

1. Gene DiNovi
I have credited Gene DiNovi as arranger because Peggy Lee kept a DiNovi arrangement of "Straight Ahead" in her music library. It stands to reason that DiNovi is responsible for the arrangement of "It Must Be So" as well, and that the pianist played in this session, but so far I have found no corroboration for either reasoning.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v), unknown (bkv)

Songs, Songwriters

"Let Me Go, Devil" And Al Hill
The original title of Jeannie Lou Carson's "Let Me Go, Lover" was "Let Me Go, Devil." (Under that title, it was recorded by country artist Tex Ritter.) In 1954, Columbia's Artists Chief Mitch Miller requested permission from Carson to write new lyrics to the melody of "Let Me Go, Devil." Lyricist "Al Hill" is actually a blanket pseudonym for the 4 men involved in writing the new lyrics: Mitch Miller himself, Kay Twomey, Bernie Weisman, and Fred Wise. Miller's own choice to sing the lyrics was Joan Weber, an unknown, 19-year-old discovery of his.


Cross-references (Television)

Mitch Miller convinced the producers of CBS' TV show Studio One to plug Joan Weber's recording of "Let Me Go, Lover." It was played six times during one episode of the then-popular TV series. The schlocky number promptly experienced a meteoric rise to the top of the charts, thereby suggesting emerging television's huge potential to advertise popular music. A frenzy of cover versions, rushed by competing record labels, followed. At Decca, Lee was the designated "cover girl." (Capitol, Lee's former label, designated a "cover boy" instead, Dean Martin.)


Songs

1. "Let Me Go, Lover" In The Charts
"Let Me Go, Lover" was Peggy Lee' ninth hit for Decca Records. According to Joel Whitburn's chart estimates, the song peaked at #26, after debuting on the week of December 18, 1954. Four competing versions by up-and-coming female vocalists placed higher: Weber's chart-topper for Columbia, Teresa Brewer's for Coral (#3), Patti Page's for Mercury (#8), and Sunny Gale's for RCA (#17). Dean Martin's version is not known to have charted.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Victor Young (con), Peggy Lee (v)

Peggy Lee (ldr), Victor Young and his Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v), The Walt Disney Chorus (bkv)

The Lady And The Tramp Sessions (Cross-references: Film)

This was the first of five Peggy Lee sessions dedicated to songs written for the Disney movie Lady And The Tramp. The project began production in 1952, but the resulting film was not released until 1955. For Lee's complete Lady And The Tramp sessionography, see sessions dated December 20, 1954; February 11, 1955; December 20, 1956; and January 10, 1957. (A sixth session, dated November 5, 1955, has not been entered in this discography. For the reasons why such a session was omitted, see immediately below, under Songs & Masters, #3.)

In the Disney movie, Peggy Lee plays four animated characters and sings three songs: "La La Lu" (found in this session) "He's A Tramp" and "The Siamese Cat Song" (found in the session dated December 20, 1954).

Readers of this discography might wonder why masters recorded for a Disney film are found in a page dedicated to recordings made for Decca. Answer: those Disney masters are in fact listed in Peggy Lee's Decca session files. (Presumably, there is also a master file at Disney, but I do not have access to their paperwork.)

Behind the listing of these Disney masters in Decca's files are the facts that (a) Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke were Decca acts and (b) Disney did not launch its own record label until 1956.
Before the creation of Disneyland Records in 1956, Disney's original film music was issued and distributed by record labels such as Capitol, Columbia and Decca. Although "La La Lu," "He's A Tramp," and "The Siamese Cat Song" were apparently recorded in Disney's own studios, Decca was the company that initially took care of releasing them on record.


Songs & Masters

1. "Peace On Earth / Silent Night"
"Peace On Earth" and "Silent Night" are performed together, as a medley. The first chorus from the holiday classic "Silent Night" is interspersed amidst lines from Burke and Lee's own composition "Peace On Earth." (As part of this medley concept, the meter of "Silent Night" has also undergone a modification, from its original 6/8 to 4/4.) Lee is heard singing lines from both songs.

2. "La La Lu"
"La La Lu" exists in two masters, L 8042 and 87455. The latter is an edited, shortened version of the former. The original master (L 8042) is heard in the original Decca LP.

The version heard in the movie is the edit. 78 and 45 issues used the edit, too. (The original master must have been deemed unsuitable for release as a single, because it clocks in at over four minutes.)

Besides their respective timings, the original and its edit have other differences, such as a musical interlude, which is present only in the 4:10 master. The vocal endings differ, too. In the non-edited version, Peggy Lee finishes with the spoken line "good night, little star sweeper." In the edit, she utters a different line: "there now, little star sleeper, dream on."

Whereas the 4:10 version is listed under LA-recorded Decca masters, the edit is listed among the label's New York masters. Both versions are given the exact same date, and hence I have duly listed them under this session. It is likelier, however, that the edit was made at a different time, possibly in 1955 rather than 1954. Pointing to that year is the positioning of this edit in Decca's New York files: between masters dated February 15, 1955 and February 16, 1955. (Neither of those other masters involves Lee.) It may be that the edit was part of the final preparations for the release of the movie, which premiered on June 23, 1955, in New York.

Aside from the aforementioned differences, masters L 8042 and 87455 seem to contain the exact same vocal.

As previously mentioned, the movie uses the edited version. More specifically, it uses an edit of the edited version, further cutting the song's timing from 2:57 to 1:34.

3. "What Is A Baby"
According to Decca's files, "What Is a Baby" exists in two masters, L 8043 and 88894. I have not listened to the latter, which I believe to be an edited version. Presumably, such an edit was created when the song was chosen for release as a single, yet master L 8043 proved too long to fit in a 45 or 78.

It must also be noted that, as is the case with "La La Lu," not all of "What Is A Baby" (L 8043) is heard in the movie. Only a short, 8-bar version was included. Such a short version could be what the mysterious master L 88894 contains.

I must also clarify that I have taken somes liberties with the sessioning of master L 88894. Decca's files lists it not on this date but under a November 7, 1955 session, which contains no other masters. The decision to include L 88894 in this December 6, 1954 session was thus entirely mine, and based on my belief that this master is an edit of L 8043. (In including the original master and the alleged edit in the same session, I'm trying to follow the same rationale that I used for "La La Lu," another master from the Lady And The Tramp sessions that has an edit.

[Readers must thus consider my handling of master L 8043 highly speculative. My belief that it is an edit does not have support from the files. Unlike the aforementioned edit of "La La Lu," this master of "What Is A Baby" is not marked as an edit in the Decca sheets. ]

Adding to the confusion about master 88894: one source lists it as a done in Los Angeles, whereas another source places its making in New York. In 2002, efforts to find it Decca's vaults proved fruitless.


Personnel

The Walt Disney Chorus on "Peace On Earth / Silent Night" only.


Issues

1. Decca single (9) 38005
This mysterious single is not listed in Peggy Lee's session files, nor have I ever come across it. My information about its existence comes instead from two other sources: Michel Ruppli's The Decca Labels: A Discography and Charles Garrod's Decca New York Masters, Volume 7 (8700-8999). Garrod includes the note that this master was "not used" -- i. e., not issued at all.

2. Decca single 29433
On one side of this single, Victor Young And His Single Strings play "The Medic." The song on the flip side is "Bella Notte." Since I have not listened to this single, I am tentatively assuming that both sides are instrumentals by Young, with no vocals by Peggy Lee.

3. Classics And Collectibles (CD)
Officially, the excellent 2-CD set Classics And Collectibles contains 52 tracks, but some early pressings feature only 50. Missing are "Bella Notte" and the medley of "Peace On Earth / Silent Night." Prospective buyers of the CD are advised to ask vendors about the number of tracks in their copies. (In addition, all pressings of the set contain a mixing defect that affects two other tracks: "The Siamese Cat Song" and "Sisters." For details about that defect, see notes about Issues under the sessions dated May 24, 1954 and December 6, 1954.)


Acknowledgments

I want to especially thank two fellow fans of Peggy Lee, Lucas Tuinstra and Steve Dodd, for the invaluable help that they provided during my research of the Lady And The Tramp sessions. In addition to discussing those sessions with me, Lucas taped various versions of each song in succession, so that I could more easily compare them. Steve clarified for me some significant details pertaining to the issues of "He's A Tramp" and "The Siamese Cat Song."

Oliver Wallace (con), unknown (b, d, cym), Sonny Burke (p, chi, mar), Peggy Lee (gng, bel, v), The Mellomen (bkv)

The Lady And The Tramp Sessions (Cross-references)

1. Sessions
This was the second of five Peggy Lee dates dedicated to songs written for the Disney movie Lady And The Tramp. A list of the other dates can be found under the first session, dated December 6, 1954.

2. Other Decca Versions Of "He's A Tramp" And "The Siamese Cat Song"
Peggy Lee recorded this session's songs a second time, apparently for the purpose of releasing them on a Decca single. See session dated February 7, 1955, where I discuss some differences between the two sets of vocals.


Personnel

1. Oliver Wallace And Cast
Credited as this session's leader was conductor Oliver Wallace. The session was actually shared by the members of the Lady And The Tramp cast, headed by Wallace.

The Decca session sheets also list Wallace as sharing vocal duties with Peggy Lee in "The Siamese Cat Song." No such Wallace vocal has been located in either the issues or the movie's soundtrack. Everywhere, Lee is the person who sings the parts of both cats. (Perhaps the sheets point to an original, discarded plan to have Wallace sing one of the roles?)

2. The Disney Chorus And Orchestra
Decca's session sheets also indicate that the orchestra accompanied the cast on all songs from this session, yet no orchestra is audible in Peggy Lee's numbers.

3. The Mellomen / The Pound Hounds
The Mellomen on "He's A Tramp" only (not on "The Siamese Cat Song").  This edition of The Mellomen featured Bill Lee, Thurl Ravenscroft, Max Smith, and Bob Stevens. In Decca's sheets, The Mellomen are not identified by their stage name, but are instead billed as The Pound Hounds, which is a reference to the animated characters whose roles the men sing in the movie.  


Musical Instruments

1. "He's A Tramp"
"He's A Tramp" features unknown rhythm accompaniment, and also cymbals.  

2. "The Siamese Cat Song"
"The Siamese Cat Song" features gong, bells, chimes, and marimba, borrowed from Disney's sound effects department. Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke are seen playing those instruments in the show Walt Disney's Cavalcade Of Song, televised in 1955. The TV show gave viewers a recreation of the recording session. (See also page for Television Broadcasts, once it opens for viewing.)


Masters

1. "He's A Tramp": Decca's 2:10 Variant
In the movie's soundtrack, the song "He's A Tramp" clocks in at 1 minute and 35 seconds. Yet it lasts 2 minutes and 10 seconds in Decca's original release of the soundtrack (Ed 728). The longer duration is due to duplication, or splicing: in the 2:10 version, the exact same bridge and last verse (from the first minute and 35 seconds) are heard once again, in the last half minute.

2. Multitracking And Editing
This session's recordings of "He's A Tramp" and "The Siamese Cat Song" are the ones heard in the movie Lady And The Tramp. In his notes for Walt Disney CD 60951, Randy Thornton explains that these are multi-track recordings: the various tracks or components (vocal, chorus, sound effects, music cues) exist separately from one another at Disney's reel library. Hence the option of excluding any of those components is available to engineers and producers of Disney records. And indeed, various components have been edited out from some inssues. For instance, the spoken line "what a dog!," which the character Peg utters twice before singing the number in the movie, is heard only once in the above-listed EMI and Disky CDs, twice in the Disney CD. All three issues have also omitted the spoken responses given by the character of the hound dog at the start of the song ("Tell us about it, Peg!" "Peg used to be in the dog and pony follies."). The hound dog's utterances have been kept, on the other hand, in the longer, 2:10 version.

3. Overdubbing
To sing the role of the two felines in "The Siamese Cat Song," Lee overdubbed her own voice, one fifth apart, with the help of two home recorders.  

4. Non-Lee Masters
Three of this session's five masters do not involve Peggy Lee's participation. In master 87266 ("Lady"), Oliver Wallace conducts The Walt Disney Studio Orchestra and Chorus. George Givot sings "Bella Notte And Finale" on master 87267. The Mellomen's canine version of "Home, Sweet Home" can be found in master 87269.


Issues

1. "The Siamese Cat Song" In Stereo
2. Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp (Disney CD)
3. The Very Best Of Peggy Lee (EMI CD)
4. "He's A Tramp in "stereo"
5. Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp (Buena Vista LP)
6. {He's A Tramp / Home, Sweet Home} (Buena Vista 45)
The Lady and the Tramp soundtrack sessions were recorded in mono only. However, a stereo version of "The Siamese Cat Song" was newly created in 1997 by Randy Thornton, producer of Disney CD 60951. After he found out that the song's two feline vocals were recorded in different tapes, Thornton was able to create a stereo effect by separating those vocals. Also supposedly in stereo are issues on Disney's Buena Vista label, but those are in reality mock stereo releases.

7. Lady And The Tramp (Disney LP 1231)
8 Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp (Disney LP 3103)
9. [Various Artists] Lady And The Tramp And Friends (Disney CD 861428)
The placement of these three issues under either the 1:35 or 2:00 variant of "He's A Tramp" is tentative. I have not been able to find copies of them.

10. Lady And The Tramp (Disneyland LP Dq 1231)
11. Walt Disney Presents The Story And Songs From Lady And The Tramp (Disneyland LP 3917; With 12-page color booklet)
12. Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp ... Plus Walt Disney's Mr. Toad And Rob Roy (Capitol LP J 3260)
Contrary to what some sources suggest, these 3 LPs do not contain any vocals by Peggy Lee. The songs from the movie are sung instead by other singers: Teri York, along with Bob Grabeau (Dq 1231), Ginny Tyler (3917), and in the case of the Capitol LP, an unidentified vocalist.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Alfred Newman (con), Peggy Lee (v)

Cross-references (Film)

"I Belong To You" was written for the 20th Century Fox film The Racers (1955). Consult film page, too (after it is finished and available for viewing).

Peggy Lee (ldr), Tom Mack (pdr), Gene DiNovi (hps), Stella Castellucci (hrp), Peggy Lee (v)

The Sea Shells Album Sessions

The four sessions that resulted in the LP Sea Shells are dated February 7 and March 31, 1955. (Three sessions are dated February 7. For more details, see notes under next session.)

Containing Chinese poems, folk airs and other unorthodox material set to harp and harpsichord, the evocative album seems to have originated in the months of rest that Lee spent in the desert, some time in late 1954 and early 1955. (After years of relentless overwork, the artist had reached such a state of exhaustion that an alarmed doctor prescribed absolute rest for an extended period of time.)

Neither Sea Shells nor its songs were released while Peggy Lee was a Decca artist. The album was finally released in June, 1958, when Lee had already been back at Capitol for two years. (On the same month, her single "Fever" came out on the market.)


Masters & Literary Sources

Masters L 8159 and L 8160 are medleys of poems, recited by Peggy Lee. The Decca files identify master L 8159 as "Chinese Love Poems, Part 1," and master L 8160 as "Chinese Love Poems, Pt. 2."

These poems were culled from the book Chinese Love Poems From Most Ancient To Modern Times (Peter Pauper Press, 1942). They were all written by Oriental authors born between the seventh and ninth centuries, then rendered into English by British and American translators from the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. "Like The Moon" and "Going Rowing" were both translated by Gertrude Laughlin Joerissen. "The Fisherman" was translated by Peter Rudolph. "The Musicians" is actually the book's epigraph, and bears no title, author, or translator. The session's other two vocals are folk-oriented numbers, as described in more detail below.

Some instrumental numbers were also recorded on February 7, and would be included in the album Sea Shells. See notes under next session.


Songs And Songwriters

1. "The Riddle Song"
A folk lullaby of Irish origin, "The Riddle Song" is believed to be over 300 years old. In America, it probably became better known thanks to a version by blues and folk artist Josh White, heard in the movie The Walking Hills (1949).

2. "Sea Fever"
"Sea Fever" was also recorded by The Kingston Trio, at Capitol, a few years after Lee did so for Decca.

3. "The Musicians"
Peggy Lee would reprise "The Musicians" on television, at the end of one of her specials. (Consult this discography's TV page, 1967, once it is available for viewing.) Unfortunately, I have been unable to find an author for "The Musicians." Any leads would be appreciated. As previously noted, the poem serves as the epigraph of the book from which Peggy Lee selected the Chinese poems recorded in this session.

4. "Autumn Evening"
Tu Mu's authorship of this poem (possibly translated by Soame Jennings) should be deemed tentative.


Location

There has been some doubt about the exact locale in which the Sea Shells sessions were recorded. The liner notes of MCA CD 19363 state that "[t]hese titles are unaccounted for in the Los Angeles sessions and may have been recorded elsewhere."

Peggy Lee bio-discographer Ron Towe asserts that the album was "put together in Peggy's recording studio at home." It is not clear which home that would be. In the mid-1950's, Peggy Lee would sell the house that she then owned in Bel Air, and would temporarily move to an apartment on Wilshire Boulevard. In an article published on the February 1955 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, Ian Whitcomb reports the conspicuous presence of a harp (and a piano) at the Wilshire Boulevard apartment. (Whitcomb adds that Lee loves harps, though she does not play the instrument.) By April of the same year, Lee was living in "an eight-room contemporary-style house atop a mountain overlooking Beverly Hills," according to another article, published by Redbook.

Herein, I have entered the location given by harp player Stella Castellucci, who in 2008 remembered them as taking place on Decca studios. As for Towe's above-mentioned statement, if correct, it could refer not to the actual recording sessions, but to rehearsals and preparation for them.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Tom Mack (pdr), Stella Castellucci (hrp), Peggy Lee (v)

The Sea Shells Album Sessions

1. Nikki Barbour's Session
The sessions that resulted in the album Sea Shells took place on February 7, 1955 and March 31, 1955. Tree of those sessions actually have the same date, February 7. The third, not entered in this discography, consisted of only one master (8162): a hitherto unissued performance of "Au Clair de Lune," by Nicki Barbour, Peggy Lee's daughter. For additional details about Sea Shells, see notes under preceding session.


Songs And Songwriters

1. "The Legend Of The Well"
The only song that remains unissued in Peggy Lee's Decca catalogue is "The Legend Of The Well." (Other Decca masters marked as unissued are actually second versions of already issued tracks.) Attempts to release this master were made in recent years, but the master could not be found in the Decca vaults. Harp player Stella Castellucci clearly remembers (2008) rehearsing the song, and loving it. She does not recall, however, having actually recorded it after rehearsal. Castellucci thus raises the possibility that the song was considered for inclusion in the sessions (with a master number saved for it), but ultimately the plan was abandoned.

"The Legend Of The Well" was written by two members of The Ted Heath Orchestra, in England. The song's composer was Laurie Johnson (Ted Heath's arranger), who would later go on to compose film and TV themes such as those of The Avengers and Dr. Strangelove. The lyrics were written by Heath's wife Frances Ash, who also used the professional name Moira Heath. Although a source also credits Ted Heath among the songwriters, I have been told that his name does not appear in the music sheet.

The lyrics: "I threw a pebble into the well and closed my eyes to pray / That a lonely child, through the magic spell, would find happiness that day. / And as the water circled wide, a tear fell from above / And standing there beside me was a child in search of love. / I knew a moment of ecstasy, as smiling through his tears, / He held out his arms, beseeching me to love him through the years. / I took his hand in mine and gently kissed his hair. / I knew thrill divine; then he suddenly wasn't there. / All through the years hereafter I have loved that child. Who can tell / If the music I hear is laughter each time I throw a pebble in the well."


Masters

Also recorded during this second Sea Shells session were masters 8163 ("Chaconde") and 8165 ("The Maid With The Flaxen Hair"). Both are instrumentals by Stella Castellucci.

Master 8164 is a medley of two instrumentals that were co-performed by Stella Castelluci on harp and Gene DiNovi on harpsichord. In the original Decca LP, this medley of "Greensleeves"/ "The Happy Monks" was separated into two tracks, and it has remained separate in all subsequent issues. (A second, hitherto unissued version of the same medley was recorded on the session dated March 31, 1955. The master of this second version was numbered 8272.)


Arrangements And Compositions

1. Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee does not actively participate in the session's instrumental medley, but she is credited as the arranger of the first song ("Greensleeves") and as the composer of the second ("The Happy Monks").

Peggy Lee (ldr), Sonny Burke, Gordon Jenkins, Sy Oliver (con), Peggy Lee (v)

The Lady And The Tramp Sessions (Cross-references)

1. A Lady And The Tramp Semi-Session
This was the third of five Peggy Lee sessions dedicated to songs written for the Disney movie Lady And The Tramp. (A full list of dates can be found under the first of the five sessions, dated December 20, 1954.) Actually, this session was only partially dedicated to material from the aforementioned movie. In reality a singles session, two of the songs have no relation to the movie.


Songs

1. "Ooh That Kiss" And Ella Fitzgerald
Originally written in 4/4, "Ooh That Kiss" was turned into a cha cha number by Peggy Lee and company. The recording earned a "rave review" from Ella Fitzgerald when it was played for her during a 1955 Blindfold Test for Down Beat Magazine: "Five stars!!! I heard this record before in Detroit, and when I heard it, I tried to buy it right away. I think it's the cutest thing; the beat, the arrangement, and the way Peggy sings it. Of course, Peggy is something to me like Jeri Southern. Just certain songs they sing, they get that sexy feeling in their singing This seems like it was just written for her. No complaints at all."

2. "He's A Tramp": The Two Versions On Decca
Distinguishing this version of "He's A Tramp" from the earlier, soundtrack one (December 20, 1954) is the absence of any patter, and a significantly different approach to the music. Also absent in this more adult-oriented version are the barks and howls of the Disney counterpart.

3. "The Siamese Cat Song": The Two Versions On Decca
Each of the versions of "The Siamese Cat Song" contains a few lyrics that are not found in the other one. Heard only in the 1954, Disney soundtrack version is a chorus about a "baby crying," and about milk to be stolen. Exclusive to the 1955, Decca version are choruses about a bird "living in [a] wire house" and about baked pies. (Shared by both versions are the introductory chorus --although a couple of lines differ slightly-- and a chorus about a fish "swimming 'round and round.")


Conductors

The information at my reach lists three conductors for this session. According to Decca's session files, Sy Oliver is the conductor of "Oh! No!" only. The files do not list the conductor of the other songs. According to the notes of MCA CD 1794, Gordon Jenkins is the conductor of "Ooh That Kiss." Meanwhile, Sonny Burke is the listed conductor of "He's A Tramp" and "The Siamese Cat Song" in the notes of both Decca LP 7164 and MCA CD 11571.
If all three sources are correct, then this one session had three conductors.

If the four songs were truly recorded during the same session, I am more inclined to believe that only Burke and Oliver were present. Being Decca's in-studio conductor, Oliver would be a likelier candidate to have presided over the making of not only "Oh! No!" but also "Ooh, That Kiss." Burke would have been present mainly to play and preside over the songs that he co-wrote with Lee. Nevertheless, I have opted to include all three conductor credits, due to lack of any conclusive information.


Arrangements

1. "He's A Tramp"
Peggy Lee's sheet music library includes an arrangement of "He's A Tramp." That arrangement was written by Billy May. It is not known, however, if May's arrangement is the same one used for this session's version of the song.


Masters And Issues

1. Two Versions Of Decca Single (9) 29427?
Curiously, Peggy Lee bio-discographer Ron Towe states that Decca single 29427 was issued in two versions, one containing the 1954 recordings and the other the 1955 Decca re-recordings. According to Towe, one version identifies only Sonny Burke as the accompaniment, whereas the other version identifies Oliver Wallace & The Disney Studio Orchestra, as well as The Pound Hounds. I have not been able to confirm Towe's information yet, though I have no reason to doubt its veracity.

2. LP Versus CD Distribution (Part 1): Masters L 8180 & L 8181 Versus Masters 87268 & 87270
In addition to this session's soundtrack versions of He's A Tramp" and "The Siamese Cat Song" (master L 8180, L 8181), there are versions of the same songs that Peggy Lee recorded for Decca on December 20, 1954 (master 87268, 87270). Generally speaking, the masters from the 1954 session can be found in

a) most issues with a Disney logo, independently of whether they are 45s, LPs or CDs. (There are exceptions, however. Issues on Disney's Buena Vista label use the 1955 masters instead.)
b) Decca's LP issues, especially those which are early or are reissues of the Decca LP Songs From Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp.

On the other hand, the 1955 masters of these two songs are found in

a) Decca singles (45s, 78s)
b) most Decca CD issues
c) some Decca LPs, especially those which are compilations

3. LP Versus CD Distribution (Part 2): Erroneous Discographical Information
Some of the CDs released by MCA and its affiliates claim to contain "songs from the movie" and even give them the date of the soundtrack version. Aural inspection proves them to contain this session's versions instead.

The mistake seems to have originated in erroneous information found in Decca's Peggy Lee session files. Most of the errors pertain to the distribution of the "He's A Tramp" versions. To wit:

- The files incorrectly list single 29427 under the 1954 masters. (In the specific case of The Siamese Cat Song", single 29427 is actually listed under both the 1954 and the 1955 masters.)

- Brunswick LP 8355 (the British version of Decca LP Dl 5557) is listed as containing not only the 1954 masters but also the 1955 master of "He's A Tramp." In reality, it contains the 1954 masters only.

- The British LP MCA 1632 (The Best Of Peggy Lee) is correctly listed under the 1955 version of "The Siamese Cat Song," incorrectly listed under the 1954 version of "He's A Tramp."

In this discography, I have corrected all three errors found in the Decca files.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Tom Mack (pdr), Gene DiNovi (hps), Stella Castellucci (hrp), Peggy Lee (v)

The Sea Shells Album Sessions

Dates: February 7 and March 31, 1955. For details, see notes under previous sessions.


Songs And Songwriters

1. "The Wearing Of The Green"
"The Wearing Of The Green" is an Irish ballad in circulation since the early nineteenth century. A later, well-known and revised treatment by playwright Dion Boucicault exists, but Lee sings the traditional, nineteenth-century version.


Masters

Also recorded during this session was master L 8272, which is a second version of the instrumental originally recorded on February 7, 1955, as master L 8164. Both instrumentals are actually medleys in which the songs "Greensleeves" and "The Happy Monks" are performed by Stella Castellucci and Gene DiNovi. Lee is credited with the arrangement of "Greensleeves" and the music composition of "The Happy Monks."


Dating

There seems to be a typo in the notes of MCA CD 19363, which state that this March 31 session took place in 1956. Elsewhere, including Decca's sheets, the given year is 1955.

Decca did not release the album that resulted from the Sea Shells sessions until 1958, when Peggy Lee was no longer under contract with the label.

Harold "Hal" Mooney (con), Milt Gabler (pdr), Matty Matlock aka Julian Matlock (cl), Eddie Miller (ts), Dick Cathcart (t), Dick McDonough (g), Nick Fatool (d), Peggy Lee (v), unknown (bkv)

The Pete Kelly's Blues Album Sessions

Peggy Lee's May 6 and May 10, 1955 sessions were dedicated to songs from the Warner Brothers movie Pete Kelly's Blues. Appearing in that film were two vocalists who at the time were signed with Decca Records: Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Hence Decca decided to issue an album containing not only the few numbers that Lee and Fitzgerald sing in Pete Kelly's Blues but also newly recorded vocal versions of the film's instrumentals, as sung by Lee.

In addition to singing in the film, Lee played a dramatic role that earned her various nominations, including a Best Supporting Actress nod from the Academy, as well as Film Critics' and Audience awards.

See also session dated May 10, 1955 and, once it opens for viewing, this discography's page for movie soundtrack work.


Masters

Also heard in the Decca album are three vocals by Ella Fitzgerald, whose role in the movie was more of a cameo. Decca's files indicate that Fitzgerald's numbers ("Pete Kelly's Blues," "Ella Hums the Blues," "Hard-hearted Hannah") were recorded on May 3. In Ella Fitzgerald: An Annotated Discography, J. Wilfred Johnson declares that Fitzgerald's numbers "are the actual soundtrack recordings, the right of which were purchased from Warner Brothers." In his Fitzgerald biography, Stuart Nicholson further quotes New York-based producer Milt Gabler as saying that "we took [Ella's] numbers off a tape. They were from Pete Kelly's Blues out of L.A. ... We got the tape and put them out from that." Her three numbers were released not only in the LP but also separately on an EP (Ed 2269).

If Fitzgerald's three numbers were taken from the movie soundtrack's tapes, how about Lee's output? Based on my listening of each version, I am convinced that Lee's soundtrack versions are different from the Decca album's versions, but I have no factual evidence to back up this belief. A more elaborate explanation can be found in the next three paragraphs.

Of Lee's nine album numbers, five are featured in the movie as instrumentals, not as vocals ("What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry," "I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now," "Oh, Didn't He Ramble," "I Never Knew," "Bye Bye Blackbird" ). Those five album numbers are, therefore, Lee's and Decca's studio versions of the movie soundtrack's instrumentals.

The other four numbers by Lee in the album are also sung by her in the movie ("He Needs Me," "Sugar," "Somebody Loves Me," "Sing A Rainbow"). Heard when her character has gone mad and regressed into childhood, Peggy Lee's soundtrack version of "Sing A Rainbow" is clearly different from the beautifully phrased Decca recording. Ditto for "Somebody Loves Me," which the movie's character sings while in an intoxicated state. As for the two other numbers, their respective Decca and soundtrack versions sound superficially similar, but close listening reveals (a) differences in voice quality, and (b) the application of editing to the movie versions.

In this discussion (about whether all the songs in the Decca LP are different from the versions heard in the movie), one final possibility to take into account is overdubbing of Peggy Lee's vocals to pre-existing (instrumental) soundtrack tapes. Although such a possibility can not be entirely discarded, Decca's session files suggest otherwise. Notice, for starters, that these May 6 and May 10, 1955 Decca session files list a specific conductor (Harold Mooney) who is not known to have been involved in the movie's soundtrack.


Personnel

1. The Lucky Seven
The movie's titular character is a cornet player whose band is known as Pete Kelly's Lucky Seven. Led by Matty Matlock, this septet played not only in the film but also in the 1951 radio show that inspired the movie, and in the television show that followed both. (The septet underwent some personnel changes from one medium to another.) In the movie, the character of Pete Kelly is played by Jack Webb, who was also the film's director and producer, and who wasn't a musician. (In the music scenes, his playing is overdubbed by Matty Matlock.)

Four of the original Lucky Seven members participated in Peggy Lee's Decca sessions: Matlock, Miller, Cathcart, and Fatool. Also in Lee's sessions, and not members of the regular Lucky Seven's lineup were conductor Harold Mooney and guitarist Dick McDonough. (The Lucky Seven's guitarist was Bill Newman in the radio show; George Van Epps was in the movie and in subsequent projects.) The other Lucky Seven members who were not part of Peggy Lee's Decca sessions are pianist Ray Sherman, trombonist Moe Schneider and Jud DeNaut (bassist in the movie and in subsequent years; on radio, the bassist had been Marty Cobb).

2. Ella Fitzgerald's Accompaniment
The trio heard in Ella Fitzgerald's album numbers (Don Abney on piano, Joe Mondragon on bass, Larry Bunker on drums) does not seem to have participated in Peggy Lee's sessions, although both Bunker and Mondragon are known to have worked with Lee at other times.


Issues And Collectors' Corner

1. The LP Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues In The Charts
This joint effort by Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee fared well commercially: it peaked at #7, and spent 10 weeks in Billboard's Best-Selling Popular Albums chart. It was actually the highest-peaking album of their respective careers, even if both had other LPs of greater longevity in the album chart. (For Lee's previous album chart entry, see session dated April 10, 1954. For her next, see session dated April 10, 1957.)

2. Various Pete Kelly's Blues LP's
In addition to Decca (which appears to own the rights to the movie soundtrack), three other labels released original albums connected to Pete Kelly's Blues: RCA, Columbia, and Warner Brothers. Except for the Decca issue, all these albums bear the imprint "A Mark VII Limited Production," which was Jack Webb's company.

Upon its release, RCA's album Pete Kelly's Blues (Pm 1126) deceptively posed as the original soundtrack. It is instead a recreation of the music from the movie. Recorded on October 19, 1955, it features narration by producer Jack Webb, and music by the same ensemble heard in the movie. Instrumentals only; no sung vocals. On CD, this RCA album was issued in 1999 by Collectors' Choice Music (Ccm 55). During the vinyl era, there was also a RCA reissue version (PM 2053), from which Webb's narration was excised.

Warner Brothers and Columbia also released albums linked to Pete Kelly's Blues. These albums are instrumentals, too. Warner Brothers' The Authentic Music From The Television Production Pete Kelly's Blues (Ws 1303) features the so-called Pete Kelly's Big 7, also known in some performances as The Tuxedo Band. From Columbia, Music From Jack Webb's Pete Kelly's Blues (Cl 690) features Matty Matlock with His Jazz Band and Ray Heindorff with The Warner Brothers Orchestra. The album cover bears the legend "presented by Warner Brothers."

Common to all the aforementioned albums, including the Decca LP, is the presence of Matlock, Miller, Cathcart, and Fatool. (Playing guitar in the non-Decca albums is George Van Epps. Also playing in the non-Decca albums are trombonist Moe Schneider, pianist Ray Sherman, and bassist Jud DeNaut. Added to the octet in the Warner Brothers album is Frank Beach on trumpet. Cathcart plays the clarinet in that octet, as he did in the movie and the original radio show.)

Those other albums do not have the exact same songs as the Decca LP. In the case of the Columbia and RCA albums, two songs ("Sing A Rainbow," "Ella Hums The Blues") are replaced by the numbers "Breezin' Along With The Breeze" and "Smiles." The Columbia album omits "He Needs Me," too. As for the Warner Brothers album, the one and only song shared with the Decca LP is the titular "Pete Kelly's Blues."


Arrangers And Arrangements

1. Harold Mooney
The arranging credits for Mooney are based on the fact that copies of his arrangements are extant in Peggy Lee's sheet music library.

Harold "Hal" Mooney (con), Milt Gabler (pdr), Matty Matlock aka Julian Matlock (cl), Eddie Miller (ts), Dick Cathcart (t), Dick McDonough (g), Nick Fatool (d), Peggy Lee (v), unknown (bkv)

The Pete Kelly's Blues Album Sessions (Cross-references: Film)

This is the second of two sessions dedicated to songs from the movie Pete Kelly's Blues. See also session dated May 6, 1955, and, once it opens for viewing, the page for Movie Soundtracks.


Personnel

1. Background Vocals
Unknown background vocals, by an all-male chorus, on "Bye Bye Blackbird" only. Chances are that this chorus is comprised of musicians from the session.

Collectors' Corner

1. The Two LP Covers of Pete Kelly's Blues
A cover different from Decca's original one was used by Brunswick, and later reproduced by Jasmine for its reissue LP, 1026.

The original American cover has an overwhelmingly white, spare background. Shown against that background are Peggy Lee, dressed as Rose, her character in the movie, and Jack Webb in his role as Pete Kelly, playing the cornet. Both images are probably taken from a movie still.

The Brunswick cover has an appealing blue background, and also shows both Peggy Lee and a cornetist. However, the cornet player is seen only as a shadow, and the photo of Peggy is not from the movie. (It might be from a TV still, since her looks resemble those that she sported in a few TV shows around 1955.)


Arrangers And Arrangements

1. Harold Mooney
The arranging credits for Mooney are based on the fact that copies of his arrangements are extant in Peggy Lee's sheet music library.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Dave Barbour (con), Peggy Lee (v)

Personnel, Arrangements And Cross-references (Dave Barbour At Decca)

1. Dave Barbour
Decca's sheets list Dave Barbour as conductor of "Me" only. No conductor is listed for "Pablo Pasablo."

This is one of two Peggy Lee sessions in which her ex-husband accompanies her, presumably at her request. The other session is dated February 18, 1953. At Decca, Barbour also conducted for Peggy Lee's friend, Jeri Southern.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Gene DiNovi (con), Matty Matlock aka Julian Matlock (cl), Eddie Miller (ts), Emmanuel "Manny" Klein (t), Shelly Manne (d), Jim Backus, Peggy Lee (v)

Cross-references (TV Cartoons)

1. Mr. Magoo
In the first of these recordings, Jim Backus impersonates his famous cartoon character, Mr. Magoo. The second recording is not so much a Peggy Lee vocal, as an ensemble, collective chorus piece, in which Peggy Lee and company do the titular cheers, sans Magoo's intervention. Both songs amount to special material, and it would stand to reason that they were meant to be featured in either a Mr. Magoo cartoon or in a show honoring him. Nevertheless, I have found no specifics about the session's purpose(s).


Issues

1. Brunswick single 05549
These songs were originally issued in England only. Word of mouth is that Peggy Lee did not intend to have them released, and that the masters were mistakenly sent to England.


Personnel

1. Gene DiNovi
The only source of this session's musicians personnel is oral: DiNovi's own recollection, as of May 2002. It should thus be deemed reliable, albeit not official.

Bing Crosby (ldr), The Buddy Cole Orchestra (acc), Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee (v)

Cross-references (Radio As Source)

As suggested by the other titles from this Bing Crosby session (listed at the end of this note), the main goal was to record numbers for the holiday season. Though not a Christmas number, "The Possibility's There" can be thought as suitable to the holiday's ideal mood of cozy bliss.

Crosby discographer J. Roger Osterholm indicates that the session's songs were "recorded from radio broadcasts." Indeed, the presence of Buddy Cole on all tracks suggests that they could have been transcribed from The Bing Crosby Show, a nightly (Monday through Friday) program that ran on CBS from November 22, 1954 to December 31, 1956. Buddy Cole's Trio provided the regular accompaniment. (Then again, Cole also participated in some of Crosby's studio sessions.)

Unfortunately, I have yet to find any further corroboration that might link this song to Crosby's daily radio show. "The Possibility's There" is nowhere to be found in a listing of songs performed in The Bing Crosby Show. The list covers episodes 1 to 167, the latter dated September 16, 1955. (The list was prepared by the excellent Crosby discographer Lionel Pairpont, who in turn relied on research originally conducted by Russ Rullman and Larry F. Kiner.) The list is not complete, however. The song could have been broadcast in any of the show's later episodes, for which the late Pairpoint was not able to provide information.

See also sessions dated November 17, 1952 and May 16, 1952, including notes, for further Decca masters that might stem from original radio broadcasts, .


Personnel

In his 1955-1956 radio shows, Bing Crosby was accompanied by The Buddy Cole Trio, which consisted of Cole on piano, Don Whittaker on bass, Nick Fatool on drums and, on guitar, Perry Botkin, Jr during the earlier shows, Vince Terri during later ones. Also listed as singing in this session, though they do not participate in "The Possibility's There": Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires.


Issues

"The Possibility's There" was originally released in England. It wasn't released in America before the CD era.


Session's Masters

Also recorded during this Bing Crosby session were masters L 8805 ("Christmas Is A-Comin' ")
L 8807 ("The First Snowfal"), and L 8808 ("The Next Time It Happens"), none of them including Peggy Lee.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Sy Oliver (con), The Sy Oliver Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

The Miss Wonderful Album Sessions

Seven of the eight songs from this session first appeared in the album Miss Wonderful. The album's other six songs come from a later Lee session (June 8, 1956), with the same arranger. Decca released Miss Wonderful in 1959 (three years after Peggy Lee had left the label).


Masters

The Oddity Of Sessions That Contain 5, 6 Or More Masters
Contractual reasons dictated record companies to record no more than four songs per session. And yet many of Lee's 1956 Decca sessions list five, six or more masters. I do not know the reason for the inordinately high numbers. Perhaps the sheets have simplified the data, turning two sessions from the same day into one?


Songs And Cross-references

1. "Mr. Wonderful" In The Charts
Originating in the 1956 Broadway musical of the same title, "Mr. Wonderful" was Peggy Lee's tenth Top 40 chart hit for Decca Records. It debuted on the week of June 7, 1956. She had competition from Mercury's Sarah Vaughan and RCA's Teddi King, whose version also made Billboard's various charts.

In the Top 100 chart, Peggy Lee's version climbed to number 23, Teddi King's to number 32, and Sarah Vaughan's to number 38.

In the Jockey (airplay) chart, Sarah Vaughan peaked at number 13, Peggy Lee at number 14, and Teddi King at number 18.

In the Bestseller chart, Peggy Lee reached number 25. King's and Vaughan's versions did not chart.

Lee's version is listed as staying in Billboard's charts for 10 weeks, Vaughan's for 7, and King's for 2.

Peggy Lee's and Sarah Vaughan's respective versions also made the charts in England. According to the Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles, 1952-1980, Peggy Lee's version was the most successful in English territory by far, peaking at # 5, and staying in the chart for 13 weeks.

2. "Joey, Joey, Joey" In The Charts
Originating in the 1956 Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella, in which it was sung by Art Lund, "Joey, Joey, Joey" was a minor chart number for Peggy Lee. Released on the week of May 5, 1956, Lee's version peaked at # 76, but stayed in the chart for a fair amount of time -- six weeks. It was her eleventh and last chart chart on Decca, raising her total output (Decca, Capitol, Columbia and Okeh combined) to 47 hits.

3. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
For Peggy Lee's other recordings of this song, see Capitol sessions dated October 17, 1946 and January 29, 1947. See also Capitol Transcriptions page, session dated June 11, 1946.


Songwriters

1. Memphis Slim and L. C. Fraser
Decca credits the song "The Come Back" to L. C. Fraser. At BMI, the song is listed twice in a list of songs written by Memphis Slim. One of those two entries credits Peter Chatman as the songwriter; the other credits L. C. Fraser. Clicking on either name takes back to the same aforementioned list of songs written by Memphis Slim. I have thus concluded that both names are pseudonyms for Memphis Slim, whose birthname was John Len Chatman. However, he often used the name Peter Chartman in official records, claiming that it was his birthname. It was instead the name of his father. As for "L. C. Fraser," I am tentatively assuming it to be a pseudonym whose full spelling would be "Len Chatman Fraser." (Perhaps "Fraser" was his mother's maiden name?)


Arrangers And Arrangements

1. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
This Neal Hefti - Peggy Lee arrangement of the traditional "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is vastly different from Lee's earlier versions on Capitol.

2. Benny Carter
3. "You've Got To See Mama Every Night"
The Carter credit is tentative. Peggy Lee's music library contains two arrangements of the song "You've Got To See Mama Every Night." One of them is credited to Benny Carter. But I do not know if the library's arrangement is the same one that was used in this session. Since Carter worked as Peggy Lee's music director during concert appearances of the early 1960's, he could have also the arrangement at that time. (As for the other arrangement, it is by Mickey Ingalls, and was definitely written decades after this recording date.)

3. "Mr. Wonderful"
4. "I Don't Know Enough About You"
Credit to Olive for these two performances is based on the existence of copies of his arrnangements in Peggy Lee's music sheet library. In the case of "Mr. Wolnderful," Lee's music library calso ontains arrangements of this song by Lenny LaCroix and Peter Moore, both believed to have been written many years after this recording date.


Issues

1. "I Don't Know Enough About You" And Dream Street
Peggy Lee had first recorded "I Don't Know Enough About You" for Capitol, on December 26, 1945. Her new recording for Decca was included not only in the LP Miss Wonderful but also in British editions of the LP Dream Street, where it replaced the song "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face." For further explanation, see notes under session dated June 7, 1956.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Sy Oliver (con), William "Bill" Pitman (g), Buddy Clark (b), Lou Levy (p), Larry Bunker (vib, d, per), Stella Castellucci (hrp), unknown (tri), Peggy Lee (v)

The Black Coffee Album Sessions (Cross-references)

This session was dedicated to songs for the 12" version of the LP Black Coffee. Four of this session's six songs joined the eight numbers that had graced the original 10" LP (see 1953 sessions dated April 30, May 1 and May 3). The two left-out numbers ("Do I Love You," "Guess I'll Go Back Home This Summer") were also excluded from the otherwise definitive 2004 Verve CD Black Coffee. Given the fact that the CD belongs to Verve's Master Edition series, which usually releases complete sessions, the omission is all the more unfortunate.


Personnel

1. Sy Oliver and Lou Levy
Oliver conductor of "Do I Love You" only, and tentatively so. He is credited in the track listing of the Decca album The Fabulous Peggy Lee. The credit could well be erroneous: the number sounds like a head arrangement for a rhythm section, as opposed to the orchestral material with which Oliver is usually associated. Perhaps Oliver was only nominally in charge of the scheduled session, in his role as Decca's in-house conductor. Unknown leader or conductor in the other numbers, though presumed to have been Lou Levy.


Arrangements

1. Shorty Rogers
2. "Do I Love You?"
The arranging credit to Shorty Rogers is based on the fact that Peggy Lee's music sheet library contains his arrangement of this song. Lee's library contains a second arrangement as well, credited to Johnny Mandel. The Mandel arrangement was probably for concert performances.


Songs And Cross-references

1. "Do I Love You?"
Peggy Le also recorded this song for her Beauty And The Beat! album on Capitol.
See session dated May 28-30, 1959. Yet a third version was recorded for her 1993 CD Moments Like This, which comprises songs that she was singing in concert at that time. See session dated September 8, 1992.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Bud Shank (f, as), Bob Cooper (ts), Max K. Bennett, Buddy Clark (b), Lou Levy (p), Larry Bunker (vib, per), Stella Castellucci (hrp), Nick Fatool (d), Peggy Lee (v)

The Dream Street Album Sessions

The songs recorded on June 5 and June 7, 1956 comprise the album Dream Street, released on January of the next year. In an article released by Down Beat in 1957, Lee says that she "picked tunes I had really wanted to do for a long time [...] I felt a need to do material that would be different [from fast-driven, best-selling numbers such as "Lover"]." It thus seems that she was recording material that she liked, in the style that she liked, and with no significant strings attached.


The Dream Street And The Miss Wonderful Sessions

According to Decca's sheets, Peggy Lee recorded a total of 20 songs over a short time span: seven on June 5, then five on June 7, and finally eight on June 8. The reason for the unusually high count per session remains unclear. One logical possibility is that Lee needed to fill a quota. She might have been contracted to turn in a certain number of albums for Decca, a label which she would be leaving in just a few months from this date.


Personnel

1. West Coast Jazzmen
The collective personnel of the June 5 and June 7, 1956 sessions is tentative, and based on the following comment from the aforementioned Down Beat article, published on March 21, 1957: "On her new Decca album, Dream Street, Peggy has the cream of West Coast jazzmen in [Lou] Levy, [Larry] Bunker, [Max] Bennett, Shorty Rogers, Buddy Clark, Bob Cooper and Bud Shank, to name but a few." If two bassists were truly involved, perhaps Max Bennett participated in one session, Buddy Clark in another.

The presence of Levy, Bunker, and Bennett is also asserted by Leonard Feather in his notes for Decca LP 7164.

Another issue, the Japanese MCA CD MVCJ-19195, re-asserts the presence of Larry Bunker on vibes and percussion, Lou Levy on piano. However, the issue adds two more names that are not mentioned in the other sources: Nick Fatool on drums, and Sy Oliver as arranger.


Personnel: Conductor

1. Shorty Rogers
2. Sy Oliver
3. Victor Young
The identity of the conductor of Dream Street has been a topic of discussion among ardent fans of the album. At least three candidates are in contention: Shorty Rogers, Sy Oliver, and Victor Young. I will discuss below the pros and cons of each contender's "candidacy."

Victor Young: Pros. Listeners of the original album have noticed that the opening measures of Victor Young's "Street of Dreams" recur at the beginning of all but two of the numbers ("It's Alright With Me," "You're Blase"). The use of this leitmotif throughout Dream Street has led to speculation that Young was the original arranger of the sessions, but fell ill, or faced other obstacles that prevented him from attending the sessions. Consequently, another arranger would have carried out his instructions.

Victor Young: Cons. The composer did pass away on November of the same year. However, it is worth noting that Young does not seem to have been indisposed in March, May, or October of 1956, when Decca files indicate that Victor Young & His Orchestra went to the recording studio.

Sy Oliver: Pros. Oliver is the conductor listed in the notes of Japanese MCA CD Mvcj 19195 (Dream Street). Asked in 1999 who was the conductor of the Dream Street sessions, pianist Lou Levy recalled that this was the first album he had recorded with Lee, and that Oliver was indeed present for the sessions. It should also be noted that, as Decca's in-house conductor and arranger, Oliver could have made himself available if there was immediate need for a musician, a conductor, or an arranger.

Sy Oliver: Cons. The arrangements of the Dream Street sessions are not at all reminiscent of Oliver's usual work. There is a chance that Levy confused this session with another one. He had played on the preceding, Oliver-conducted session of April 3. Notice as well that Oliver is the listed conductor for not only that preceding date but also for the June 8 session that follows the Dream Street dates. I wonder if the makers of the aforementioned Japanese CD simply assumed that, given the chronological proximity of the three June dates, they had to have been conducted by the same individual.

Shorty Rogers: Pros. When asked in 2000, harpist Stella Castellucci confidently asserted that trumpet man Shorty Rogers conducted the sessions. She expressed no knowledge of Victor Young's involvement. As previously mentioned, a Downbeat article mentions Rogers' presence, too. Castellucci's assertion would certainly explain the participation of Rogers in sessions where little if any trumpet and flugelhorn are heard. Further strengthening the possibility is the fact that, in the mid-1950s, Rogers frequently worked with some of the other musicians who played in this session. (To wit: Rogers' RCA-Victor album Wherever The Five Winds Blow, released on July 1956, features Lou Levy and Larry Bunker. The threesome are presented as an unit.) What's more, I have listed in this and the ensuing Dream Street session various arrangements that are credited to Rogers, in Peggy Lee's extant library of arrangements.

Shorty Rogers: Cons. Still, Shorty Rogers is as much as an unexpected proposition as Sy Oliver. As previously noted, these mostly mellow and subdued arrangements substantially differ from Rogers' usually brassier work. Since he had seldom written for strings before 1956, considerable confidence would have been deposited in him. As for the arrangements credited to Rogers, that information should be deemed strong, but not fool-proof. Even thoguh I am assuming that Rogers wrote those arrangements for the sessions, there's also the chance that he wrote them for Lee's concerts instead.

In a nutshell, extant data about the conductor of the Dream Street sessions is inconclusive. At present time (April, 2009), Shorty Rogers has the edge over the other suggested names.

Also worth factoring in is Peggy Lee's own heavy involvement in her music sessions, including the direction of the song's arrangements. Victor Young is tellingly quoted on this matter, in an article published by Redbook in 1955: "[n]o one makes arrangements for Peggy. She can't write a note of music but she knows exactly what she wants to hear."


Arrangers And Arrangements

1. Marty Paich
2. "Last Night When We Were Young"
The tentative credit to Marty Paich for "Last Night When We Were Young" is based on the fact that Peggy Lee kept a Paich arrangement of this song in her music library. It is tentative because I have not corroborated that the library's arrangement is the same one heard in this session's version.

Songs And Songwriters

1. "So Blue" And Helen Crawford
Found in the back cover of original Decca LP 8411 is the following parenthetical note: based on Theme by Helen Crawford. The note is located at the very end of the track listing -- right under the last song title, "So Blue." This note should be taken to refer not to the entire album, but to the song "So Blue" only. It's taken from the original sheet music, published in 1927 by DeSylva, Brown, Henderson, Inc. Crawford, an organist, apparently conceived the song's melody, whereas the more famous trio of songwriters worte the lyrics and perhaps added to the melody. Note that ASCAP wrongly credits not Helen but her husband Jesse, a more popular organist with whom she often worked in tandem.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Bud Shank (f, as), Bob Cooper (ts), Max K. Bennett, Buddy Clark (b), Lou Levy (p), Larry Bunker (vib, per), Stella Castellucci (hrp), Nick Fatool (d), Peggy Lee (v)

The Dream Street Album Sessions

This is one of two sessions dedicated to songs for the album Dream Street. See also session dated June 5, 1956.


Songs & Issues

1. "My Old Flame"
The song "My Old Flame" has the special distinction of having been recorded by Peggy Lee four times over three decades. Moreover, she recorded it for each of the record labels to which she was contracted during most of her career. See also sessions dated 1941 (August 20, October 2) and 1969 (February 28).

2. "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" And Dream Street (Brunswick LP)
The British version of the LP Dream Street does not include the song "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face." This number had originated in the then-brand-new, 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady, which had yet to debut in Great Britain. For that reason, the release of any non-cast recordings in England was forbidden. As a substitute, the British LP contains Lee's Decca version of "I Don't Know Enough About You." This substitution also extends to LP reissues of Dream Street on British labels such as Jasmine and Ace of Hearts. (It does not apply, however, to CD reissues made in England. For instance, the makers of the MCA CD Miss Wonderful / Dream Street chose to revert to the track listing of the original, USA album -- thereby including "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" and skipping "I Don't Know Enough About You.")


Arrangers And Arrangements

1. Shorty Rogers
2. "Too Late Now"
3. "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face"
The arranging credits to Shorty Rogers are based on the fact that Peggy Lee's music library includes arrangements, by Rogers, of "Too Late Now" and "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face."


Personnel And Musical Instruments

Guitar on "Street Of Dreams" only. (Guitarist unknown.)


Collectors' Corner

1. The Many Faces Of Peggy Lee's Dream Street (LP)
The original Decca LP features a drawing of Peggy Lee's face and neck, with a street behind her. (The drawing of Lee is clearly based on a mid-1950s photo, viewable at http://www.peggylee.com/pics/covers/peg288.jpg . This photo was also used by Camay Records, on its two Lps of Peggy Lee material.) Other record labels have reissued the LP Dream Street with two different versions of the same drawing. One alternate drawings was used by Brunswick Records (Lat 8171) and by Jasmine Records (Jasm 1032). The other alternate drawing was used by Festival Records (Fr 12-1475). Differences among the three drawings involve the position of Lee's face (profile in one case, "full face" in the other cases) and coloring (Lee's eyes, clothing, etc.). As for CDs of Dream Street, those that I have inspected use the original Decca LP cover. So does yet another reissue LP, on Ace Of Hearts Records (Ah 44).

Peggy Lee (ldr), Sy Oliver (con), The Sy Oliver Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

The Miss Wonderful Album Sessions

Five of the eight songs from this session first appeared in the album Miss Wonderful. The other seven songs in that album were culled from an earlier Lee session (January 16, 1956), with the same arranger. Miss Wonderful was released by Decca in 1959, about two years after she had left the label.


Issues: The Fabulous Peggy Lee Album

This album was released by Decca in 1964, eight years after Peggy Lee had left the label. It collects songs from many sessions. Before 1964, most of those songs had not yet been on LP. From this session, The Fabulous Peggy Lee includes two of the three songs that are not part of Miss Wonderful. The Fabulous Peggy Lee also has a couple of songs from a session dated March 1, 1954. The other eight songs come from the following sessions: February 18 and September 14 (both 1953), May 24 and 26 (both 1954), January 19, February 11, June 3 (all 1955) and April 3 (1956). The album was released both in mono and in "hi-fi stereophonic" sound, which was Decca's name for its brand of simulated stereo.


Personnel And Arrangements

1. Gil Evans
2. "Where Flamingos Fly"
My identification of Gil Evans as the arranger of "Where Flamingos Fly" is tentative, and based chiefly on my own aural assessment of the recording. Gil Evans was definitely working with Peggy Lee during her Decca years, but the exact timeline in which he did so remains unknown. So do the Peggy Lee recordings in which he participated, if any. An extant photo from 1953 actually shows Evans and Lee together in what looks like a club, apparently rehearsing for a performance. In his book Gil Evans, Raymond Horricks lists seven singers for whom Evans wrote; Peggy Lee is one of them. In an interview published on March 21, 1957 by the magazine Downbeat, Peggy Lee herself said the following: "Another arranger I learned a lot from is Gil Evans. Not just musically, but from the man's thinking. That's a key, I believe, in all fields of art... A musician must start to think before he can even become great."

Since its inception, the song "Where Flamingos Fly" has been strongly associated with Evans. He was friends with composer John Benson Brooks, and recorded the song as an instrumental in 1960. Evans also arranged a vocal version for Helen Merrill, recorded on June 27, 1956. The arrangements of Peggy Lee's and Helen Merrill's respective versions strongly resemble one another. (The debut vocal was Peggy Lee's, since it was recorded just a couple of weeks earlier than Merrill's.)

2. Sy Oliver
Decca's files do not give conductor credit for this particular session, but the album Miss Wonderful credits Sy Oliver with its entire repertoire. As for "Wrong Joe" and "Wrong Wrong Wrong" (this sessions' songs not on the album ) Oliver is also credited elsewhere.


Cross-references (Film)

1. "Take A Little Time To Smile" And George Pal
The song "Take A Little Time To Smile" had been composed by Dave Barbour and Peggy Lee almost a decade earlier, around 1948. Back then, it was one of various songs written for George Pal's movie Tom Thumb, then in pre-production. The movie did not get made until 1958, in a different version from what was originally planned, and without "Take A Little Time To Smile" or any of the other early Barbour-Lee numbers. (However, a new number by Peggy Lee was picked as the movie's theme. For more information, the film page can be consulted, once it becomes available for viewing.)

Peggy Lee obviously liked "Take A Little Time To Smile" well enough to rescue from oblivion, and record it for Decca. (The song would also please one of her followers, Shirley Horn, who recorded it decades later.) It is possible that the song was expected to be included in the 1958 movie version; it is listed as "From MGM picture Tom Thum" in the original Decca LP Miss Wonderful.

Peggy Lee (ldr), Sonny Burke (p, v), Peggy Lee (v)

The Lady And The Tramp Sessions (Cross-references: Film)

This was the fourth of five Peggy Lee sessions dedicated to songs written for the Disney movie Lady And The Tramp. For the other dates, see notes under the first of the sessions, dated December 20, 1954.

Ron Towe, Peggy Lee first bio-discographer, writes that this session's songs were not used in the movie because Disney dropped the sequences in which they would have been heard. In his liner notes for the MCA CD The Best Of The Decca Years (11571), Joseph Laredo adds that, at some point before the release of the movie Lady And The Tramp, "changes in the still-developing plotline eventually caused four of the numbers to be dropped from the finished film."

The songs might well have been originally written for inclusion in the movie, but it is worth noting that they were not recorded until a year after the movie's release (1955), and they were copyrighted even later (1957). The one clear point is the purpose of the 1956 recordings (as opposed to the original lyrics & music). They were obviously meant not for the movie, but for for inclusion in Decca's 12" version of Peggy Lee's LP Songs From Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp.


Location

Peggy Lee bio-discographer Ron Towe states that these songs "were made at Capitol Records Studios and the masters returned to Decca because Lee was already under new contract with Capitol." His source of information is not revealed. Though the statement is plausible, it should be noted that Lee's renewed recording activity seems to have begun four months later, in April of 1957 - exactly five years after she hd begun recording for Decca. In any case, I have deferred to Towe's knowledge, and tentatively listed Capitol as the recording studio.


Personnel

1. Sonny Burke
Sonny Burke sings in duet with Peggy Lee on "Old Trusty" only. His is actually a background vocal, done in harmony with Peggy Lee's voice, and restricted to just a few of the song's lines. He is uncredited in Decca's files, but credit is given to him in the back cover of the LP, albeit not by official name. Under the track "Old Trusty," the singers are identified as Peggy Lee and "Old Hound Burke." The nickname, obviously tongue-in-cheek, suggests that Burke is playing in song the titular role of Trusty, the movie's old hound dog.

For additional versions of "Singing" and "That Fellow's A Friend Of Mine," see session dated January 10, 1957.

Peggy Lee (ldr), unknown (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

The Lady And The Tramp Sessions (Cross-references)

1. The Lady And The Tramp Sessions
This was the last of five Peggy Lee sessions dedicated to songs written for the Disney movie Lady And The Tramp. For the other dates, see notes under the first of the sessions, dated December 20, 1954. For additional, unissued versions of "Singing" and "That Fellow's A Friend Of Mine," see session dated December 20, 1956.


Masters

The reason why Lee re-recorded these two songs -- IF these are new recordings, rather than edits -- is unknown. It is worth noting that they are listed as New York masters, at a time when Lee was likelier to have been staying in Los Angeles.

From Capitol To Decca: The Switch Of Record Labels

In 1952, after spending seven successful years at Capitol Records, Peggy Lee decided to sign a five-year contract with Decca Records. Among the factors that motivated her decision were the active courtship of Decca executives and, conversely, a passive stance from Capitol's leadership.

According to Capitol executive Alan Livingston, at this point in time Peggy Lee was being taken for granted by the label. Capitol might have thought of the singer as past her best-selling 1947-1948 prime, when songs such as "Golden Earrings" and "Mañana" had become chartbusters. There was good reason to still deem Lee a proven commodity, however. After all, she had continued to land on the Top 10 and Top 20 of the charts during the years 1948-1951. To quote Will Friedwald, who interviewed Livingston for the EMI set The Singles Collection, Capitol must have "nonchalantly assumed that her renewal was routine."

Livingston further explains that "she was being actively courted by Sonny (Burke) and Milt (Gabler), so she wanted to go where she felt she was appreciated." The fact that "she had separated from Dave Barbour in 1951 ... probably contributed to her desire for a change of scene," adds Friedwald.

A more circumstantial motivation pertained to Lee's whereabouts at this point in time. She spent much of 1951 and 1952 away from Los Angeles. (A heavy, busy television work schedule had led the artist to move to New York, which was then the only geographical source for tube programming.) Whereas both Capitol and Decca did studio recording work in New York, Decca seems to have maintained a stronger branch there, with active involvement from the aforementioned producer Milt Gabler.

For yet another, more precise catalyst leading to the artist's switch of record labels, see also notes below, under session dated May 1, 1952.


Peggy Lee's Decca Years: An Overview

Peggy Lee's five- year period with Decca Records proved commercially and artistically successful. The period is bookended by bona fide hits that would become permanently associated with her ("Lover" and "Mr. Wonderful"). Lee gave Decca a total of 10 top thirty singles (including a million seller) and a top 10 album. Still further, the most highly regarded album of her career (Black Coffee) was done for this label. So was one her cult albums, Sea Shells, a much-admired foray into the world of oriental poetry and folk airs, backed only by harp and harpsichord music.

This was also the period in which Peggy Lee branched out into the realm of film, with a well-received starring role in The Jazz Singer (1953) and an award-nominated role in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). She was commissioned to write for various film soundtracks, too (most notably, Disney's classic Lady And The Tramp). Moreover, and as already mentioned, the singer spent much of 1951 and 1952 appearing daily on television, at a time when the medium was still in its infancy.


Producer Milt Gabler's Assessment Of The Decca Artist

Peggy Lee's more jazz-oriented sessions at Decca were produced under the supervision of Milt Gabler, who is quoted as follows in Bruce Jenkins' book Goodbye: In Search Of Gordon Jenkins: "She was a very sensitive person, a poetic person ... She used to make me put flats and screens all around her, so she would be isolated from the band. She just didn't want to feel that there was anybody else in the room besides her. And it worked. She would record poetry with a harp, and if you gave her a blues or something with a beat, she was dynamite. She had it all." Most probably, Gabler's recollection pertains to Lee's handling of ballads. Anecdotal evidence from sessions later in her career suggests that she also favored singing with the band around her, especially if the material was uptempo.


Peggy Lee's Daily Schedule During Her Decca Period

In 1955, Peggy Lee asked questions, from inquiring fans, about her daily schedule. Lee said that, in the mornings, "I may run through various songs and arrangements that have been sent to me for approval." In the afternoons, "I generally have a lot of business appointments to keep, such as luncheons, interviews, and etc." In the evenings, "I may do a recording session, and it can last as late as 3:00 AM. When I go home, I may sit up until 4 or 5 AM if I have an idea for a song. At times, I've stayed up all night. To some of you, this may seem an awfully long schedule, but I don't do this all of the time, and even so, it is work that I really enjoy doing, so it's not really work."


Popularity: Peggy In The Polls

Peggy Lee began the year 1952 at Capitol but finished it at Decca. At the end of that transtitional year, her placement in Downbeat's female singer popularity poll was no. 8.

In 1953, the year of Black Coffee, Peggy Lee climbed all the way to no. 2, with 910 votes. Only 3 votes separated her from the top spot, newly claimed by Ella Fitzgerald. Former top holder Sarah Vaughan had settled for a number 3, with only 5 votes separating her from Lee. The poll's other contenders had received substantially less votes, beginning with the 376 cast for Doris Day, at no. 4.

During the Decca years, Peggy Lee stayed in the top 10. Her peak position during this period was the no. 2 reached in 1953. Afterwards, she placed at no. 4 (1954), no. 5 (1955), and no. 10 (1956). She would remain in the top 10 during the rest of the decade, when she went back to Capitol Records.

Peggy Lee's name also appears in Downbeat's Annual Jazz Critics polls during these years. In 1953, she ranked no. 4, and so did Lee Wiley, both with 20 votes. Behind them was Mahalia Jackson (10 votes) and ahead were Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday (both with 50 votes). Ella Fitzgerald held the top spot of this poll, too, with 70 votes.


Statistics: Total Number Of Masters & Titles Still Unissued

This discographical page shows a total of 137 masters and 2 alternate takes, recorded for Decca between 1952 and the first month of 1957. Of those 137 masters, two are actually edits of other masters; Decca gave different master numbers to the originals and the edits. Another master ("Lover") was labeled rejected in the Decca files, and was subsequently re-recorded.

Those 137 Decca masters are not the only Peggy Lee performances that are extant from the 1952-1956 period. Additional material includes 49 recordings made for radio airplay, listed in this discography's World transcriptions page. Moreover, this discography will eventually include pages itemizing other contemporaneous performances, given by Lee on radio, television, film and rehearsals.

Aside from two songs that were later re-made (see sessions dated December 20, 1956, and January 10, 1957), only one of Peggy Lee's Decca titles remains unissued: "The Legend Of The Well" (February 7, 1955). It is currently deemed lost. An attempt was made to find and release it, but the master was nowhere to be found in Decca's vaults.


A Note About Decca's 78's And 45's And Foreign Issues

At Decca, during the 1950's, the same catalogue number was assigned to a 78 and its counterpart on 45. The only difference between numbers was the addition of a 9, as a prefix, to the 45. Posing a discographical problem: the copy of Decca's session files at my disposal does not list 45's. I have thus needed to rely in other sources. Ron Towe, Peggy Lee's first bio-discographer, states that all of her singles were released in both formats until Decca 30059 in 1956. Peggy Lee singles with higher numbers were released as 45's only. In a more general manner, I can attest to having seen many a Peggy Lee's Decca single on both 78 and 45 formats.

Also meriting mention in these notes is my current policy (2007-2008) for foreign issues. I have lincluded foreign items only when they are originals (i.e., not re-pressings of American issues), or when their repertoire significantly differs from the original US counterpart. This policy applies to all formats.


A Note About Various-Artists Compilations

On the matter of various-artists compilations, this page limits inclusion to American issues released by official labels -- as opposed to Public Domain issues. A page dedicated specifically to excluded issues is currently in preparation.


Peggy Lee's Departure From Decca Records And Its Aftermath

By all accounts, the artist left Decca Records on good terms. In later years, she would express pride and satisfaction with the varied, experimental work that she had done for the label. Yet she had been yearning to return to Capitol, the label that she considered her "mothership." By April of 1957, Peggy Lee was again under Capitol contract.

Long after her departure, Decca continued mining Peggy Lee's catalogue. A fair share of her albums for the label were actually released after she had rejoined Capitol: Sea Shells (1958), Miss Wonderful (1959), Lover (1964), and The Fabulous Peggy Lee (1964). Three LP compilations were also issued by the Decca gamily of labels. The main and earliest one was the oft-reprinted The Best Of Peggy Lee (1960, 1966, etc.), on Decca itself. Then, in 1970, Decca's budget label Vocalion released two more compilations: So Blue and Crazy In The Heart, both of which compiled and combined tracks from specific albums.

In the 1980's and 1990's, compilations of Peggy Lee Decca material continued to be released, though more often abroad (England, Japan) than in the United States. During those decades, some work by Lee was also made available through MCA's Special Markets branch.

Such persistent release of product -- long after Lee had left the label -- suggests Decca's and MCA's awareness of Lee's continued popularity over the years. Unfortunately, Decca seems to have undermined its own strategy: from the mid-1950's to the mid-1990's, very limited promotion was done for any of Lee 's product.

Most notoriously, Lee's return to Capitol seems to have limited promotion and manufacturing of two original albums that were released as she was about to leave Decca: Dream Street (January, 1957) and the 12" version of Songs From Lady And The Tramp (April, 1956). To date, those two worthwhile albums are far less well-known than her other original Decca and Capitol albums from the 1950's.

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